Hamid Karzai became the first President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan during nationwide elections held in October Legislative elections were held in September In addition to appointing the vice presidents, the president of Afghanistan also has the power to appoint cabinet ministers, the attorney general, the central banker, a national security advisor, ambassadors, judges, and certain members of the upper house of the National Assembly.
The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and with the approval of the National Assembly, has the power to declare war or a state of emergency. The president and his administration have the power to propose legislation in the National Assembly.
All laws in Afghanistan must be approved by the National Assembly and endorsed by the president, and the president has the power to veto any laws approved by the legislature. If it is approved by the Wolesi Jirga, then it is sent onto the Meshrano Jirga for approval. If the Meshrano Jirga rejects the proposed law, a two-thirds majority in the Wolesi Jirga can override it.
Furthermore, a two-thirds majority in the Wolesi Jirga can also override a presidential veto. Massoud is a member of Jamiat-e Islami or the Islamic Society, the Tajik-dominated mujahideen faction now political party led by former president Burhanuddin Rabbani. Massoud is also a member of the United National Front, a coalition of parties also led by Rabbani that is composed of many former Northern Alliance leaders. President Karzai has dropped Zia Massoud from his reelection ticket.
Hezb-e Wahdat was founded in under the patronage of Iran as a combination of several Shia Hazara factions that resisted the Soviets and later, the Taliban. An ethnic Pashtun, Wardak was a former member of the Afghan Army and a prominent leader in the anti-Soviet mujahideen resistance. His ministry is mainly tasked with policing and law order.
Ghulam Jailani Popal is the Director General of the Independent Directorate of Local Governance, a powerful body inside the Presidential Palace in charge of appointing local authorities such as governors and district chief.
He was a long time intelligence aide to the assassinated anti-Taliban resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. Atta Mohammad Nour is the powerful governor of the northern province of Balkh. A former commander in the Northern Alliance, Nour has successfully consolidated power in Balkh. Haji Mohammad Muhaqiq is a member of the Afghan parliament and a powerful ethnic Hazara leader who garnerd over ten percent of votes in the Presidential Elections.
He has declared support for Hamid Karzai in the upcoming elections in August Gul Agha Sherzai is the powerful governor of Nangrahar povince. Born in Kandahar, Sherzai was the first post-Taliban governor of that province. Despite joining the government in Kabul, Ismail Khan maintains a powerful presence in his home province of Herat and remains the strongest man in the West of the country.
International donors have helping the formal Afghan judicial system expand its capacity and competence, particularly in urban areas. Since July , the U. There is broad agreement among outside observers that the Afghan judicial system remains weak and its independence is questionable. Judges and prosecutors are frequent targets of assassination, particular in insecure areas of Afghanistan.
And justice is often subjective, with powerful factions and wealthy individuals often able to obtain the release from jail or non-prosecution of their members and supporters.
The Afghan government has completed few of the benchmarks for judicial reform agreed at several major conferences including the July 20, , Kabul conference and the July conference in Japan that resulted in a "Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework.
Some of the progress and continued difficulties are discussed below:. The informal justice sector consists of local, informal consultative mechanisms shuras , jirgas that often meet at the village level to adjudicate disputes. In the informal sector, traditional practices of dispute resolution to prevail, including the traditional Pashtun code of conduct known as Pashtunwali. Some of these customs include traditional forms of apology " nanawati " and " shamana " and compensation for wrongs.
While much of the informal justice system consists of shuras and jirgas , there is also a history of Islamic courts operating in some provinces. Some of these courts predate the accession of the Taliban in Some experts believe the informal Islamic court system could provide a stabilizing effect after by attracting the trust of Afghans and drawing them away from informal justice mechanisms run by Taliban insurgents. International observers criticize the informal justice sector because it is heavily dominated by males.
For example, some disputes, including over debts or other financial obligations, are resolved by families' offering to make young girls available to marry older men from the family that is the counter-party to the dispute. This practice is known as baad. Some informal justice shuras take place in Taliban-controlled territory, and some Afghans may prefer Taliban-run shuras when doing so means they will be judged by members of their own tribe or tribal confederation.
