Is it UNAMA or UNAMK?

Immediately after Karzai announced his new handpicked head of IEC the UN SRSG rushed to his media room to report his ‘comfort*’ with the appointment.

Manawi, a senior Northern Alliance figure, was chosen through backdoor deal-making by Karzai and his Jihadi mentors.

Manawi is a Muslim cleric with no intellectual and professional expertise in democracy or elections management, but it’s apparently not important for the UN envoy to rattle for democratic principles in a country that is fast plunging in personal tyranny.

Manawi will not end our looming electoral crisis with verses of the Holy Quran.

The IEC needs institutional independence, operational integrity, democratic laws and procedures, and an apolitical leadership and/or governing system to run free & fair elections.

Ironically a cabinet minister requires parliamentary approval but IEC officials are entirely presidential appointees. Won’t it be right, instead, to say the “impendent” interior ministry than “independent” election commission – after all how do we define “independence”?

As for UNAMA or UNMAK is it the UN assistance mission for Afghanistan for Karzai?

* - Read de Mistura's transcript here: http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1741&ctl=Details&mid=1882&ItemID=8592