Peter Galbraith

Peter Galbraith is a U.S. diplomat who was assigned to UNAMA, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, who brought up extensive fraud in the 2009 Afghanistan presidential election and eventually left his post, in late 2009, under disputed circumstances. In April 2010, Hamid Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, accused him of creating election fraud.

Galbraith is seen as close to senior U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke and Obama Administration envoy to "AfPak", and had served as U.S. Ambassador to Croatia between 1993 and 1998. While Eide and Galbraith were personally close, Eide having introduced him to the Norwegian anthropologist who would become his wife, Eide was reported to have wanted a European deputy. Eide was reported to have a stormy relationship with Holbrooke.

Election
Galbraith had been the deputy chief of UNAMA, left Afghanistan over disagreements with UNAMA chief Kai Eide. Galbraith wanted major recounts while Eide felt more limited recounts were adequate. In October, Galbraith went public. Before firing me last week from my post as his deputy special representative in Afghanistan, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon conveyed one last instruction: Do not talk to the press. In effect, I was being told to remain a team player after being thrown off the team. Nonetheless, I agreed.

Galbraith, however, said he agreed to one reason being announced: "Alain LeRoy, the head of U.N. peacekeeping and my immediate superior in New York, proposed that the United Nations say I was being recalled over a "disagreement as to how the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) would respond to electoral fraud." Although this was not entirely accurate -- the dispute was really about whether the U.N. mission would respond to the massive electoral fraud -- I agreed." but not to what the UN actually said, which triggered his public statements: "Instead, the United Nations announced my recall as occurring "in the best interests of the mission," and U.N. press officials told reporters on background that my firing was necessitated by a 'personality clash' with Eide, a friend of 15 years who had introduced me to my future wife. "

Karzai allegations
Four days after President Barack Obama's March 2010 visit to Karzai, and two days after the lower house of the Afghan parliament had refused to ratify Karzai's proposals for changes to the independent election monitoring commission, Karzai said the United Nations and international media, as well as Galbraith and Philippe Morillon, a former French general and the head of the European Union vote-monitoring mission, were conspiring against them. His speech did not charge the United States directly.

He said the foreign efforts were intended to marginalize him, and named Galbraith of orchestrating fraud and attempting to bribe election officials.