Here’s an interview by PBS Newshour’s Margaret Warner in which she explores multiple allegations concerning election fraud in the recent Afghan elections. It’s an excellent interview, and I think it illustrates what makes me crazy about this issue. Her subjects are Peter Galbraith–former US Ambassador to Croatia and recently-fired head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)– and Assistant Secretary General Edmond Mulet. Galbraith has very publicly accused U.N. Special Representative Kai Eide of mishandling efforts to prevent election fraud and helping cover it up after the fact. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon fired Galbraith, claiming this was due to a personality clash between Galbraith and Eide.

The New York Times reports on the issue here.The Newshour’s interview transcript is here.

I am stupefied when I try to follow the politics surrounding election fraud. Shouldn’t an election boil down to some simple logic and counting? I know this is a drastic and naive over-simplification, but how can free elections happen when an assistant secretary general of the UN is hiding behind political sophistry?

By Matthew
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Democracy, matthew. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.