KABUL - Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon fired the top American official at the UN mission in Afghanistan Wednesday after a widely publicized dispute with his boss over how to deal with widespread fraud charges in the country's presidential election.
UN spokeswoman Michele Montas said in a statement Ban decided to recall Peter Galbraith, ending his appointment as the UN's deputy special representative.
Galbraith said he disagreed with the head of the mission, Kai Eide, over how the UN should handle the disputed election.
The secretary-general reaffirmed "his full support for Eide" and made his decision "in the best interest of the mission," Montas said, refusing to elaborate.
Galbraith told the Associated Press he was "surprised" by the decision and worried "insufficient attention was given to how this might impact in Afghanistan, or on the reputation of the United Nations."
"I find it quite astonishing that the UN would remove an official for being concerned about fraud in a UN-supported and UN-funded election," he said.
In a statement, Ban thanked Galbraith "for his hard work and professional dedication" and recognized his "important contributions."
Eide, a Norwegian diplomat, confirmed that the two split over election issues but refused to discuss the disagreement after briefing the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
The delay in final results from the Aug. 20 vote has led to fears of a power vacuum in the Afghan government that could endure until spring, even as Taliban violence against U.S. and NATO soldiers and Afghan civilians continues to rise.
Preliminary results show President Hamid Karzai won a majority, with former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah in second place. But proclamation of a winner has been delayed pending a partial recount by the United Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) following allegations of widespread fraud.
Abdullah told the Associated Press in a telephone interview Wednesday in Kabul that Galbraith's removal called into question the impartiality of the UN mission and the credibility of the election process.
Galbraith "had been in favour of vigorous investigations into fraud," he said, and his departure "raises questions about the seriousness of the international institutions in the process" of discerning fraud in the election.
Abdullah said he still supports the UN-backed fraud investigation panel but worries about "deliberate delays."
Galbraith was pushing for things to move quickly and pushed for ballot papers to be ordered for a runoff, if needed, he said.
"When somebody who is considered to be serious about this issue is being fired, then the impression it leaves with the people will not be good," Abdullah said. "While still I want to be hopeful about the fraud investigation and the role of ECC in it, it's not a good sign."
Galbraith said his removal "is totally a dispute over policy" and had nothing to do with personality clashes.
"The dispute was about whether the United Nations would take action to reduce the risk of fraud prior to the elections, and then after the elections to exclude fraudulent ballots from the count," he said in a telephone interview from his home in Vermont.
Galbraith oversaw electoral matters for the UN before and after the vote.
"Prior to the elections, I was pushing to eliminate as many 'ghost polling stations' as possible on the grounds that they were never going to open, and would therefore be the source of fraudulent votes, and he overruled me," Galbraith said.
He explained that these "ghost polling stations" never existed because "they were in enemy-controlled territory."
"We had a separate disagreement over whether the extensive evidence of fraud collected by the UN mission should be provided to the Electoral Complaints Commission which, of course, I wanted and he didn't," Galbraith said.
"He sided with Karzai who protested my contacting the Independent Election Commission to urge them to maintain their published safeguards on fraud," Galbraith said.
Eide has been criticized for initially praising the election -- before the full extent of the fraud became known -- and saying it represented "an important achievement" for the people of Afghanistan.
Some U.S. officials already have indicated they would accept Karzai's re-election. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on Monday that Karzai could earn the trust of the Afghan people and credibility for his government if he addresses the claims of electoral misconduct.
That stance runs contrary to Galbraith's views, who drew a parallel between the Afghan vote and the rigged 1967 presidential elections in Vietnam which undermined the legitimacy of the U.S.-backed Saigon regime and significantly contributed to its ultimate demise.
Asked about the impact of his firing, Galbraith said, "I hope it does not raise any new questions about these elections, about which enough questions have already been raised."
"And I sincerely hope that it doesn't do anything to increase violence in Afghanistan whose people have suffered enough already," he said.
Britain's UN Ambassador John Sawers said: "We believe Peter Galbraith brought energy and ideas, but there has to be a single leadership on the main issues of policy."
"I think it's mainly a question of whether it was the UN's role to determine the validity or otherwise of the election and the results of that election," he said, adding that the responsibility for determining the election's validity rested with two other independent bodies.
Galbraith worked for the UN in East Timor in 2000-2001 and as the U.S. ambassador to Croatia from 1993 to 1998. He is close to Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan,
Asked about Galbraith's departure, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, told reporters: "That's a United Nations matter."
Galbraith has been in the United States since mid-September, when he left Afghanistan.
He said he expects to return to Afghanistan to make farewell calls and pack up his belongings.
"I expect to resume my previous career as a writer. I will join the public debate on Afghanistan, and I expect to be involved in public life in Vermont," Galbraith said.
