Afghan election fraud: 'A cover-up'

by Mark Silva

Democracy was on the march, the way that former President George W. Bush saw it, praising the democratic advances of nations such as Iraq and Afghanistan after the U.S. military forced the ruling regimes out.

But serious questions have been raised about the brand of democracy that's playing out in Afghanistan, where the White House is weighing the recommendations of miltiary commanders for another escalation in force -- a high-level summit was conducted at the White House today, a discussion among the president and his top advisers, the defense secretary, the secretary of state, the national security adviser, CentComm chief Gen. David Petraeus and the Afghanistan war commander, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, recommeding a new surge.

Peter Galbraith, the highest-ranking American in Afghanistan working for the United Nations Mission there -- recalled today by U.N.Secretary General Ban Ki-moon over disagreements wwith the head of the mission there, special envoy Kai Eide -- says the Afghan elections recently carried out are the worst the U.N. has overseen.

"When the question of fraud came up, I simply could not ignore it, I could not be complicit in a cover-up, I could not down-play it,'' Galbraith said in an interview aired this evening on National Public Radio's All Things Considered.

"This was a serious, long-running disagreement about how to handle fraud in the Afghan elections,'' Galbraith said. "I tried to get the Afghan government to reduce the number of polling centers and to remove from the list those in these insecure areas.

:"But the Afghan government, naturally, complained. They were the beneficiaries of the fraud. And Kai Eide, the head of the mission, decided that we would say nothing more about polling centers,'' he said. "We had the same argument when it came to whether we would share the very extensive data that we gathered on fraud in the election with the Afghan electoral institutions.

"He was opposed to us providing that data even though we had collected hundreds of cases of fraud and a lot of evidence on turn out, that showed a very low turn out in the southern provinces, from which, however, a large number of votes were reported to have been tallied."

See the interview on Afghan election fraud at NPR and here in the Swamp:

from NPR:

ROBERT SIEGEL: The United Nations has removed American Peter Galbraith from his post as Deputy UN special representative for Afghanistan. Galbraith, the former US ambassador to Croatia, was publicly critical of corruption in the recent presidential election in Afghanistan. And he was at odds with his boss, the special representative, Norwegian Kai Eide, over how the UN should have responded to the election. Ambassador Galbraith joins us now. And I've seen a comment attributed to a senior UN official that you and Kai Eide had a personality clash, that this was a dispute over style, not substance. Is that fair?

PETER GALBAITH: No, that's totally inaccurate and it's an effort to obscure the issues that are stake. This was a serious, long running disagreement about how to handle fraud in the Afghan elections. It dates back to July, when I recognized that the risk to this election was going to come from ghost polling centers - that is to say polling centers located in areas that they were so insecure they would never actually open, but which could be used to produce a lot of votes that were never cast by voters. I tried to get the Afghan government to reduce the number of polling centers and to remove from the list those in these insecure areas, an effort incidentally supported by the US, the UK and NATO. But the Afghan government, naturally, complained. They were the beneficiaries of the fraud. And Kai Eide, the head of the mission, decided that we would say nothing more about polling centers. We had the same argument when it came to whether we would share the very extensive data that we gathered on fraud in the election with the Afghan electoral institutions. He was opposed to us providing that data even though we had collected hundreds of cases of fraud and a lot of evidence on turn out, that showed a very low turn out in the southern provinces, from which, however, a large number of votes were reported to have been tallied.

MR. SIEGEL: So you are saying this was not a dispute over whether to be loud, public and vocal or quiet and discrete about something, it was whether the UN should indeed confront the Afghan government at all about the election?

MR. GALBRAITH: Yes. The dispute was whether the United Nations should do anything about the fraud that took place.

MR. SIEGEL: The Karzai government was evidently, to say the least, put off by your approach. The campaign of his rival, Abdullah Abdullah, has lamented your dismissal very publicly. In all of this, were you risking coming off as an advocate or supporter of Mr. Abdullah in his presidential aspirations?

MR. GALBRAITH: I was a supporter of something very simple: that is to say, of the right of the Afghan people who voted in parts of the country at considerable risk, to have their votes counted in an honest way, and for fraudulent votes to be excluded. I had no favorites in the Afghan presidential contest. When the question of fraud came up, I simply could not ignore it, I could not be complicit in a cover-up, I could not down-play it.

MR. SIEGEL: The entire process in Afghanistan, the election, and the count to the votes, and how to deal with ballots that were challenged - how does all this stack up in your experience, as elections in war-torn developing countries go?

MR. GALBRAITH: I think it was my view, and the view of the other professionals who'd been involved in elections, that they had never seen a UN supported election like this one. That is, that the level of fraud and the blatantly partisan behavior by the independent election commission.

MR. SIEGEL: Thank you for talking with us about it.

MR. GALBRAITH: Very good talking to you, Robert.