As Expected, Afghans Pick Karzai
Hamid Karzai, the U.S.-backed leader of the interim Afghan administration, was overwhelmingly elected head of state Thursday by an extraordinary grand council, or loya jirga.
Ismail Qasim Yar, head of the loya jirga commission, announced that Karzai won 1,295 votes. Masooda Jalal, who worked for the United Nations food program and the only female candidate, received 171 votes and Mir Mohammed Mahfoz Nadai received 89.
"We announce him as the president of the coming interim government," Qasimyar said of Karzai.
Karzai received a thunderous applause when the announcement was made placing him at the top of the Afghan administration for the next 18 months.
"I'm very happy," Karzai told the delegates in a speech accepting his nomination. "After 25 years, all the Afghans are gathering under one tent. The refugees are coming back. It is a proud moment for me."
The vote for head of state had been pushed back after delegates argued Wednesday over the presence of warlords at the council, or loya jirga.
Karzai, who was the prohibitive favorite, underscored the massive challenges ahead.
"We need security, we need peace, we need stability, we need an administration in control of all of Afghanistan," Karzai said, speaking in both Pashto and Dari, the country's two main languages.
Karzai also made another pitch for reconciliation - even with at least some of the former ruling Taliban.
"I know many Taliban," he said. "And they were taken over, hijacked by the foreign people. Those people were against Afghanistan. Those who were responsible for the massacres, those who were responsible for the burning" were foreigners.
The Taliban and the foreign fighters - including those affiliated with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network - were ousted in a U.S.-led military campaign following the Sept. 11 attacks. The Taliban's departure was greeted with a massive international effort to help rebuild Afghanistan, shattered by more than two decades of war. Such a global spotlight presents a unique opportunity, Karzai said.
"We want an improved economy. We want the people to trust each other. We want investment in Afghanistan. We want to start a reconstruction program to rebuild the roads, the irrigation channels," he said. "We don't want to miss this chance. This is our best chance for reconstruction."
After the head of state is elected, delegates at the Loya Jirga were to start on the mechanics of how the transitional government will be set up, including the number of Cabinet ministers. The meeting is scheduled to end Sunday.
International peacekeepers have been guarding the area where the grand council is taking place and there have been more than a few tense moments. Early in the week, peacekeepers succeeded in disarming two truckfulls of men with guns on their way into the Loya Jirga.
Thursday, German troops drew their guns and stopped Tribal and Border Affairs Minister Amanullah Zadran in his Landcruiser on the way to the grand council. His bodyguards jumped out and had an angry exchange of words with peacekeepers before being allowed to proceed. Zadran says as a minister of the temporary government, he has been humiliated by the treatment he got at the hands of peacekeepers.
Many delegates believe the United States and other powerbrokers have cut deals circumventing the loya jirga process. Former monarch Mohammad Zaher Shah and ex-president Burhanuddin Rabbani withdrew from candidacy for head of state and threw their support behind the U.S.-backed Karzai, causing consternation among many delegates.
"Everything seems to have been decided. But we don't need anyone to decide for us," delegate Asella Wardak said Wednesday. "We have had enough of foreign interference in our country."
Some delegates questioned the participation of warlords and former commanders, once hailed as heroes but now reviled for having plunged the country into more war after they drove out Soviet invaders in 1989.
Former guerrilla commanders rose to defend those who they said had waged a holy war against the Soviets.
"We should distinguish between mujahedeen (holy warriors) and a gunman," said former guerrilla leader Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, whose Ittehad-e-Islami party was notorious for attacking Hazara Shiite Muslims after the Soviets were gone. "These people who had guns defeated the Russians. This loya jirga is a result of their actions."
Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah denied speculation that the withdrawals of the former king and Rabbani were the result of heavy-handed U.S. interference to ensure balanced ethnic composition of the new government.
However, Michael Pohly, an observer from Germany, said Zaher Shah had been forced to exclude himself, and warned that sidelining the former monarch could backfire if other ethnic Pashtuns don't feel represented by the next administration.
Though Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, the interim administration is dominated by ethnic Tajiks, whose northern alliance forces moved into Kabul after the Taliban fled U.S.-led bombing.