UN envoy: Talks under way over Karzai's decree to control poll body

Mar 4, 2010, 13:34 GMT

Kabul - The top United Nations envoy in Afghanistan said Thursday that talks were under way with President Hamid Karzai to bring changes in electoral law after a presidential degree granted him total control over a key polling watchdog.

Karzai issued a decree last month that gave him the power to appoint all five members of Afghanistan's Electoral Complaint Commission, a UN-backed body that exposed massive fraud in last year's presidential election, mostly in favour of the president.

'I have been in consultation with the president over the last few weeks concerning the concerns I have and the international community has with regard to this degree,' Kai Eide, the outgoing special representative in Afghanistan for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, said at a press conference in Kabul.

The Norwegian diplomat, who is stepping down after a two-year tenure, said he was conducting the talks on behalf of the international community.

Western diplomats in Kabul have expressed deep concern over the decree.

'We made some progress, for instance with regard to international participation in the Electoral Complaint Commission,' he said, adding, 'We are not yet where I believe we need to be.'

Prior to the decree, Eide appointed three of the five members of the commission.

The watchdog threw out nearly 1 million phony votes in favour of Karzai from the August 20 election, pushing him into a second round of voting. Karzai was finally declared the winner after his last remaining challenger dropped out of a planned runoff.

The commission's move sparked anger among the president's supporters, who accused 'foreigners' of interfering in Afghanistan's domestic politics.

Afghan government officials have recently said the decree was an important step in the 'Afghanization' of the process, granting the Afghan government legitimate power to have control over its domestic affairs.

Eide said Afghanistan must take control of its affairs and that was 'the only way to go' but insisted that 'the full Afghanization of the process then should follow from a broader review and reform following the parliamentary elections.'

Parliamentary elections are slated to take place in September.

A Western diplomat in Kabul said Eide had already struck a private deal with Karzai that two of the commission's members would be foreigners appointed by the United Nations.

The outgoing UN envoy also said it was a 'high time' to resolve the drawn-out war in Afghanistan through negotiations with the Taliban and reverse the 'negative trend' in the country.

'This year, of course, will be the most challenging that Afghanistan has faced since the fall of the Taliban,' he said. 'It is a year where negative trends have to be reversed, or they will be come irreversible.'

Around 113,000 NATO troops are stationed in Afghanistan. US President Barack Obama has ordered an additional 30,000 troops to the war-torn country in a bid to turn the tide of the eight-year war. Up to 7,000 extra forces are also to arrive from other NATO countries by summer.

A total of 15,000 Afghan and NATO forces began the biggest operation since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime in the southern province of Helmand last month. Afghan and NATO officials have said the operation in Marjah, one of the Taliban's main bastions, was a prelude for bigger offensives as the extra forces arrive in the summer.

Eide warned against the militarization of the process in Afghanistan, saying the war could not be won unless the international community changed its focus to include political and civilian aspects, too.

'The focus is too much on the military side, too little on the political and civilian side,' he said.