By Steve Hynd
It's not just the Karzai government that is experiencing a legitimacy crisis in Afghanistan - anyone seeming to paper over Karzai's obvious fraud will be spattered by the fallout too. That includes the UN, where Peter Galbraith's firing and his subsequent allegations of UN bias have opened a can of worms:
Dr Abdullah's criticism came days before finalised first round results for the August 20 poll, which analysts widely expected to show Mr Karzai scraping home beyond the 50 per cent threshold needed for outright re-election.
Stopping short of demanding Mr Eide's resignation, Dr Abdullah said: "In normal circumstances accusations, claims and challenges as such by a senior UN official will call for an internal UN investigation.
"That has not happened. But as far as I am concerned, in my mind I have no doubt that it has seriously damaged the UN's credibility in Afghanistan.
"The UN's role has been respected all the time by most of the parties - I don't include the Taliban - in the country. But at this critical stage, the decision will be decided either by fraud or by the rule of law.
"At this stage, a biased attitude is not acceptable."
Given all that's been revealed since election day, especially including reports of Clinton and her opposite numbers agreeing to accept Karzai no matter what, it's going to be perfectly understandable if Abdullah and others conclude that the U.S. and its allies were similiarly biased. That will seriously undermine any possible counter-insurgency mission.
No comments:
Post a Comment