Karzai ready to allow two foreign monitors in election watchdog

Mar 13, 2010, 15:12 GMT

Kabul - Afghan President Hamid Karzai is ready to include two international monitors in the country's elections watchdog ahead of parliamentary polls in September, his spokesman said Saturday.

Meanwhile, the top United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Staffan De Mistura, arrived on Saturday in Kabul to take up his position, the UN mission in Kabul said.

Karzai amended the electoral law last month, giving him the power to appoint all five members of Afghanistan's Electoral Complaint Commission (ECC), a UN-backed body that exposed massive fraud in last year's presidential election. Most of the fraud added to Karzai's vote total.

The move sparked widespread criticism in the international community, mainly by the former UN chief Kai Eide, who recently said that he was in extensive consultations with Karzai on behalf of the international community to address the concerns regarding the amendments.

'The government of Afghanistan has announced its readiness to accept two non-Afghans ... (to) the Election Complaint Commission,' Waheed Omar, Karzai's spokesman said in a press conference.

'The law which has been passed clearly states that Election Complaint Commission is comprised of five Afghan members,' he insisted. But he added that the government is still working to 'Afghanize' the election process.

Given that the government still finds itself in a transitional phase, he said the foreigners will be allowed on the board for the upcoming election, but that the goal will be to have an entirely Afghan board for subsequent elections.

'There will be no changes in the law,' he said.

The ECC 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 run-off.

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

Afghanistan has postponed its second post-Taliban parliamentary elections, initially slated for spring this year, to September due to shortage of international funds and security concerns.

Meanwhile, De Mistura, an Italian-Swedish diplomat arrived in Kabul on Saturday. Upon his arrival at Kabul International Airport, he told reporters that he understood the problems of the war-torn country.

'The Afghan people have suffered a lot and endured many difficult times. They deserve international support, but they deserve above all a better future,' he said, adding, 'The United Nations will do its part.'

During the tenure of his predecessor - Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide - the UN mission in Afghanistan was dealt severe blows, including the division between Eide and his American deputy Peter Galbraith over election fraud and an attack on a UN guesthouse in Kabul that forced the mission to pull out half of its international staff from the country.

Galbraith, who accused Eide of covering up massive fraud in last year's vote, was sacked by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

De Mistura will work with Martin Kobler, a veteran in Germany's Foreign Ministry, who was recently appointed by United Nations to take on Galbraith's position.

Before being appointed as Special Representative to the UN Secretary General, De Mistura held the same position in Iraq from 2007 to 2009 and worked as the deputy executive director at the World Food Programme in Rome.