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Carina Perelli (born, 1957) is an Uruguayan sociologist and former senior United Nations official who is one of the world’s foremost experts on electoral systems and post-conflict transitions to democracy. As the head of the UN’s Electoral Assistance Division (EAD) from 1998-2005 she directed teams that advised national elections officials in more than 60 countries. She was widely praised by world leaders for rapidly turning the EAD into world's leading specialist elections in countries emerging from conflict and occupation. This included directly managing high profile elections in Iraq, Afghanistan and East Timor.

Perelli's last, and most prominent, work for the U.N. were a series of elections in Iraq in 2005. On the eve of the third round of voting in December 2005, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan controversially fired Perelli on charges of sexual harassment and abuse of power, with his spokesman declaring the world body had a policy of zero tolerance.In an organization long plagued by accusations of sexual misconduct by its male staffers, Perelli -- at the time one of the only women in senior UN management -- was the first high-profile UN executive to ever be fired over allegations of sexual harassment.

On March 28, 2013 an independent UN Appeals Tribunal exonerated Perelli on all charges, calling them "legally and factually unsustainable" and ordering her reinstatement.

Background
Perelli was born in Montevideo, Uruguay on March 29th, 1957 and holds dual Uruguayan and Italian nationality. She is married to Uruguayan political scientist Juan Rial; they have one daughter. Perelli holds degrees from the University of the Republic (Uruguay) and completed doctoral studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, USA.

Perelli and Rial, along with other Uruguayan academics, established PEITHO, a think tank dedicated to fostering the country’s transition from dictatorship to democracy. Under her stewardship, PEITHO published numerous books, anthologies and papers on such transitions in countries throughout Latin America in the 1970’s and 1980s.

After working as a consultant for the U.N. and the International Foundation for Electoral Systems on Latin American projects, including Mexico’s 1994 elections, Perelli was hired by the United Nations, ultimately being named the Director of the Electoral Assistance Division in 1998.

U.N. Electoral Assistance Division
Perelli came to prominence in 1999 during the East Timor crisis, when she and her EAD team organized a referendum for the population to vote on autonomy or independence from Indonesia. Working closely with noted UN troubleshooter Sérgio Vieira de Mello, who was the UN Transitional Administrator for East Timor, Perelli was seen as a rising star at the U.N.

To some, the De Mello-Perelli partnership heralded a new hand-on, solution-oriented era for the U.N. For the young, brash Uruguayan, he was more than a mentor -- he protected her from the often vicious internal politics of the U.N. Secretariat.

Iraqi Elections
In June 2003 De Mello, the newly appointed UN Envoy to Iraq, asked Perelli to assess the possibility of holding elections in US-occupied Iraq.


 * Perelli and her team spent almost three weeks touring Iraq. In mid-August, she drove with Vieira de Mello to the Green Zone for a meeting with Bremer. On the drive there, Vieira de Mello said of Bremer, "He still sees elections as a technical matter, and not a wholly political one. You have to educate him like you educated me." He joked, "The problem with you election people is that you are an acquired taste."
 * At the meeting, Bremer presented his plan to have a group of appointed Iraqis draft a constitution, which would then be ratified in a referendum. Perelli disagreed vehemently. "You have to be very careful with referendums in transitions," she said. "They become public-opinion polls, which, on the basis of my conversations with Iraqis, is not in your interest."
 * After the meeting, she expressed worry that Vieira de Mello, her chief ally in the U.N., would be leaving Baghdad in only six weeks. "If you abandon me, I'll have to deal not only with Bremer but also with whatever jerk the U.N. replaces you with," she said. "I can handle the Americans, but I can't handle both." He assured her that he would stand up for her from Geneva. "I've got to get out of here," he said. "This place is getting to me."
 * After the meeting, she expressed worry that Vieira de Mello, her chief ally in the U.N., would be leaving Baghdad in only six weeks. "If you abandon me, I'll have to deal not only with Bremer but also with whatever jerk the U.N. replaces you with," she said. "I can handle the Americans, but I can't handle both." He assured her that he would stand up for her from Geneva. "I've got to get out of here," he said. "This place is getting to me."
 * After the meeting, she expressed worry that Vieira de Mello, her chief ally in the U.N., would be leaving Baghdad in only six weeks. "If you abandon me, I'll have to deal not only with Bremer but also with whatever jerk the U.N. replaces you with," she said. "I can handle the Americans, but I can't handle both." He assured her that he would stand up for her from Geneva. "I've got to get out of here," he said. "This place is getting to me."