One concern has been how deeply the international community should become involved in the informal justice sector. USAID has implemented programs to link the formal and informal justice sector. As part of a program begun in , USAID has assisted local shuras informal justice sector in four districts to establish a system to transmit their judicial rulings, in writing, to the district government.
However, international involvement in the informal justice sector is likely to wane as donor countries reduce their level of effort in Afghanistan. An informal power structure exists outside the formal governing institutions—consisting of locally popular faction leaders with armed militia forces and traditional decisionmaking mechanisms.
Some observers refer to such figures as "warlords. During his presidency, Karzai opted to work relatively amicably with the informal power structure, maintaining that confronting faction leaders outright would cause their followers to rebel.
Many faction leaders operate in both spheres—holding official governing positions while also exercising informal influence in their home provinces.
Engagement of faction leaders has often caused resentment among civil society activists and other Afghan modernizers. A number of faction leaders own or have investments in Afghan security or other firms that have won business from U. Some question whether Ghani will follow Karzai's policies of engaging faction leaders. However, recognizing the ability of the faction leaders to mobilize not only militias but also voters, Ghani's first vice president is one of the most prominent and controversial faction leaders: Abdul Rashid Dostam.
Some argue that U. Local security initiatives, including the Afghan Local Police Program and the Critical Infrastructure Police, have created new security organs that sometimes operate outside the full control of central security authority. On the other hand, Northern Alliance leaders maintain that the international community's early dismantling of local power structures in favor of a monopoly of central government control over armed force—which often targeted Northern Alliance militias for demobilization—caused the security deterioration in In February , both houses of parliament passed a law officially titled the National Reconciliation, General Amnesty, and National Stability Law giving amnesty to faction leaders and others who committed abuses during Afghanistan's past wars.
In December , the Afghan government published an amended version of the law—containing a provision giving victims the right to seek redress for abuses—in the official gazette a process known as "gazetting" , giving it the force of law.
The informal power structure often uses decisionmaking processes that do not approximate Western-style democracy but yet have participatory and representative elements. Meetings convened or attended by designated notables— shuras or jirgas —are key mechanisms for making or endorsing authoritative decisions or dispensing justice.
Some see the traditional patterns of decision making as competing with and detracting from the development of the post-Taliban formal power structure—a structure that, with Western guidance, has generally tried to meet international standards of democratic governance. At the national level, one traditional mechanism has carried over into the post-Taliban governing structure.
The convening of a loya jirga , an assembly usually consisting of about 1, delegates from all over Afghanistan, has been used on several occasions. The Afghan constitution provides for a constitutional loya jirga as the highest decisionmaking body, superseding government decisions and even elections, and the constitution specifies the institutions that must be represented at the constitutional loya jirga. If a constitutional jirga cannot be held or is blocked, a traditional loya jirga can be convened by the president to discuss major issues, although it cannot render binding decisions.
In the post-Taliban period, traditional loya jirgas have been convened to endorse Karzai's leadership, to adopt a constitution, and to discuss a long-term defense relationship with the United States.
A special loya jirga , called a peace jirga , was held on June , , to review government plans to offer incentives for insurgent fighters to end their armed struggle and rejoin society. Another loya jirga was held during November , , to endorse proposed Afghan government conditions on a Strategic Partnership Agreement between Afghanistan and the United States which subsequently was signed.
As noted above, the first vice president during Karzai's second term, Muhammad Fahim, died of natural causes on March 9, His passing removed from the scene a figure who has served as a significant bridge between Karzai and the Northern Alliance. His choice as vice president in was criticized by human rights and other groups. During , he reportedly withheld turning over some heavy weapons to U. He allegedly was involved in facilitating narcotics trafficking in northern Afghanistan, according to a New York Times story of August 27, Other allegations suggest he engineered property confiscations and other benefits to feed his and his faction's business interests.
In September , Fahim said that Northern Alliance fighters should reorganize after if Afghan forces are unable to fend off the Taliban. His passing leaves the Northern Alliance without an obvious figure to command an overarching Alliance militia, should it choose to revive one. Some assert that ex-Interior Minister Bismillah Khan could serve that function.
