The second highest-ranking U.N. official in Afghanistan was dismissed last Wednesday after he expressed disagreement to his superior about how best to address allegations of fraud in the country’s August presidential elections.
Galbraith, an ex-U.S. diplomat, said that his former boss, Kai A. Eide, a past Norwegian diplomat and U.N. special representative, is not correctly addressing the issue of fraud.
“The approach [Eide] took at each critical stage in the process was to oppose doing anything about the fraud,” Galbraith said. “He is denying that fraud took place or is downplaying it.”
“Eide has a case of clientitis. It’s a diplomat’s disease; you end up representing the head of state of a country to your organization.
Galbraith was also critical of his dismissal, saying that he was fired “because he was concerned about fraud.”
“It’s pretty chilling that what I was recalled for was private dissent within an institution
When asked about Galbraith’s dismissal, a U.N. spokesman, Farhan A. Haq, stated that the “bottom line for [the U.N.] is not to be distracted by this issue,” he said.
“Clearly fraud took place, and we’re making sure all the relevant data gets to Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaint’s Commission,”
Oelstrom said that both extremes present
“If [the U.N.] throws out the whole election, Afghanistan’s going to go without an effective government for some period of time,” he said.
But according to Oelstrom, the other option, to endorse the election, could be just as hazardous.
“There’s a real risk that the [Afghan] people and much of the rest of the world will have a tough time
Oelstrom seemed unconcerned
“My suspicion is that it will slowly go away and the U.N. will find someone else to take this place, pick up the piece, and carry forward with the mission of sorting out the election.”
mi to say about afGanistan?
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