UN vacancy
December 11, 2009
The United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said on Friday that he had called on UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon to find a successor.
"This is not dramatic. I said I had a two-year perspective when I accepted the assignment," Eide told Norwegian news agency NTB.
The Norwegian diplomat's term as head of the UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan was to expire in March 2010.
Election shadows
Eide's term was overshadowed by flawed elections which were conducted and monitored with the help of the UN.
His deputy, US diplomat Peter Galbraith, was fired in September after accusing Eide of hushing up evidence of fraud in the inconclusive August 20 poll.
President Hamid Karzai was re-elected unopposed after his main rival withdrew from a run-off poll because he said he feared a fraudulent poll. The questionable election cast doubt on the credibility of the new government, leading to countries with troops stationed in Afghanistan increasing pressure on Karzai’s administration to stamp out corruption in order to secure continued international support.
Western diplomats said the two leading candidates to replace Eide were Swedish diplomat Staffan de Mistura, a senior official at the UN World Food Program and Ban's former special envoy to Iraq, Frenchman Jean-Marie Guehenno, who ran the UN peacekeeping department from 2001 to 2008.
nk/dpa/Reuters/AFP/AP
Editor: Michael Lawton