Prominent Uzbek figure Abdul Rashid Dostam, who is currently First Vice President, heads a political faction still widely referred to as Junbush Melli Islami Afghanistan National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan even though it no longer operates formally under that name.
A former Communist ally of the Soviet occupying forces, Dostam joined the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, bringing with him numerous armed partisans from his redoubt in northern Afghanistan Jowzjan, Faryab, Balkh, and Sar-i-Pol provinces. He has been widely accused of human rights abuses of political opponents, but he is also known for lack of emphasis on Islam and support for Western-style values, including alcohol consumption and promotion of women.
To try to reduce his influence in the north, in Karzai appointed him to the post of chief military adviser—a largely ceremonial post. Dostam's support for Karzai in the election was key to Karzai's victory because of Dostam's large following, and he apparently attracted many Uzbek votes to Ghani's candidacy as well. Fueling concerns about Dostam's vice presidency is the fact that he has had numerous feuds and altercations with other Afghan figures.
On February 4, , Afghan police surrounded Dostam's villa in Kabul in response to reports that he attacked an ethnic Turkmen figure who had broken with him. Dostam temporarily went into exile in Turkey in exchange for the dropping of the charges. Dostam and his allies alleged that the prosecution was a Karzai effort to favor Karzai's relatives' firm, Watan Group, which is the partner of CNPC on the project. In mid-June , about 50 of Dostam's armed aides reportedly clashed with those of the deputy leader of Junbush Melli , the governor of Jowzjan Province, for refusing Dostam's plan to revive an Uzbek militia.
Dostam's reputation is further clouded by alleged past war crimes. On July 11, , the New York Times reported that allegations that Dostam had caused the death of several hundred Taliban prisoners during the major combat phase of OEF late were not investigated by the Bush Administration. President Obama said any allegations of violations of laws of war need to be investigated, responding to assertions that there was no investigation of the Dasht-e-Laili massacre because Dostam was a U.
Atta Mohammad Noor, another ethnic Tajik former mujahedin commander and Northern Alliance figure, has been the governor of Balkh Province since The capital of that province is the vibrant city of Mazar-e-Sharif, since Noor openly endorsed Dr.
Abdullah in the presidential election and threatened to unleash his militia followers to help Abdullah seize power unless the election was decided in Abdullah's favor. Noor ceased any additional threats after the September 21 signing of the power-sharing agreement between Ghani and Abdullah.
As a governor, Noor has kept Balkh Province secure, allowing Mazar-e-Sharif to become a major trading hub. Mazar-e-Sharif is one of the four cities transitioned to Afghan security leadership in June His critics say that Noor exemplifies a local potentate, brokering local security and business arrangements that enrich Noor and his allies while ensuring stability and prosperity. Another faction leader is Mohammad Mohaqiq, a Hazara leader.
The party received support from Iran. Mohaqiq, a member of the lower house of parliament, was the apparent target of an assassination attempt in mid-June Mohaqiq was on Dr. Abdullah's slate in the presidential election and strongly echoed Abdullah's accusations that Ghani won the election largely through systematic fraud.
Another Northern Alliance strongman that Karzai has sought to both engage and weaken is prominent Tajik political leader and former Herat Governor Ismail Khan. Khan played a key role in the March killing of 50 Soviet advisors in western Afghanistan. Then a captain in the Afghan military, the attack by military personnel loyal to Khan marked the start of the mujahedin uprising that triggered the December Soviet invasion.
In , he was captured and imprisoned by the Taliban but escaped. Khan is a religious conservative despite his Tajik ethnicity, and has generally sought to limit women's rights and influence in Herat province.
Often referred to as "Emir" ruler of the Herat area, Khan remains influential in western Afghanistan. Khan apparently helped Karzai win Herat Province in the election and, recognizing Khan's ability to attract votes, Abdi Rab Rasoul Sayyaf put Khan on his ticket for the presidential elections. During the campaign period, Khan was uninjured in an attack on his motorcade in Herat.
