Karzai poised for presidency

Hamid Karzai, who has led Afghanistan's interim government for the past six months, looked poised to keep his position on Wednesday as the traditional decision-making council, the Loya Jirga, entered its second day of deliberations. After much last-minute political manoeuvring and negotiations in the run-up to the jirga, his only opponent remained a woman - Mas'udah Jalal - who does not stand a realistic chance of being elected since only about 200 of the 1,500-strong jirga delegates are women. Jalal has no known political background. The jirga is expected to vote on a head of state and government to lead the country for the next 18 months, until elections are held in 2004. However, while the path seems clear for Karzai to be elected, political manoeuvring and negotiations, and the heavy-handed role the Americans are perceived to be playing in the selection of a new leader, has angered many delegates at the jirga. According to local news reports, it is also beginning to anger ordinary people, who say they were promised that the jirga would be an opportunity for Afghans to plot their own future. On Monday, under obvious pressure from the United States and the rest of the international community, the elderly former king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, changed his tune, saying he wanted neither an executive position in the transitional government, nor a return to the monarchy. He then threw his weight behind Karzai. As it turned out, when the jirga finally opened after a 24-hour delay on Tuesday, Karzai told the assembly the former king would become the father of the nation and would be given certain ceremonial functions. The former king's backing of Karzai resulted in Burhanuddin Rabbani, the former president and only other serious contender for the head of state position, to withdraw as well. The BBC quoted Sima Samar, a delegate and minister of women's affairs in the interim administration, as saying: "This is not a democracy. It is a rubber stamp. Everything has already been decided by the powerful ones." Ahmad Nader Nadery, an NGO delegate to the jirga and a spokesman for the jirga's special convening commission, told IRIN on Tuesday that the criticism against the US was acknowledged, but that the commission could not create limitations on political negotiations outside the jirga itself. Many of the delegates, unhappy with Karzai's cosy relationship with the West, wanted to nominate and elect the former king to the head of state position in the hope that he would be able to control the different factions from across the country and mould a unified transitional government. Clearly mindful of the potential for division within the jirga - that could lead to continued strife across the country - all those who addressed delegates at the opening session late on Tuesday, urged them to unite and put Afghanistan before their own political desires. Ismail Qasimyar, head of the convening commission, told delegates it was time for unity, as "we promised the world we would make much of our future". Lakhdar Brahimi, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Afghanistan, said the jirga should be an exercise in national unity. "You must ensure that you speak for all Afghans. You come from everywhere. Some of you are mujahidin. All of you still bear the scars of your country's past... The entire world has followed the suffering of the Afghan people. Their eyes are on you now, as are the eyes of your people... The people have had enough of hatred and war. Their hearts are now full of hope. You have a heavy responsibility," he told the delegates. And while the world looks to the Loya Jirga to disentangle the country from more than 23 years of war and ethnic rivalry, there is still only a cautious optimism among the Afghan population that it will help bring the country's various tribes together. "We could do with a woman president for a change, because we want peace now," said one elderly man on the streets of Kabul. "But," he told IRIN, "for now we have to wait and see if our hopes for peace can come from this Loya Jirga."