By Thalif Deen
UNITED NATIONS, Oct 8 2009 (IPS)

The increasingly deadly battle between Western military forces and Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan is on the verge of being upstaged by a growing political brawl between two senior U.N. officials overseeing the battle-ravaged South Asian nation.

U.N. special representative Kai Eide has been accused of favouring Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the recent elections. Credit: UN Photo/Jenny Rockett

“I intend to deal openly with all these allegations against the United Nations and myself relating to fraud and bias, at the appropriate time,” he added.

Eide, a Norwegian diplomat and a onetime ambassador to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), did not provide a time-frame for his rebuttal.

The charges have come mostly from Peter Galbraith, Eide’s deputy and a U.S. national, who was fired from his job last week by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The firing was prompted primarily because Galbraith called for the annulment of the presidential election, which was held over a five-day period beginning Aug. 20, due to fraud and ballot stuffing.

The final results are expected to be announced shortly.

Galbraith, who has accused Eide of favouring Karzai, is also reported to have proposed the setting up of a transitional government marginalising the two presidential candidates.

“Afghanistan is already a lost cause,” an Asian diplomat told IPS, “It’s a pity that the victims of this internal conflict are going to be Afghans who are caught up in a massive fraud not of their making.”

At a press conference Wednesday, Craig Jenness, director of the U.N.’s Electoral Assistance Division, told reporters that the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) in Kabul is investigating some 2,500 complaints submitted by candidates at the election.

He said the ECC is also considering information provided by the U.N. Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and compiled by U.N. staffers on the ground and at polling booths.

At last count, 100 of the 358 “suspicious” ballot boxes remain to be examined both by the ECC and the Independent Election Commission (IEC).

Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, also blasted the media for its “repeated attacks” on him and his conduct.

He said the accusations against him range from being partial in this election process to ordering his staff to conceal fraud by allegedly asking them to suppress reports.

“My silence is now being exploited, to a point where these allegations are impeding the ongoing election process. This is unacceptable,” he declared.

“I have been motivated by my determination to make every effort to bring the election process to a conclusion,” he added.

He said an audit of suspicious ballot boxes, which is being undertaken by the IEC amd the ECC in the presence of monitors and representatives of candidates, is nearing its end.

“We need to allow both these bodies, which were created under the laws of this country, to conclude their investigations, identify fraud, and deliver a credible result in the next few days,” Eide added.

He also said that the UNAMA is clearly mandated by Security Council Resolution 1868 (2009) “to support the electoral process but not to interfere in it”.

“This has been, and remains, the basis of all my efforts,” he declared.

So far, Eide has had strong backing from the United Nations, which is standing by its man.

“What Kai Eide did, what he was supposed to do and what he did very faithfully, is to side with the institutions [in Afghanistan],” Wolfgang Weisbrod-Weber, head of the Asia and Middle East Division at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, told reporters Wednesday.

“This is a line we very much support… to trust the institutions and to trust the mechanisms that were in place to detect fraud. We’ll see where the chips fall,” he added.

Vijaya Nambiar, the secretary-general’s chief of staff, was quoted as saying that Galbraith received his marching orders because he called for an “unconstitutional government”.

Asked to confirm, Edmond Mullet, assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping, told reporters “that was one of various reasons”.

Galbraith wanted to close 1,500 to 6,900 polling stations, as they were in volatile regions. But in the end, only about 500 were closed.

Asked if the United Nations will eventually render a verdict on whether or not the presidential election was valid, U.N. spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters: “It is not for the U.N. to do that. It’s for the people.”

She also pointed out that the United Nations was not monitoring elections.

“The United Nations will neither agree nor disagree. We are just supporting the electoral process and the electoral institutions,” Montas said.

She said there were additional monitors from the 27-member European Union (EU) and other international bodies “that will say whether they feel the election was free and fair”.

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