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All 215 seats in the House of the People 29 of the 87 seats in the Senate | ||
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 Afghanistanportal |
Parliamentary elections were held in Afghanistan in August and September 1965. [1] Members of the Senate were elected between 26 August and 7 September, and members of the House of the People between 10 and 26 September. Following the introduction of women's suffrage in the 1964 constitution, four women were elected to the House of People and two were appointed the Senate.
The 215 members of the House of the People were elected using first-past-the-post voting in single-member constituencies. [2] The 87 members of the Senate included 29 appointed by the king, 29 directly elected and 29 elected by the provincial assemblies (one member from each province). [2]
The voting age was 20. Candidates for the House of the People were required to be at least 26 years old, and candidates for the Senate 31. [2]
In polling stations there was a voting box for each candidate with their photograph and symbol; voters placed their ballot paper in the box of the candidate they wished to vote for. [2]
Although the previous parliament had passed a law allowing for the creation of political parties, it had not been signed by the king. As a result, all candidates ran as independents. [2] However, several unofficial parties ran candidates with beliefs ranging from fundamentalist Islam to far left.
Turnout was very low, leading to the vocal predominance of Kabul's radicals. Four members of the PDPA were elected, although, only two were widely known as being PDPA members; Babrak Karmal and Anahita Ratebzad, who were both elected in Kabul. [3]
Four women were elected; Roqia Abubakr and Anahita Ratebzad in Kabul, Khadija Ahrari in Herat and Masuma Esmati-Wardak in Kandahar. [4]
As the provincial assemblies were never convened, the Senate consisted only of the 29 members appointed by the king and the 29 directly elected members. [2] Two of the appointed members – Aziza Gardizi and Homeira Seljuqi – were women. [5] [6]
The newly elected parliament convened on 14 October. In a preliminary session the day before, Abdul Zahir was elected president of the House of the People. On the same day, Abdul Hadi Dawi was appointed president of the Senate by the king. [7]
Eleven days later dissident leftist students, dissatisfied with the newly appointed cabinet, disrupted the meetings and rioting ensued. Prime Minister Mohammad Yusuf resigned on 29 October and the king appointed Mohammad Hashim Maiwandwal to form a cabinet, which was confirmed on 2 November.
Babrak Karmal was an Afghan communist revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Afghanistan, serving in the post of general secretary of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan from 1979 to 1986.
Hafizullah Amin was an Afghan communist head of state, who served from September 1979 until his assassination. He organized the Saur Revolution of 1978 and co-founded the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), ruling Afghanistan as General Secretary of the People's Democratic Party.
Mohammad Daoud Khan was an Afghan military officer and politician who served as prime minister of Afghanistan from 1953 to 1963 and, as leader of the 1973 Afghan coup d'état which overthrew the monarchy, served as the first president of Afghanistan from 1973 until his assassination in the Saur Revolution.
The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) was a Marxist–Leninist political party in Afghanistan established on 1 January 1965. Four members of the party won seats in the 1965 Afghan parliamentary election, reduced to two seats in 1969, albeit both before parties were fully legal. For most of its existence, the party was split between the hardline Khalq and moderate Parcham factions, each of which claimed to represent the "true" PDPA.
Nur Muhammad Taraki was an Afghan revolutionary communist politician, journalist and writer. He was a founding member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) who served as its General Secretary from 1965 to 1979 and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council from 1978 to 1979.
Though Afghanistan has had democratic elections throughout the 20th century, the electoral institutions have varied as changes in the political regime have disrupted political continuity. Elections were last held under the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which was deposed by the Taliban in August 2021. The Taliban dissolved the Elections Commission in December 2021. In May 2022, when asked if the Taliban would hold elections, First Deputy Leader Sirajuddin Haqqani said the question was "premature". All political parties have been banned since August 2023.
The Transitional Islamic State of Afghanistan (TISA), also known as the Afghan Transitional Authority, was the name of the temporary transitional government in Afghanistan put in place by the loya jirga in June 2002. The Transitional Authority succeeded the original Islamic State of Afghanistan, and preceded the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2004–2021).
The Politburo of the Central Committee of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan or Afghan Politburo was the policy-making organ and institution within Afghanistan's political structure when the PDPA Central Committee and the PDPA Congress were not in session. Only one politburos was formally elected; at the 1st Congress, despite this, the membership line-up was altered numerous times during the PDPA's existence.
