KABUL: The UN envoy to Afghanistan, who was criticised over his handling of the deeply controversial August election steeped in fraud, is to step down when his mission ends in March 2010, a spokesman said Friday.
Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide took up the post in 2008 as the Taliban-led insurgency began to spiral, and leaves just months after a post-election fracas in which his deputy was sacked and his mission was heavily criticised.
Eide, who denied the claims and defended his mission, said Friday he was not resigning.
Speaking to Norwegian television channel TV2 Nyhetskanalen, the diplomat said: 'I'm not resigning. I'm leaving in accordance with the timetable I outlined when I took the job' which he wanted to limit to two years.
'I am sticking to the course that I promised to follow. It is responsible behaviour for me to ask the UN to seek a successor because I do not want to continue for an extra year,' he added.
But Afghan analysts said it was time for Eide to go, saying his position had become untenable in what is ranked internationally as the fifth poorest and second most corrupt country in the world.
'I see this as the end of his failed mission in Afghanistan,' political analyst Nasrullah Stanikzai told AFP.
'He cannot do this job any longer as (President Hamid) Karzai does not accept his recommendations when it comes to the cabinet, the US embassy does not listen to him and he can't even coordinate his own UN mission,' he added.
Eide's time in Afghanistan has seen the Taliban insurgency reach its deadliest since US-led troops ousted their regime in 2001, kickstarting international efforts to build democracy and develop the impoverished nation.
Record numbers of Afghan civilians and Western soldiers have been killed in the last year since the US-led invasion and the country's second presidential election earlier this year opened the floodgates to political crisis.
The UN mission in Kabul was heavily criticised in Afghanistan and abroad for the way it dealt with the emergence of massive fraud during the August 20 vote, which was initially hailed as a key barometer of progress.
A UN-backed watchdog found evidence of widespread fraud, mostly in favour of the incumbent Karzai who was declared winner by his own officials after his only rival pulled out of a run-off last month.
But the Afghan political paralysis saw the UN deputy head of mission Peter Galbraith in September sacked after a row with Eide on the best way to handle the electoral irregularities.
Galbraith said about 30 per cent of Karzai's votes were fraudulent, and went on to call his removal a 'terrible signal' about the world body's commitment to a fraud-free election.
Karzai was eventually sworn in for a second term on November 19, vowing to crack down on corruption and take responsibility for security in the war-torn country by the end of his next five years in power.
His new administration, which has yet to be formed, is under huge Western pressure to tackle corruption, combat drugs, crime and the influence of notorious warlords in the Western-backed Karzai government.
Rumours flourished in diplomatic circles that Eide and Karzai were at odds over corruption and the influence of warlords, such as Vice President Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who has been implicated in murders, weapons smuggling and drugs.
But Eide has repeatedly denied cracks in relations with Karzai. 'This confirms his intention not to renew his contract,' McNorton said rejecting reports by Norwegian news agency NTB that Eide had resigned. -AFP
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