By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, January 10 -- Elections in Africa this year, and whether and how the UN should be involved in them, was the only topic agreed on for this month's forward looking or “horizon” meeting of the UN Security Council.
The discussion takes place amid the chaos of the Cote d'Ivoire election, where UN envoy Choi Young-jin declared Alassane Ouattara the winner, leading to protests in the Security Council by permanent member Russia.
In advance of UN political affairs chief Lynn Pascoe providing a closed door briefing to the Council, one Council member told Inner City Press that while UN technical assistance to elections is not viewed as controversial, being as involved as in Cote d'Ivoire would be a subject of debate.
Another member showed Inner City Press a list of 24 elections in Africa this year: including Chad (for which no request for UN assistance is expected, following the ejection of the UN peacekeeping mission last year),
Central African Republic (later this month), Democratic Republic of Congo (in connection with which the UN peacekeeping mission may be further slimmed down at President Kabila's request),
Egypt (Mubarak's son), Gabon, Ivory Coast (legislative), Benin, Cameroon, Cape Verde, Liberia, Guinea, Djibouti, Madagascar, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Seychelles, South Africa, South Sudan, Sao Tome, Uganda, Zambia and of course Zimbabwe.
In November, Pascoe's briefing included a wider range of issues, which some members protested. This time, the Bosnian presidency limited the issues in advance to just this one.
A real “tour d'horizon” of issues threatening international peace and security might have included, for example, the violent protests in Tunisia and Algeria. One assumes that the UN's Department of Political Affairs is not blinded to that. But the Security Council will not be hearing about or discussing these issues.
Nor will the Council be discussing Sudan, even after 33 deaths in Abyei over the weekend. One member predicted the Council will wait for initial results of the South Sudan referendum. Watch this site.
