THE SENIOR United Nations diplomat in Afghanistan has warned of further political uncertainty after the country’s parliament rejected more than two-thirds of President Hamid Karzai’s nominations for government.
Kai Eide, the head of the UN mission, yesterday said the refusal by MPs to support 17 from 24 proposed cabinet ministers would prolong the political paralysis that has gripped the country since the disputed presidential election in August.
“Political energy will be spent in forming a new government and, as a result, energy will be taken away from what we really hope to spend our energy on in the coming months,” he said.
With parliament about to go into a lengthy recess, Mr Eide said it would be impossible for all cabinet ministers to be approved in time for a major international conference on Afghanistan to be held in London at the end of the month.
Afghanistan’s election commission yesterday raised the prospect of a spring of political chaos by announcing that parliamentary elections should go ahead in May as required by the constitution.
Most diplomats believe the elections should be postponed because of the strong likelihood that they will be hit by the same level of fraud and insurgent violence that wrecked last summer’s presidential poll.
Despite the disruption to government, MPs said that their rejection of so many potential cabinet ministers was a victory in the battle against the ethnic powerbrokers and former civil war leaders seeking positions in Mr Karzai’s government.
“These people did not have the correct qualifications to be ministers,” said Fauzia Kofi, a female MP. “The jihadi leaders and the tribal leaders thought that Afghanistan is still under the rule of 100 years ago, but this showed that the people of Afghanistan are ruling the country.”
Mirwais Yaseni, the deputy speaker of the lower house of parliament and a former candidate in the presidential election, said the MPs wanted to “get rid of warlords and appoint people who are capable and honest”.
Most of the 17 cabinet ministers who failed to win enough votes from MPs were linked to ethnic powerbrokers and former civil war leaders who backed Mr Karzai in his re-election bid last year.
Under a recently passed law, none of the rejected candidates may be resubmitted for the same job and acting ministers must stand down after one month if they have not been endorsed by the parliament.
One of the country’s most powerful Tajik warlords from the western province of Herat was rejected for his old job of minister for energy and water.
Haroun Mir, an independent political analyst in Kabul, said that unless Mr Karzai could find another way to reward his supporters he might risk seeing his political power base erode, and some may even defect to his main political rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
Muhammad Mohaqiq, the leader of a party representing the Hazara ethnic group who strongly backed Mr Karzai in the election, was among those who failed to get any of his candidates approved.
He said parliament was motivated only by “the ethnicity and political party of the candidates . . . These decisions show Afghanistan is going backwards to where it was eight years ago”. Mr Karzai’s spokesman claimed that the vote by MPs would not affect the business of government as acting and deputy ministers would continue the day-to-day operations of their ministries. It was a view echoed by some western diplomats who said most members of the bloated government did not play a critical role in the running of the country. Many ministries serve little other function than to ensure all the country’s ethnic groups are represented at the highest level of government.
The US and its allies have instead concentrated on lobbying Mr Karzai to appoint competent people to the most important cabinet posts, such as the defence, finance and interior ministries. All the men nominated by Mr Karzai for those ministries were endorsed by parliament yesterday.
Mr Abdullah, the former presidential candidate now seen as the country’s pre-eminent opposition figure, said it was a “step forward towards institutionalisation of democracy”. But he also claimed that some of the seven successful cabinet ministers had won their endorsement by bribing MPs.
Mr Abdullah warned against holding a parliamentary election in May without further reform. “The nation cannot survive another flawed election. Without reform it won’t mean anything and just create a much deeper crisis from which Afghanistan will not recover.”
– ( Guardian service)