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Is Afghan President Hamid Karzai pulling a prank? He says that his re-election was indeed tainted by epic fraud. But here’s the twist: He says the UN, and in particular its former No. 2 official in Afghanistan, Peter Galbraith, were behind it:
“There was fraud in the presidential and provincial election, with no doubt there was massive fraud,” he said.
“This wasn’t fraud by Afghans but the fraud of foreigners, the fraud of Galbraith, or (head of the EU’s observers Philippe) Morillon, and the votes of the Afghan nation were in the control of an embassy.”
Accusing Galbraith of taking part in the fraud is particularly strange. The diplomat was reportedly removed from his post last fall because he was too outspoken about the tainted election, clashing with his boss, Kai Eide (who was later dismissed himself), over whether to aggressively pursue allegations of vote-rigging and ghost polling sites. In October, Galbraith wrote:
For weeks, Eide had been denying or playing down the fraud in Afghanistan’s recent presidential election, telling me he was concerned that even discussing the fraud might inflame tensions in the country. But in my view, the fraud was a fact that the United Nations had to acknowledge or risk losing its credibility with the many Afghans who did not support President Hamid Karzai.
I keep waiting for Karzai’s office to issue a release—”April Fool’s!”—informing the international media that we’ve been punk’d. Apparently Galbraith, who called Karzai’s remarks “absurd,” thought the Afghan president was pulling his leg, too. He told the BBC: “At first I thought it was an April Fool’s joke but I realised I don’t have that kind of warm, personal relationship with President Karzai that he would do that.”
Speaking of tense relationships, Karzai is on mighty thin ice with the Obama administration, particularly after his recent move to wrest control of his country’s Electoral Complaints Commission by claiming the authority to appoint all five members of the panel, three of whom had previously been chosen by the UN. (The Afghan parliament voted overwhelmingly against Karzai’s decree on Wednesday.) Karzai’s maneuver so enraged US officials that the Obama administration abruptly cancelled a planned visit by the Afghan president to the White House. Karzai responded to this slight by inviting Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Kabul, where the Iranian firebrand delivered an anti-American speech. After President Obama’s surprise visit to Kabul on Sunday, the White House put the Karzai visit back on its calender—a move that it might be rethinking right about now.