By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/unama2sideline102009.html
UNITED NATIONS, October 20 -- For the second round of Afghan elections now slated for November 7, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon favors keeping open what were described as "phantom" polling stations by the deputy envoy who Ban fired, Peter Galbraith.
Shortly after Hamid Karzai announced he would accept the second round based on findings of widespread fraud in the first, Ban spoke with the Press outside the UN Security Council chamber in New York. Inner City Press asked him, "What about the phantom polling stations?" Galbraith said that polling stations in areas entirely under the control of the Taliban, where no verification would be possible, should not be open in the first round.
Inner City Press asked Mr. Ban if he thinks these "so-called phantom polling stations" should be open in the second round. Ban, after repeating the phrase, said "I'd like to make it clear... the purpose of the UN is assisting the electoral process last time" was to "ensure all Afghanistan people would be able to express their will by casting votes."
"The idea suggested by Mister Peter Galbraith to reduce the number of polling stations" just to avoid fraud was "not acceptable [under] the core values of democracy," Ban said.
Ban then argued this was why he fired Galbraith, "not about fraud," but on the principle of enfranchisement. While many correspondents after Ban's stake out interview expressed skepticism at this, noting that Galbraith was only fired when he publicly called into question the partiality of Ban's top envoy Kai Eide and thus of Ban himself, at a minimum Ban's statement might be interpreted as, going public with a call to limit the number of polling stations was "not acceptable."
Reasonable minds can disagree about whether polling stations that cannot be effectively monitored help or hurt democracy. Therefore to argue that any questioning of such stations is "not acceptable under the core values of democracy" might seem hyperbolic, or an attempt to spin what some see as another of the UN's firing of whistleblowers or critics.
As possible deals between Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah will be rumored to cancel the November 7 run-off, there is sure to be a debate about, among other things, the wisdom of the so called phantom polling stations. Watch this site.
