Karzai Supporters May Dominate Afghanistan’s New Parliament

Supporters of Afghan President Hamid Karzai appeared to have won a majority of seats in the country’s September parliamentary election, observers said Saturday, as final results were announced amid continued violence.

The poll was hailed as a success in the country’s slow march toward democracy, although its legitimacy has been undermined by suspected ballot-box stuffing that led to the dismissal of 50 election workers. There is also alarm that more than half of the winners are former regional strongmen.

Nearly all winning candidates ran as independents, making it difficult to determine where power will lie in the 249-seat legislature. But Western diplomats and other political analysts said it appeared that supporters of the U.S.-backed Karzai dominate.

“The government has the support of more than 50% in the parliament,” said Ali Amiri, a respected political analyst who writes on Afghan affairs. “There are some small opposition groups, but nothing big enough to challenge Karzai.”

The parliamentary poll was seen as the final formal step toward Afghanistan’s having a representative government after a quarter of a century of war that left more than 1 million people dead. The $159-million election was funded mainly by the United States and other Western countries.

Many had hoped the election would sideline Taliban rebels, but there has been no sign of a letup in the insurgency.

On Saturday, militants pulled a deputy provincial governor from his car and fatally shot him. Later, a pair of insurgents killed a former district chief as he prayed in a mosque. Three police officers also were killed Saturday.

The country’s death toll from fighting neared 1,500 for the year, the deadliest since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001. This year’s death toll includes 86 U.S. troops.

A number of Karzai’s supporters who won election have violent pasts, including Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful militia leader accused of war crimes by Human Rights Watch, and Abdul Salaam Rocketi, a former Taliban commander who has reconciled with the government.

Another winner was the former Taliban leader who oversaw the destruction of two massive 1,500-year-old Buddha statues during the fundamentalists’ reign.

Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said more than half of the winners are regional strongmen, prompting fear that they will block efforts to reform government and bring to justice those responsible for years of bloodshed.

Despite such concerns, the election was welcomed by many, especially women, who have never had a strong voice in Afghan politics.

A quarter of the parliamentary seats are reserved for women, and 68 were named lawmakers.

“The women in parliament will be a voice for the half of this country who have been silent for so long,” said Safia Siddiqi, a winning candidate from the eastern city of Jalalabad.

Parliament is expected to convene in the third week of December, Karzai’s spokesman, Karim Rahimi, said last week.