Amid
Ivorian
Chaos,
UN
Council
Meets
on
24 African Elections, Shrunken
Horizon
By
Matthew
Russell
Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January
10
--
Elections
in
Africa this year, and whether and
how the UN should be involved in them, was the only topic agreed on
for this month's forward looking or “horizon” meeting of the UN
Security Council.
The
discussion
takes place amid the chaos of the
Cote d'Ivoire election, where UN
envoy Choi Young-jin declared Alassane Ouattara the winner, leading
to protests in the Security Council by permanent member Russia.
In
advance of UN
political affairs chief Lynn Pascoe providing a closed door briefing
to the Council, one Council member told Inner City Press that while
UN technical assistance to elections is not viewed as controversial,
being as involved as in Cote d'Ivoire would be a subject of debate.
Another
member
showed
Inner
City
Press
a
list of 24 elections in Africa this year:
including Chad (for which no request for UN assistance is expected,
following the ejection of the UN peacekeeping mission last year),
Central African
Republic (later this month), Democratic Republic of
Congo (in connection with which the UN peacekeeping mission may be
further slimmed down at President Kabila's request),
Egypt (Mubarak's
son), Gabon, Ivory Coast (legislative), Benin, Cameroon,
Cape Verde, Liberia, Guinea, Djibouti, Madagascar, Mauritania,
Nigeria, Niger, Seychelles, South Africa, South Sudan, Sao Tome,
Uganda, Zambia and of course Zimbabwe.
In
November,
Pascoe's briefing included a wider range of issues, which some
members protested. This time, the Bosnian presidency limited the
issues in advance to just this one.
UN's Ban & Mugabe, UN electoral flubs not shown
A
real “tour
d'horizon” of issues threatening international peace and security
might have included, for example, the violent protests in Tunisia and
Algeria. One assumes that the UN's Department of Political Affairs is
not blinded to that. But the Security Council will not be hearing
about or discussing these issues.
Nor
will the
Council be discussing Sudan, even after 33 deaths in Abyei over the
weekend. One member predicted the Council will wait for initial
results of the South Sudan referendum. Watch this site.
* * *
, 
