KABUL – A deal between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and rebel lawmakers on opening the country’s new parliament looked in doubt on Sunday amid disagreement over a special tribunal on electoral fraud.
It had seemed that constitutional crisis in the war-torn country had been averted after lawmakers said late on Saturday that Karzai, under heavy pressure from the West, had dropped a plan to delay parliament’s opening by a month.
But now lawmakers are rejecting a key condition laid down by Karzai for opening it on Wednesday instead — that they recognise a special tribunal on fraud in September’s parliamentary polls. Opposition to the Supreme Court tribunal stems from concerns it is unlawful and could also oust some of their number.
An official source involved in Saturday’s talks, speaking anonymously, said Karzai was unlikely to open parliament this week if the lawmakers did not vow to respect the tribunal. The disagreement between the lawmakers and Karzai is linked to the position of the Pashtuns, Karzai’s traditional power base and Afghanistan’s biggest ethnic group, under-represented in parliament after September’s elections.
The polls were hit by massive fraud — around a quarter of the five million votes cast were thrown out and 24 early winners disqualified. “What’s being said about the opening of the parliament on Wednesday, that’s conditional,” the official source told AFP. Asked whether Karzai will open the parliament Wednesday if MPs fail to accept the tribunal, the source added: “I don’t think so.”
He continuedm “The MPs said that they will accept the outcomes of the legal process that is currently underway. The president sent them to write this down, sign it and bring it back to him. So far, they have not returned.” Meanwhile, lawmaker Molawi Rahman Rahmani said a fresh round of talks between Karzai and MPs was set for Monday. “The same 38 people (who held talks with the president Saturday) are going to talk to Karzai regarding the abolishing of the special tribunal,” he said.
“We are going to inaugurate the parliament on Wednesday” with or without Karzai, Rahmani added, while saying he thought the president would “probably” be there. Highlighting wider tensions caused by the long-running saga, up to 150 losing candidates and supporters from the September elections held a protest in Kabul Sunday against any opening of parliament. They want Karzai to hold recounts in the polls they contested.
One losing candidate, Najibullah Mujahid, told AFP, “This agreement is the result of pressure by drug dealers and foreign embassies. We don’t accept it.” Early on Sunday, around 200 out of 249 members of the Wolesi Jirga – the lower house — gathered in Kabul for talks on the deal with Karzai announced by their representatives Saturday.
The agreement fended off a potential clash with MPs Sunday, the date originally slated for the inauguration, when they had planned to open parliament without Karzai in defiance of his authority. Lawmakers notably agreed that they wanted parliamentary immunity from the special tribunal, according to Ahmad Behzad, an MP active in the negotiations.
“The elected members of the parliament do not recognise any court under the name of special tribunal, which is illegal,” he told AFP. Karzai’s office last week said it was delaying the opening of parliament for a month from the original date. It has not issued any comment since. The announcement came after the head of the special tribunal called for a delay of at least four weeks, warning that some results could be thrown out.
