Afghanistan’s much-watched presidential elections are in for more flak after the embattled United Nations special envoy admitted for the first time that there was widespread fraud in the August poll. United Nations Special Representative Kai Eide told a press conference in Kabul that it was true that in a number of polling stations in the south and the southeast there was significant fraud. “It has been claimed that there was 30 per cent fraud. There is no way to know at this stage what the level of fraud is. No one knows. I can only say there was widespread fraud,” Eide said. Eide had called the media conference to deny allegations made by his sacked former deputy, Peter Galbraith. The latter had accused Eide of hushing up evidence of fraud in the August 20 elections.
Galbraith had previously said that 30 per cent of President Hamid Karzai’s votes were fraudulent, echoing European Union election monitors who had labelled 1.5 million votes, including 1.1 million for Karzai, as being suspicious. Eide denied any interference with the process to conceal the level of fraud, saying that the UN mandate in Afghanistan was meant to support the process, not influence the outcome.