A bombing there also missed him. Khan has been minister of energy and water since —Karzai appointed him at that time in part to take him away from his political base in the west. Since , Khan also has served on the High Peace Council, the body overseeing reconciliation with Taliban leaders. Anticipating greater Taliban strength after the international forces draw down at the end of , Khan rallied thousands of his followers in the desert outside Herat, calling on them to reactivate their networks to prepare for possible eventual battle with the Taliban.
As has Dostam, Khan reportedly has begun enlisting new recruits for a reviving militia force. Karzai's office criticized the gathering and Khan's efforts as contrary to government policy. One of the most influential Pashtun tribal leaders in southern Afghanistan is Sher Mohammad Akhunzadeh. A close associate of Karzai when they were in exile in Quetta, Pakistan, during Taliban rule, Karzai appointed him governor of Akhunzadeh's home province of Helmand when the Taliban government fell in late Akhunzadeh controls many loyalists in Helmand who helped international forces secure the province during his governorship.
However, his followers reportedly exercised power arbitrarily and engaged in illicit economic activity, contributing to Britain's demand that he be removed as a condition of Britain taking security control of Helmand in Karzai reluctantly acceded to the demand.
Akhunzadeh promoted Karzai's reelection in Helmand Province in the election and in prevailed on Karzai to remove then Helmand governor Ghulab Mangal, who is from eastern Afghanistan, despite widespread U. Akhunzadeh's relationship with Ghani, if any, is not known precisely. Even though he is no longer president, Karzai and his clan will likely still be influential because of their significant contacts in the clan's home province of Qandahar.
The province has about 2 million people, of whom about half live in Qandahar city. The Karzai clan has consistently overshadowed and marginalized the governors of the province, including the current governor, Tooryalai Wesa, a Canadian-Afghan academic appointed in late The clan remains influential despite losses. He was chair of the Qandahar provincial council, a post with relatively limited formal power, but he was more powerful than any appointed governor of Qandahar and constituents and interest groups sought his interventions on their behalf.
Qandahar governance suffered an additional blow in July when the appointed mayor of Qandahar city, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, was assassinated. Another Karzai relative, Heshmat Karzai, was assassinated at his home in July by a visitor for unspecified reasons. Shah Wali at first lacked the acumen and clout of Ahmad Wali, but reports since mid say he has become highly influential, while also becoming involved in significant business dealings that cast aspersions on the Karzai family.
Also active is another Karzai brother, Qayyum, who has served in the National Assembly. And, even though he remains in Kabul after leaving office, Hamid Karzai remains highly influential in Qandahar province because of his long term as president and his ability to broker resolutions of many national factional disputes.
Another power center is Qandahar's police chief, Colonel Abdul Razziq. He is perceived as having increasing weight, as well as a reputation for corruption, including siphoning off customs revenues at the key Spin Boldak crossing from Pakistan. He was appointed to his current post in March after his predecessor was killed in an insurgent attack. Another factor in Qandahar is likely to be the resignation of Ghul Agha Shirzai as governor of the eastern province of Nangarhar.
He is a Pashtun from the powerful Barakzai clan based in Qandahar Province, and he has returned to the province since resigning in late to prepare to run for president. He opted not to run against Karzai in the election, and fared poorly in the April 5, , first round of the most recent presidential election.
In Nangarhar, Shirzai was viewed as an interloper, but he exercised relatively effective leadership. His supporters say he used much of the funds—deposited in an account called the "Shirzai Fund"—for the benefit of the province, not trusting that funds remitted to Kabul would be spent in the province. Some allege that he intervened in the province's judicial process to win freedom for Taliban suspects with whom he might have commercial ties.
Shirzai denies the allegations. The fall of the Taliban and international intervention has enabled the emergence of new centers of influence with the potential to sustain modernization. Civil society activists and "independents" in the National Assembly and other institutions are a growing force in Afghan politics.
Activists in these groups are familiar with and have easy access to media outlets. Independent newspapers, such as Eight Sobh 8 AM , have been established to advocate for transparent government.
