By William M. Reilly

    UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 8 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations as an organization, rather than a group of nations not necessarily united, has been stung recently by accusations of fraud in the Afghanistan presidential elections and/or favoring President Hamid Karzai for re-election.

    So much of a sting has been felt that in the last two days unusual denials have been mounted: Wednesday it was by a panel of experts at the UN Headquarters in New York -- the second of its sort in as many weeks -- and Thursday by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide.

    Eide has been the target of the leading accusation, lodged by his now former deputy, Peter Galbraith.

    Basically, Galbraith said there was fraud in the Aug. 20 balloting and that Eide withheld evidence of it and that he favored Karzai, who garnered nearly 55 percent of the first round vote.

    If enough fraud is found in the Karzai count it could lead to a loss of votes and a runoff election. A runoff would have to be held soon because of the imminent onset of winter and heavy snow shutting down travel.

    The institutional reply to the accusations has been to acknowledge fraud is possible but in its role of supporting the Afghanistan poll, it would not be proper for Eide to release information on fraud, especially if unverified, without being asked.

    In turn, UN officials have said Galbraith, who allegedly wanted to close 1,500 of 6,900 polling places in not-secure regions, was attempting to disenfranchise supporters of Karzai.

    The president is a member of the Pashtun ethnic group, strong in the South and Southeast of the country.

    The UN response to accusations of corruption in the election is to say it is up to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to investigate and, when asked, provide information.

    In the meantime, the United Nations wants the ECC's current audit to continue to see if wrongdoing took place during the balloting and then decide what has to be done about investigating and go from there.

    The world body Monday launched an investigation into the charges, Edmond Mulet, UN assistant-secretary-general for peacekeeping said on Wednesday at a press conference in UN headquarters.

    He was accompanied by Wolfgang Weisbrod Weber, director of Asia and Middle East Division of the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations, and Craig Jenness, director of the Electoral Assistance Division of the UN Department of Political Affairs.

    The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which Eide heads up, comes under control of the peacekeeping department.

    Only last week a UN official briefed reporters on how the world organization was only supporting the Afghans in their election and not monitoring, per se. Observing, yes, but technically not monitoring.

    Galbraith had said UNAMA had sent out people to observe how many people went to polling places and their reports didn't jibe with vote counts from some regions.

    On Wednesday, the Washington Post reported receiving a spreadsheet detailing those discrepancies.

    "In some provinces the official vote count exceeded the estimated number of voters by 100,000 or more," the newspaper said the spreadsheet showed, "providing further information that the contest was marred."

    "In southern Helmand province -- where 134,804 votes were recorded, 112,873 of them for President Hamid Karzai -- the United Nations estimated that just 38,000 people voted, and possibly as few as 5,000, according to a UN spreadsheet obtained by The Washington Post," the newspaper added.

    It said the information seemed to "worsen a credibility crisis for the UN special envoy," Eide.

    However, the Post said that in an interview last week Eide "acknowledged withholding the data, saying that the information could not be verified and that he required a formal request in order to share it. He said he was confronted by a 'confusing situation' in which 'a lot of information was coming from sources that had their own agenda.'"

    Galbraith, a former U.S. ambassador to Croatia, was reported to have political ambitions. He was reported in Norway on Thursday.

    The newspaper said Eide didn't want to hand over "a bunch of information if we haven't made a solid assessment of it."

    At the Wednesday press session, Jenness said a review was being undertaken to examine the issue of high voter turnout, and secondly, high numbers of votes cast for one candidate or another.

    A final determination on the number of participants at polling stations would be made after all ballots were scrutinized, including from the South, the news conference participants said. Only those considered legitimate would be counted.

    "There is anxiety and everybody wants this process to be over as quickly as possible," Weber added. The United Nations had pressed the ECC to conclude its work quickly without jeopardizing the process, so that if a second round was needed, it could be held two weeks after the final results were announced, as electoral rules stipulated.

    Responding to charges Eide had sided with Karzai in endorsing the elections' outcome, Weber said Eide had sided with the two bodies tasked with carrying out the investigation: the IEC and ECC.

    Weber said Eide's mission was to examine regulations, including on the question of fraud, which would strengthen those institutions.

    One of the objectives of UNAMA was to strengthen the Afghan government and instill confidence in it among the Afghan people.

    That is one of the objectives of the NATO forces fighting in Afghanistan, instilling confidence, and, most certainly, the amount of confidence Kabul has from the Afghan people is a consideration for U.S. President Barack Obama in his review of the level in which the United States supports NATO.