Jon Boone in Kabul and Ed Pilkington in New York
The Guardian/UK, Oct 4, 2009
Peter Galbraith accused his former chief at the UN, Kai Eide, of deliberately playing down the level of cheating in the election. Photograph: Toby Talbot/Associated Press
A former senior United Nations diplomat in Kabul has made a scathing attack on the UN’s handling of Afghanistan‘s disputed elections, claiming that almost one in three of the votes cast for president Hamid Karzai were fraudulent.
Peter Galbraith, the former deputy head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, singled out his former chief, Kai Eide, for criticism, saying he had deliberately played down the level of cheating in an election where, in one region, “10 times as many votes were recorded as voters actually cast”.
Peace and Justice Post 
Karzai was hellbent on victory. Afghans will pay the price
November 4, 2009The declaration of victory caps weeks of farce and failure, especially for the UN. To send more troops now would be a waste
Peter Galbraith, The Guardian/UK, Nov 3, 2009
Afghanistan’s presidential election is over, and it was a fiasco. The decision by the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to cancel the second round and declare the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, the victor concludes a process that undermined Afghanistan‘s nascent democracy. In the US and Europe, the fraud-tainted elections halted the momentum for President Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy and undercut support for sending more troops.
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Tags:Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan, election, fraud, fraudulent votes, Hamid Karzai, Kai Eide, Peter Galbraith
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