Afghan Rebel Assembly Elects Government in Exile

After two weeks of bitter infighting between moderates and fundamentalists, an assembly of Afghan guerrillas Thursday elected a government in exile.

The election came as an anticlimax that delegates described as a popularity contest among old guard political leaders of the moujahedeen , as the Islamic rebel movement is called.

The fundamentalist-controlled Afghan News Agency announced Thursday night that Sibghatullah Mojaddidi, a moderate, had been elected to the figurehead post of president and that Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a Saudi Arabia-backed fundamentalist, had been named to the more powerful position of prime minister.

Mojaddidi heads the Jibbeh Nijat-i-Milli, or National Liberation Front, rebel group, and Sayyaf heads the Ittihad-i-Islami, or Islamic Unity, group.

The only candidates were the leaders of each of the seven political parties in the rebel alliance. The five parties whose leaders missed getting one of the top two jobs were each awarded three Cabinet posts.

Rebel leaders have promised that the government will soon move into Afghanistan and, in time, take over in place of the Soviet-backed regime of President Najibullah, at least until national elections can be held.

The voting constituted rejection of an unpopular fundamentalist government that had been proposed by the guerrillas’ political leaders, a sign of independence that Western diplomats said helped the assembly regain some of the credibility it had lost in several days of bickering.

It was not clear whether the rebels’ staunchest supporters--among them the United States, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran--will recognize the rebel government. Western diplomats and independent analysts have said that its success will depend on whether it is recognized officially by other countries.

International recognition, they say, would make the government a powerful psychological tool in the effort to dislodge Najibullah, whose armed forces still control Kabul, the Afghan capital, and other important cities.

Many of the delegates to the assembly, or shura , as it is called, said the assembly had been discredited long before the voting. Several even urged that the government not be recognized because it does not represent the majority of Afghanistan’s 9 million inhabitants and the 5 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran.

The biggest blow to the assembly’s credibility came from within the seven-party rebel alliance, the Pakistan-based umbrella group dominated by fundamentalists that organized and ran the shura . The alliance has been used throughout the guerrillas’ nine-year war as a channel for arms and other supplies for the guerrilla commanders in the field.

Last Saturday, the alliance’s news agency issued a false announcement that the shura had elected a government headed by fundamentalist Ahmad Shah. Actually, there had been no vote, and the announcement was interpreted by many delegates as an attempt by the fundamentalists to “hijack” the election.

The announcement triggered a backlash among moderates and religious leaders, who forced the seven party leaders to give the delegates more authority in choosing a government.

One of the religious leaders, Mullah Nasim, from the Afghan province of Helmund, declared to the shura , “In Islam, it is acceptable to eat spoiled or rotten meat in times of war, but we have not yet reached the stage where we must accept the Ahmad Shah government.”

The seven party leaders then backed down and formed a 14-man committee, made up of two delegates from each party. This led to Thursday’s popularity poll, in which the largest vote-getter was named president and the runner-up was named prime minister.

Most of the 420 delegates stayed on at the shura after Saturday’s announcement, and they voted Thursday. But at least 100 others, among them representatives of the 2 million refugees and rebels based in Iran, were either barred from the voting or had left in disgust.