Loya Jirga delegates hopeful for democratic revival

Despite allegations of harassment, intimidation and bribery, as well a walk out by many delegates on Monday during the week-long Emergency Loya Jirga, or grand council, being held in the Afghan capital, Kabul, participants anticipate a revival of democracy in their country. Babrak Shinwari, a 55-year-old delegate from the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, told IRIN that national reconciliation had begun in his homeland, because after 23 years of war and mayhem a representative gathering of Afghans in itself was a significant change for the better. "Afghans were not allowed to hold the Loya Jirga over the past decade due to problems inside the country and pressures from abroad," he said. Shinwari was a minister in the first Afghan communist government after the 1978 coup, and spent a decade in prison after the Soviet invasion in 1980s and another decade in exile in neighbouring Pakistan - only to return to Afghanistan following the demise of the Taliban last December. "Our country cannot turn into a western democracy within months, but at last we have a road-map of sorts," he observed. While Afghanistan's newly elected president, Hamid Karzai, has warned against the harassment of delegates at the Loya Jirga, many delegates remained optimistic about the prospects for democracy. Many Afghans believe that after the failed attempts at establishing democracy, first by the reformist King Ghazi Amanullah Khan, and then by the former monarch, Mohammad Zahir Shah, who reigned from 1933 until 1973, their country now has a "last chance" to succeed under the political process growing out of Bonn agreement. The agreement, concluded late last year, resulted in the formation of a six-month interim administration. The ongoing Emergency Loya Jirga is the second major step in implementing that accord. Muhammadullah Sho'ayb, an elected representative from the eastern Afghan province of Konar, told IRIN that the whole process of electing representatives to the Loya Jirga had constituted a first step towards initiating representative democracy in Afghanistan. Some 900 representatives in the Loya Jirga were elected from all parts of Afghanistan, while another 600 - of a total of more than 1,500 - were selected by the UN-sponsored Loya Jirga Commission. In a robust display of their democratic rights, hundreds of delegates walked out of the gathering on Monday morning after it was announced that Karzai would not be addressing the assembly. Many resented the long, "boring" speeches and dodging the key issues that had been going on. "There was a secret ballot for electing the president, and people can express themselves," Sho'ayb said. "We have seen all types of extremist experiments - we have no other choice but democracy," he added. However, some delegates do not share Sho'ayb's optimism. "I thought it was a good beginning, but then I was disappointed," Omar Zakhilwal, a delegate from Canada, told IRIN. "All the delegates brought similar problems and were prescribing similar solutions, but then they unleashed the governors," he said, looking frustrated. Zakhilwal, a professor of economics in Ottawa, and many other delegates from the Afghan diaspora in the West strongly felt they were being silenced and marginalised, asserting that most of the decisions were made in back-door deals, away from the huge Loya Jirga tent. Women, too, shared their grievances. For many Afghans, the Loya Jirga represents the first chance they have had in more than two decades to come together and discuss their mutual problems. The gathering is an inspiring mix of Afghanistan's the diverse groups. Uzbeks from the north, wearing their colourful chopan cloaks mingle with turbaned Pashtuns from the south and east. Afghan exiles wearing fashionable suits share jokes with conservative mullahs and bearded mujahidin commanders. Up to 200 women are also participating, after suffering for years at the hands of the Taliban and other warring factions. "Despite all problems, faults and limitations, Afghans are looking towards Kabul for the formation of a new government and it's a good omen for the beginning of a democratic era in the country," Sho'ayb maintained.