Mohammad Hasan Sharq is an Afghan former communist politician who was active in the communist government of Afghanistan. Sharq became Chairman of the Council of Ministers – the government of the Soviet-backed Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. He was selected as a compromise candidate after a loya jirga ratified a new constitution in 1987. However, the power of his office was relatively slight compared with the powers held by the presidency.
The Saur Revolution or Sowr Revolution, also known as the April Revolution or the April Coup, was staged on 27–28 April 1978 by the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and overthrew Afghan president Mohammed Daoud Khan, who had himself taken power in the 1973 Afghan coup d'état and established an autocratic one-party system in the country. Daoud and most of his family were executed at the Arg in the capital city of Kabul by Khalqi military officers, after which his supporters were also purged and killed. The successful PDPA uprising resulted in the creation of a socialist Afghan government that was closely aligned with the Soviet Union, with Nur Muhammad Taraki serving as the PDPA's General Secretary of the Revolutionary Council. Saur or Sowr is the Dari-language name for the second month of the Solar Hijri calendar, during which the events took place.
Masuma Esmati-Wardak was an Afghan writer and politician. She was jointly one of the first women to serve in the Afghan parliament and served as Minister of Education.
Mir Akbar Khyber was an Afghan left-wing intellectual and a leader of the Parcham faction of People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). His assassination by an unidentified person or people led to the overthrow of Mohammed Daoud Khan's republic, and to the advent of a socialist regime in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.
Anahita Ratebzad was an Afghan socialist and Marxist-Leninist politician and a member of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) and vice-president of the Revolutionary Council under the leadership of Babrak Karmal. One of the first women elected to the Afghan parliament, Ratebzad was deputy head of state from 1980 to 1986.
The Republic of Afghanistan was the first republic in Afghanistan. It is often called the Daoud Republic, as it was established in July 1973 after General Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan of the Barakzai dynasty alongside senior Barakzai Princes deposed his cousin, King Mohammad Zahir Shah, in a coup d'état. The occcasion for the coup was the 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan, that took power from most members of the royal family, in favour of the centralization under Zahir Shah and his offspring under the tenet of democracy. Daoud Khan was known for his autocracy and attempts to modernize the country with help from both the Soviet Union and the United States, among others.
The 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan was the supreme law of the Kingdom of Afghanistan from 1964 to 1973, when it was annulled following a coup d'état though parts of the constitution were restored by future governments from 2002 to 2004 and from 2021 to 2022. It was drafted by a committee of foreign-educated Afghans, including Sardar Abdul Hakim Ziai and Sardar Abdul Rahim Ziai, appointed for the task by the Afghan King, Mohammad Zahir Shah. The primary goals of the Constitution were to prepare the government and the people for gradual movement toward democracy and socioeconomic modernization. A Loya jirga had debated, modified and approved its innovations, which included a bill of rights for all Afghans, explicitly including women. After public review, the constitution was put into effect in October 1964.
The second Karzai cabinet was the cabinet of Afghanistan that led the government from the re-election of president Hamid Karzai in 2009 until the end of his term in 2014. The cabinet consisted of the president, his two vice-presidents, 18 ministers who received approval from the Afghan Parliament, and 7 acting ministers who have not been approved.
The 1973 Afghan coup d'état, also called by Afghans as the Coup of 26 Saratan and self-proclaimed as the Revolution of 26 Saratan 1352, was led by Army General and prince Mohammad Daoud Khan against his cousin, King Mohammad Zahir Shah, on 17 July 1973, which resulted in the establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan under a one-party system led by Daoud Khan.
Constitutional Assembly elections were held in Afghanistan in 1964. The Assembly produced the 1964 constitution, which introduced women's suffrage.
The Democratic Women's Organisation of Afghanistan (DOAW) (Sazman-e Zanan-e Dimukratik-e Afghanistan) was a women's organisation in Afghanistan, founded in 1965. It was a component of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). It played an significant part in the history of the women's movement in Afghanistan, and replaced the Women's Welfare Association as the dominant organization of the Afghan women's movement during the communist era of the 1970s and 1980s. During the Communist era, it was the spokes organ of the government's radical women's rights policy.
Soraya Parlika (1944-2019) was an Afghan women's rights activist and politician. She served as Chairperson of the Democratic Women's Organisation of Afghanistan (DOAW) in 1978 and in 1979–1981. She served as head of Afghanistan's Red Crescent Society in 1986–1992.
