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Afghanistan to announce landmark new parliament
(AFP)
Updated: 2005-11-09 15:57
Election authorities were due to announce the make-up of Afghanistan's first
parliament in more than three decades, set to be dominated by warlords
responsible for years of bloodshed and ruinous conflict.
The announcement of the much-delayed results of the September 18 legislative
polls will pave the way for President Hamid Karzai to set a date for the first
sitting of the parliament, likely in late December.
Analysts said nearly half of the 249 seats in the new lower house would
probably be taken by former mujahedin Islamic fighters who resisted the Soviet
occupation and then led the country into brutal civil war between 1992 and 1996.
Also present would be members of the fundamentalist Taliban that ruled the
country according to a ruthless interpretation of Islam from 1996 to 2001, when
they were removed in a US-led invasion.
"According to my estimate, there should be in the parliament something like
45 percent mujahedin, 20 percent independents, with lots of women, 20 percent
democrats and intellectuals...," said Neik Mohammad Kabul from the independent
National Democratic Institute.
He expected the remaining seats to go to former Taliban, communists and
unknown candidates.
"This will be a conservative parliament, like most of the mujahedin and
independents," he said.
Political parties did not feature on the pages-long ballot papers presented
to Afghanistan's mostly illiterate population, making it difficult to
distinguish a trend in the provisional results.
Nonetheless, US-backed Karzai could find majority support with intellectuals
on his side and MPs from his dominant Pashtun tribe also set to dominate, Kabul
said.
Analysts have said the presence of warlords and Taliban on the ballot paper
could have contributed to the turnout of just over 50 percent, down from 67
percent in last year's presidential election.
"Of course it's a big issue," said Shukria Barakzai, who has won one of the
25 percent of parliamentary seats reserved for women. "They never respected law,
they never trusted law. Today they are lawmakers for Afghanistan."
The United Nations, a key financial backer and organiser of the poll, has
admitted this is a worry.
"It is difficult, after a long period of war, to have elections and totally
exclude people who may have backgrounds that are undesirable," spokesman Adrian
Edwards told reporters this week.
However, "I think the important point here is that you're bringing people
with such pasts into a forum where they will have to follow certain democratic
and peaceful norms," he said.
On concerns the new parliamentarians could use their position to vote in an
amnesty for past crimes, he said the UN was working with the government on
setting up a system of "transitional justice" to deal with past abuses.
Provisional results for the poll were announced on October 23. Complaints
against these initial results were investigated and ruled on before the tally
was finalised.
Among the last of the 34 provinces to have its results certified was that of
the capital Kabul, base of powerful politicians that have the most clout in the
volatile country.
Coming first in the province's provisional result was Mohammad Mohaqeq, an
ethnic Hazara warlord deeply involved in the civil war that claimed more than
50,000 lives in the capital alone.
Also on top was Yunus Qanooni, an ethnic Tajik who was Karzai's closest
challenger in the presidential vote, and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, accused of war
crimes.
Members of the provincial councils also elected on September 18 are due to
hold their first meetings on Thursday and will appoint some representatives to
the upper house of parliament.
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