Figuring out exactly how this complex process would unfold left plenty of room for suspicions to mount. Personalities far more forceful than Kippen’s came into play. On Sept. 30, the UN fired Galbraith after he accused Norwegian diplomat Kai Eide, the UN special representative to Afghanistan, of playing down the seriousness of cheating by Karzai’s backers.
Yet even in this moment of high drama Kippen didn’t pre-empt the ECC audit process by commenting publicly on the extent of fraud. “He didn’t get sidetracked into all the other debates,” says Leslie Campbell, regional director of the Washington-based National Democratic Institute’s programs for fostering political reform in the Arab world. “He just kept his eye on the ball—the fairness of the election and the integrity of the vote.”
It was Campbell—another Canadian who works on spreading the practical skills that make democracy happen—who had first recruited Kippen to help train political parties in Algeria and later Afghanistan. Before then, Kippen was a fixture in Ottawa, having worked as an aide in Pierre Trudeau’s Prime Minister’s Office and as director of organization for the Liberal party. Campbell said Kippen’s understated manner is suited to countries where locals might resent being dictated to by outsiders. “Grant doesn’t have the arrogance,” he says, “that a lot of UN officials and other international officials seem to carry.”
But that doesn’t mean Kippen is a push-over. On Oct. 19, the ECC announced that nearly a quarter of Karzai’s votes were fraudulent and another vote would have to be conducted. Planning for the runoff vote on Nov. 7 began almost immediately. Kippen slipped away for a few days’ rest in Dubai, his first break since he came back to Kabul last January, other than a holiday last June in Greece where he was joined by his wife, who has remained at their home in Ottawa, and his two university-student sons.
Kippen, 54, says the ECC work has been “a meat grinder” and the cause of “many sleepless nights”—but he still hasn’t run out of optimism about Afghanistan. “To listen to the stories people tell, what they’ve endured,” he says. “Everything from being kidnapped and tortured, to being threatened, to suffering great family tragedy. They are resilient and keep pushing forward. They want security, they want opportunities, a chance to have a decent job, for their kids to grow up and be educated. It’s very inspiring.”
Asked about his daily routines in Afghanistan, he touches matter-of-factly on dangers, and light-heartedly on very modest pleasures. The threats have worsened: five years ago he drove around Kabul in an ordinary van; now he needs an armoured vehicle with personal security guards. He likes a ravioli-like Afghan dish called mantou, but also stocks up on big cans of Tim Hortons coffee when he visits the doughnut shop at the Canadian military base in Kandahar.
He’ll oversee the ECC’s investigations of the inevitable complaints likely to flow from the Nov. 7 runoff vote. Then he plans to return to Ottawa, perhaps in December. As for the future, he says he hopes to remain involved in some way in Afghanistan. Those who know his work say he’s needed. “Over the last five years,” says Scott Gilmore, exectutive director of the non-profit organization Peace Dividend Trust, “Grant has quietly been one of the most influential Canadians working in Afghanistan.” Quiet, yes. But after he played an indispensible role in this fall’s election turmoil, no longer unnoticed.
Pages: 1 2
