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 Afghanistanportal |
Parliamentary elections were held in Afghanistan alongside provincial elections on 18 September 2005. Former warlords and their followers gained the majority of seats in both the lower house and the provincial council (which elects the members of the upper house). Women won 28% of the seats in the lower house, six more than the 25% guaranteed in the 2004 constitution.
Approximately twelve million voters were eligible to vote for the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of parliament, and 34 provincial councils. The 2,707 parliamentary candidates (328 female, 2,379 male) are all independent; parties are not recognized by law and lists do not exist. This has been the subject of criticism: relatively unknown people could win a seat as easily as very popular candidates. It has also made it considerably difficult for the population to decide whom to vote for, even though some candidates may be a member of or (financially) backed by a political party.
Another source of criticism is the use of the single, non-transferable vote in multi-member constituencies, particularly in the absence of party lists. In other words, each province elects a number of members, but each voter can vote for only one candidate. This runs the risk of fragmenting the vote to the point where candidates can be elected virtually by chance. Early returns confirmed this fear. For example, in Farah Province, one of the first provinces to declare its results, 46 candidates competed for five seats. No candidate polled more than 11%, and four of the five elected candidates polled less than 8%. In Kabul, which had 33 seats available, most of the candidates elected received well under 1% while over 30% of the votes cast went to three candidates, with the leading candidate receiving over 25 times the vote of the candidate elected with the lowest vote share, and several elected candidates receiving less than 2000 votes. [1] This creates the risk of a legislature in which the majority of members have little or no legitimacy.
Because a sizable percentage of the Afghan population is unable to read and write, all candidates had an icon as well. Those icons were included on the lists. These included, but were not limited to, pictures of footballs, cars or different sorts of flowers. Because there were not enough different icons, some candidates had multiple icons as their symbol: two or three footballs behind each other, like Gulallay Habib (page 16 of the Kabul parliament candidate list). For example, the candidate list for the Nuristan section of the parliament looked like this. Candidates were not able to choose the icons themselves: instead, the electoral committee chose them. Forty-five candidates were refused because of connections with armed groups or for not giving up their government jobs.
People vote for a candidate in their own province. Each province has a number of representatives in parliament, depending on the population. The largest province by population, Kabul, has 33 seats (390 candidates, 50 female, 340 male), whereas the small ones like Nuristan, Nimruz and Panjshir, have only two.
The total number of candidates for the provincial councils was 3,025. Each province, except Oruzgan, had women running for seats in the provincial council. Female candidates ran for parliament in all districts. District council elections, originally also scheduled for the same date, were not held in 2005 (district numbers, boundaries and population figures had to be determined first).
These were the first parliamentary elections in Afghanistan in 33 years: after communist rule, civil war and Taliban rule, the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban regime and after the presidential elections in 2004, parliamentary elections were organized in 2005. Originally, according to the 2001 Bonn agreement, the elections were to be held in June 2004. However, due to the security situation, Hamid Karzai (then interim President, now President of Afghanistan) moved the elections more than a year to the later date. Security was still an issue, as Taliban and others threatened to disrupt the elections violently. Several candidates were killed before polling.
A quarter of the seats - 68 seats - in the parliament are reserved for women, as well as 10 seats for the Kuchi community. Those are minimum numbers: there is no maximum for the number of seats for those groups. The 102 members of the Meshrano Jirga, the upper house, are indirectly elected by the provincial councils.
During the 2009 Afghan elections, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald E. Neumann recalled that the "indelible" ink used in the 2005 election to prevent people from voting more than once had turned out to be washable after all. [2] The same problem had also occurred in the 2004 presidential elections, and was repeated again in the 2009 elections. [3]
Turnout was estimated at 50%, substantially lower than at the presidential election in October 2004. This is blamed on the lack of identifiable party lists as a result of Afghanistan's new electoral law, which left voters in many cases unclear on who they were voting for. Turnout was highest in the Turkmen, Uzbek and the Tajik populated provinces in the north - generally over 60% - and 50% in some of the Pashtun southeastern areas where the Taliban insurgency is strongest. Turnout was also surprisingly low (34%) in the capital Kabul, which is dominated by Tajiks.
The first results were declared on 9 October, with final results being delayed by accusations of fraud, and were finally announced on 12 November. Only a minority of candidates contested the election on a party ticket, whilst a number of elected MPs were loosely associated with certain parties.
The government of Afghanistan is currently disputed following the effective collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during the fall of Kabul to Taliban forces on 15 August 2021 and the subsequent re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which now exercises de facto control over most of the country. On 7 September 2021 the Taliban officials in de facto control of most of Afghanistan announced a new interim government headed by Mullah Mohammad Hassan Akhund as Prime Minister. The government is subject to the oversight of the Taliban's Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada. As of 8 September 2021, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has not yet been formally recognized as the de jure government of Afghanistan by any other country. The representatives appointed by the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan continue to represent the country at the United Nations. These representatives have refused to recognize the Taliban appointed government and have urged other countries to not recognize this government either.
The 2004 Constitution of Afghanistan was the supreme law of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, which lasted from 2004 to 2021. It served as the legal framework between the Afghan government and the Afghan citizens. Although Afghanistan was made a state in 1747 by Ahmad Shah Durrani, the earliest Afghan constitutional movement began during the reign of Emir Abdur Rahman Khan in the 1890s followed by the drafting in 1922 of a constitution. The 1964 Constitution of Afghanistan transformed Afghanistan into a modern democracy.