On August 19, 2003, two days after her this trip to Iraq, the U.N headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghadad were bombed, killing her close friend and mentor De Mello and several other prominent UN officials. Annan pulled all U.N. personnel out of Iraq, halting further work on elections. The following year, U.S. President George W. Bush personally asked Annan for the UN's help in organizing elections in Iraq. Facing a growing insurgency, the U.S. was scrambling to meet a January 2005 deadline for handing sovereignty to an elected Iraqi national government. This led to a bifurcated UN mission, with diplomacy handled by veteran UN diplomat Lakhdar Brahimi and the electoral mission led by Perelli, who became the public face of Iraqi preparations to vote. President Bush singled out Perelli for praise in his 2005 State of the Union Address.

But the U.N.'s decision to assist with elections was seen by many inside and outside the world body as aiding the U.S. agenda in Iraq. Perelli increasingly came into conflict with Annan's principal deputies, Chief of Staff Mark Malloch Brown and Sir Kieran Prendergast, the head of the Department of Political Affairs, who tried to curtail the U.N.'s involvement in the elections.

Investigation and Firing
In parallel with the contentious preparations for three rounds of voting in 2005, Prendergast ordered a review of alleged management abuses within Perelli's office. In late 2004, Prendergast asked Swiss company Mannet SARL, which was already retained by the U.N. Secretariat to advise on management reform, to conduct in investigation. The confidential report was leaked to the press in late March 2005 while Annan was suffering from a deluge of negative press about the oil-for-food scandal.

The 22-page report accused Perelli of mistreating employees, forcing them to run personal and demeaning errands for her and creating an atmosphere of "sexual innuendo." "Membership within the inner circle appears to be based on personal affinities of the director rather than on competence or experience," the report said.

In August, 2005 Perelli was formally accused of harassing her staff. Her response was delayed because she was directly involved in parliamentary elections in Afghanistan the next month and Iraq's constitutional referendum in October.

Perelli was fired by Kofi Annan on December 6, 2005 -- less than ten days before the the December 15 vote for Iraqi's parliament. The timing and circumstance around her firing was slammed by U.S. and U.K. officials, and Perelli vowed to fight the charges, which included sexual harassment and abuse of power.

The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., John Bolton, was particularly critical of the timing of the firing. "The U.N. role in previous elections has been quite helpful and important to the Iraqi people," he said. "This is a major election, obviously the end of this process leading up to the return of full sovereignty to Iraq, and I don't think anybody should do things that disrupt that. Perhaps management has taken that into account, but it's certainly not been explained to us, why a decision has to be taken at this time."

But Annan's Chief of Staff Mark Malloch Brown said that Perelli's dismissal was long overdue. "There are some who felt it should have been done well before constitutional referendum, and that we were already trying to accommodate these needs in Iraq by delaying it till now," he said.

U.N Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the firing was a result of the U.N.'s new "zero tolerance" policy towards claims of sexual harassment and that the U.N. had a responsibility to act. A senior U.N. official told Reuters "It is a very sad case and incredibly unfortunate...Professionally, she is a fantastic resource in an incredibly tough job but we had to be strict on this one."

According to the New York Times, Perelli said she had not been provided the specifics of the allegations against her so that she could respond. She also said she would file an appeal to the U.N. Joint Disciplinary Committee and probably pursue legal action.

Career After UN
TBD