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Afghan parliamentary vote set for September
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-03-21 08:32
Afghanistan will elect its first post-Taliban parliament on Sept. 18,
officials announced Sunday, setting a date for the country's next major step
toward democracy.
With opponents of President Hamid Karzai itching for a legislative platform,
the country's election chief said he hoped the much-delayed ballot would help
cement its fragile peace.
Back view of the old Afghan
Parliament that was heavily damaged during the civil war, and is now under
reconstruction, Kabul, Sunday, March 20, 2005.
Afghanistan will hold its delayed
parliamentary elections on September 18, a joint Afghan-United
Nations election commission said
today.[AP] | After consulting Karzai's government and political party leaders, the
commission "decided to elect the National Assembly and provincial elections
together on Sunday, the 18th of September," Bismillah Bismil, head of the joint
U.N.-Afghan election commission said at a news conference.
"I hope this news will be a message of peace, stability and prosperity for
the new year," Bismil said. Sunday is the last day of the Afghan year 1383.
Presidential and parliamentary elections were initially scheduled for June
last year, but both were delayed because of the slow pace of preparations and
efforts to disarm warlords and militia commanders who the United Nations' feared
would intimidate voters.
Karzai won the presidential vote in October by a landslide. But the
legislative ballot was postponed until May, and then again to September because
of problems including the lack of an accurate census and squabbles over district
boundaries.
The commission said district elections would be held later and the upper
house of parliament would be composed for an interim period of representatives
from the provincial councils and presidential appointees.
Afghan political leaders are divided over the delay.
Sebghatullah Sanjar, leader of the pro-Karzai Republican Party, applauded the
September date because it gave Afghanistan's novice political parties the whole
summer to campaign. There will also be time to register more returning refugees,
said Sanjar, who plans to contest a seat in Kabul.
But Mohammed Mohaqeq, who finished third in the presidential vote with strong
support from the country's Shiite minority, complained that the delay leaves
Karzai with too much power for too long.
"This just prolongs the life of his government, " said Mohaqeq, who left
Karzai's interim government after a dispute last year. "We will accept it
because we have no choice, but we are not happy."
Parliamentary elections are supposed to complete a political process agreed
in Bonn, Germany, after U.S. and allied Afghan forces drove out the Taliban in
late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden.
During a visit to Kabul last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said
the United States would support Afghanistan as it prepares for the vote.
"We will stand by the Afghan people as they go through the next stage in
their democratic development, the parliamentary elections that will take place
this fall. We look forward to continuing to help in the reconstruction of
Afghanistan," she said.
Even with four more months, election organizers admit they face a daunting
challenge.
The joint U.N.-Afghan election board can draw on the experience of Afghans
who helped organize the presidential vote, for which 10.5 million people
registered, 40 percent of them women.
Security may also be easier, as thousands of new national army and police
officers will have completed their training.
But this round of elections is vastly more complicated, involving up to
10,000 candidates and a host of fledgling political parties. It will also test
the generosity of international donors. So far, only $18 million has been
donated toward the budget of $148 million, most of it from the United
States.
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