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 12 October 2009
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UN envoy acknowledges "widespread fraud" in Afghan election

12/10/2009

The United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan has acknowledged "widespread fraud" in the disputed presidential election in the country.

Kai Eide

Kai Eide

Speaking to reporters in Kabul on Sunday, Kai Eide also rejected allegations from his former deputy Peter Galbraith, that he covered up cheating to smooth the path to victory for President Hamid Karzai.

Mr. Eide said he spent all his time over the last week to bring the election process forward, adding that it has been difficult and marked by many problems.

He stressed the importance of bringing Afghanistan through the electoral process and to install democracy and defended his role in this effort.

"What I have done is to implement my mandate with the full support of the international community. Now, the allegations made against me by my former deputy have not only been personal attacks against me and my integrity, but they have been attacks that, in fact, have affected the entire election process."

Mr. Eide noted that some of the allegations made by his former deputy were based on private conversations which should remain private.

Regarding the number of polling stations, Mr. Eide said that if he had agreed to his deputy's plan to reduce the number of voting centres by 1,200 that would have denied a large number of Afghans the opportunity to vote.

Gail Walker, United Nations Radio.
(duration: 1'17")

Sound bites

Kai Eide, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan

"What I have done is to implement my mandate with the full support of the international community. Now, the allegations made against me by my former deputy have not only been personal attacks against me and my integrity, but they have been attacks that, in fact, have affected the entire election process."
Duration: 18 secs

Kai Eide, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan

"Other allegations concern decisions that I have made, mostly in consultations with other stakeholders during a broad range review of issues throughout the entire elections process, and I would like to respond to some of them. First, the so called "ghost polling stations;" it is true that my deputy tried to reduce a number of polling centers by capping around 1,200 centers from approximately 7,000 that was provisionally planned. Which he claimed could not be opened. It was said then that the ICAF, the US, the UK, and EU agreed on his position. That is not correct. We all understood that we preemptively removed 1,200 polling centers would prevent a large number of voters, primarily (inaudible). Therefore, we did try to open as many polling stations as possible including through military operations during the last weeks before the elections. It was also agreed that a polling center would only be regarded as open if the ISE and the Afghan security forces could be present at the polling center."
Duration: 1'07"

Kai Eide, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan

"After lengthy discussion that I shared with the ISE with ICAF, with the Afghan national security forces, and with the ambassadors it was our collective judement that around 6,500 polling centers could open. In the end, as you know, due to the security situation around 6,200 Centers were open. I could not take a decision one month before the election that would disenfranchise at large number of Afghans from voting. If we had done that it would in itself have created an important element of potential instability in the country."
Duration: 42"

Kai Eide, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan

"It is true that in a number of stations that opened in the South and South East there was significant fraud, but not only there. The extent of that fraud is now being determined. It has been claimed that there was around 30% fraud. There is no way to know at this stage what the level of fraud is. I do not know. Nobody knows. I can only say that there was wide-spread fraud. Any specific figure at this time would be pure speculation. Therefore, I have never mentioned a specific figure. It would be irresponsible of me. Again, this is not being determined by the ECC. It is their job. I have appointed three out of five members of the ECC. I cannot prejudge."
Duration: 44"

Kai Eide, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan

"A separate but related question is the issue of voter turnout, and it is true that I have strong reservations with regard to the reports relating to voter turnout in some provinces and I discussed this also with my collogues here at the table, because information received from various international forces displayed, showed big discrepancies in the numbers in key provinces, and it should be remembered that UNAMA could not serve as another server during these elections because we were a main party in supporting the organization of the elections. So I could not engage in what would be a conflict of interest. That is a well established principle. However, I personally insisted that UN personnel should be on the ground where ever possible without taking an acceptable security risk, in order to contribute to deterring fraud through their presence."
Duration: 1'07"

Kai Eide, the United Nations Secretary-General's Special Representative for Afghanistan

"Then it has been alleged that I accepted that the IEC drop their safe guard in order to bring President Karzai above 50%, and I have seen that referred to in several media. It is simple untrue again. In fact I issued a statement on the 8th of September calling on the IEC not to take such a decision with respect to the claim that UN officials should have argued that the UN has no authority to insist that Afghan conduct honest elections. I really don't know what is being referred to. In early May I issued a set of guidelines for the conduct of these elections. That was distributed to candidates, media, elections officers, and all others engaged in the elections, and I spoke to the candidates about them. I spoke to ministers about them, and I spoke to others engaged in the process in order to try and respect those guidelines."
Duration: 57"