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 House of Elders or Mesherano Jirga, was the upper house of the bicameral National Assembly of Afghanistan, alongside the lower House of the People. It was effectively dissolved when the Taliban seized power on 15 August 2021. The Taliban did not include the House of Elders and several other agencies of the former government in its first national budget in May 2022. Government spokesman Innamullah Samangani said that due to the financial crisis, only active agencies were included in the budget, and the excluded ones had been dissolved, but noted they could be brought back "if needed."
The National Assembly, also known as the Parliament of Afghanistan or simply as the Afghan Parliament, was the legislature of Afghanistan in various forms from the monarchy, republican, communist and liberal democratic periods between 1931 and 2021. It was a bicameral body, comprising two chambers:
Dr. Rangin Dadfar Spanta is a politician in Afghanistan who last served as National Security Advisor of President Hamid Karzai. Prior to that he served as Foreign Minister from April 2006 to January 2010.
Malalai Shinwari is a member of the Wolesi Jirga for Kabul Province, Afghanistan. Shinwari was a journalist prior to running for office.
Parliamentary elections were held in Afghanistan on 18 September 2010 to elect members of the House of the People. The Afghan Independent Election Commission - established in accordance with the article 156 of the Constitution of Afghanistan for the purpose of organizing and supervising all elections in the country - postponed the poll from its original date of 22 May to September 18.
The Karzai administration was the government of Afghanistan under President Hamid Karzai, who became the head of state of Afghanistan in December 2001 after the Taliban government was overthrown. Karzai was appointed at the 2002 Loya Jirga as the Interim President of the Afghan Transitional Administration. After the 2004 Afghan presidential election, he became the President of Afghanistan.
Mohammad Daoud Sultanzoy, is an Afghan politician, pilot and television presenter who served as Mayor of Kabul from 2020 to 2021; the Fall of Kabul (2021) occurred during his incumbency. He was previously elected to represent Ghazni Province in Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of its National Legislature, in 2005. He is a Pashtun from the Ghilzai tribe. He is the only politician ever to serve under three heads of state leaders, Ghani and Saleh for Islamic Republic, and Akhundzada for Islamic Emirate (Taliban).
Habibullah Jan was an Afghan warlord who was elected to represent Kandahar Province in Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of its National Legislature, in 2005. He was a member of the Alizai tribe. He sat on the "Kandahar Security Shura". He was a "sometimes rival of [President] Karzai", according to a report prepared at the Navy Postgraduate School. Karzai created the Zhari District out of parts of Maywand and Panjwai districts in 2004 as reward for Habibullah Jan helping defeat the Taliban in Kandahar.
Mohammad Arif Noorzai was a former minister of Border and Tribe Affairs for Afghanistan. He was elected to represent Kandahar Province in Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of its National Legislature, in 2005. He is the first deputy speaker of Afghanistan Wolesi Jirga and his current position is the Advisor of President Hamid Karzai for security and tribal affairs He is a member of the Pashtun ethnic group, and the Noorzai tribe. A report on Kandahar prepared at the Navy Postgraduate School stated he is first deputy speaker, and that he is related to President Hamid Karzai through marriage, and that he is a high school graduate.
Fauzia Gailani was elected to represent Herat Province in Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of its National Legislature, in 2005. She won almost 16,885 votes, more than any other candidate in Herat.
Mawlawi Shahzada Shahid was elected to represent Kunar Province in Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of its National Legislature, in 2005.
Sahira Sharif is an Afghan politician who was elected to represent Khost Province in Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of its National Legislature, in 2005.
Hasham Watanwal a representative for Uruzgan Province to Afghanistan's national legislature, the Wolesi Jirga, until he was assassinated on July 17, 2011.
The National Solidarity Party of Afghanistan or some other places written as National Unity Party of Afghanistan is a political party representing the Afghanistan's Ismaili Shia minority, largely found in Kabul Province, Baghlan Province, Bamyan Province, Balkh Province and Badakhshan province. As recently as 2020 it was one of 84 political parties registered with the Afghan Ministry of Justice, and headed by Sayed Mansur Naderi.
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.
Abbas Noyan is an ethnic Hazara politician. He is Afghanistan's ambassador to Sweden, representing the Islamic Republic that fell in August 2021 to the Taliban. Previously he served as a Member of Parliament to Wolesi Jirga, the lower house, representing the people of Kabul province from 2005 to 2010. In 2005, he ranked seventh among candidates from Kabul province, quickly rising to one of the most prominent and active representatives at the Wolesi Jirga. During his tenure, he advocated for women's rights, education for all, a responsive and accountable government, and a strong rule of law. Noyan has worked across ethnic and sectarian divides in representing his constituents, and sought to bridge those divides by establishing a multi-ethnic political party.
Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi is an Uzbek legislator and politician from Afghanistan.
Also in the other part of session Mirwis Yasini first deputy of WJ presented the reports of the yesterday meeting with the country's president about negotiation with Afghan Taliban and residence areas bombards, the non Consonance of foreign forces attacks with government organs and the lack of perspicuous systems justice and criminals penalty.[ dead link ]
Her life started out much like those of other Herat women. At age 13, while she still played with dolls, she was forced to marry a man who was 15 years older. She was his second wife. But after moving to Iran during Afghanistan's wars, Gailani fell in love with sports. She started exercising and worked at a gym for women. When her family moved back to Herat after the Taliban fell, she brought two carloads of equipment to start gyms for women in Herat.
Malalai Shinwari, who came in first among Kabul's female candidates, said threats and intimidation have increased since her apparent victory. She blames the armed commanders who also appear to have won seats in the parliament with instigating the violence in their own political interests.
