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Mission splits over how to deal with Afghan election fraud
The Telegraph - September 17, 2009
Ben Farmer in Kabul and Dean Nelson in Delhi – United Nations officials have turned on the head of their mission in Afghanistan, accusing him of being complicit in the country's fraudulent election by failing to stand up to President Hamid Karzai.
A senior source in the mission said that US officials believe Kai Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, should be sacked for allegedly failing to deal with substantial vote-rigging and deceit, and subsequently ignoring the Afghan people. The attack on Mr Eide, the head of the UN's Afghan mission, or UNAMA, underlined the bitter divisions among diplomats over how to respond to the election.
Peter Galbraith, Mr Eide's US deputy, agreed to leave the country at the weekend after the pair quarrelled about how to cope with the poll's growing crisis of legitimacy.
Supporters of Mr Karzai have been accused of "state-engineered fraud" and an election watchdog has received more than 2500 complaints of rigging. Mr Eide's "softly softly" approach to Mr Karzai has caused a near-rebellion among UN officials.
In contrast, Mr Galbraith is understood to have pressed Karzai-appointed officials to annul large numbers of rigged votes and to recount others.
The senior UN source said: "UNAMA, which provided the foundations of the post-2001 political order in Afghanistan, has gone from being an exercise in irrelevance to being complicit in the electoral fraud." By doing so, the UN was laying the foundations for political turmoil. "Kai Eide should be recalled by New York for this," the source added.
Mr Eide further angered subordinates with his alleged refusal to cut short a trip home to Norway last week as election officials prepared to rubber-stamp hundreds of thousands of rigged votes. UNAMA has now split between those backing the Norwegian diplomat and those who demand a tougher line on the fraud.
Aleem Siddique, a spokesman for the UN in Kabul, said allegations that the organisation was complicit in fraud were "absolute nonsense".
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