The December 5, , Bonn conference was preceded by meetings December , , in Bonn of Afghan civil society activists that were intended to help assess the progress of Afghan governance and highlight the role of civil society in governance. On the other hand, civil society activists continue to struggle against traditional faction leaders—many of whom often use their armed supporters to intimidate civil society activists or media outlets that criticize them.
Among the most outspoken civil society activists in the parliament, female activist Malalai Joya Farah Province was a leading critic of war-era faction leaders. Fawzia Koofi, at one time a deputy lower house speaker, remains in the Assembly and is an outspoken leader on Afghan women's rights.
Others prominent women's activists include Fauzia Gailani, who did not win re-election to parliament in ; Shukria Barekzai, chairwoman of the lower house Defense Committee during ; and Palwasha Hassan. Ramazan Bashardost, a former Karzai minister, champions parliamentary powers and has highlighted official corruption. He ran for president in the elections on an anti-corruption platform and drew an unexpectedly large amount of votes. Bashardost was returned to parliament in the September election.
Ahmad Nadery, formerly a deputy chairman of the AIHRC, was fired from that post by Karzai for his criticism of governmental corruption; Nadery went on to found the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan, a key non-governmental election watchdog organization.
Elections are widely considered a key harbinger of the durability and extent of Afghanistan's political development and a barometer for measuring the effects of factional, political, ethnic, and sectarian rivalries. The presidential and provincial elections were the first post-Taliban elections run by the Afghan government through its Afghanistan Independent Electoral Commission IEC. Both it and the September National Assembly elections were highly flawed and the international community worked with Afghan leaders to reduce such flaws in the presidential and provincial election process.
The process was initially deemed less fraud-plagued than in or , but ethnic and political disputes, as well as accusations of fraud, produced yet another election-related crisis. Political parties have not developed as a major feature in post-Taliban Afghanistan. During the era of the Soviet occupation and the civil war, many of the mujahedin Islamic insurgent fighters parties were based on ethnicities, loyal to major ethnic and factional commanders, and supported by outside powers—factors that have contributed to a popular aversion to formal political parties.
Since , the party formation has strengthened somewhat but still not to the point where parties are the main organizing institution for political participation. Many hoped that post-Taliban Afghanistan would produce secular, pan-ethnic democratic parties. That process has been halting. From the fall of the Taliban until , political parties were established, but most of these parties were small and were formed by and centered on specific personalities or ethnicities, rather than offering clear ideological platforms.
Ethnic-based parties do not portray themselves as such because Article 35 of the Afghan constitution bans parties based on ethnicity or religious sect.
A law required all parties to re-register by demonstrating their support with 10, signatures spanning at least 22 provinces. That limited the number of parties registered before the September 18, , parliamentary election to only five, and only 31 out of the 2, candidates ran as representing a particular political party in that election.
A July 11, , regulation eased registration rules somewhat by requiring parties to have offices in at least 20 provinces to register, and 56 parties are registered.
Some assert that the development of idea-based parties has been hindered by the Single, Non-Transferable Vote SNTV system that limits the ability of parties to determine those candidates that are elected to parliamentary seats.
Karzai never formed a party, nor has Ghani. However, many Karzai aides and supporters were from the moderate faction of Hizb-e-Islam i. The party, composed almost totally of ethnic Pashtuns, is the only one of the mujahedin parties that is formally registered. Committed to working within the political system, it is led by Minister of Economy Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal, whose leadership was reaffirmed at a party conference in October Jamiat-Islami discussed above , and the Uzbek group Junbush Melli Islami Afghanistan , no longer operate formally, although many of their supporters affiliate informally and might continue to use those party names.
Since , Abdullah has distanced himself from Jamiat Islami and formed several parties and coalitions in an effort to broaden his appeal beyond the Tajik community. Some of his rivals in the Tajik community have formed separate parties or have joined multi-ethnic parties focused on increasing government accountability.
Another party, the Coalition for Reform and Development, was formed in early to try to ensure that the elections would be fair. The first election for president was held on October 9, Hamid Karzai won in the first round With the National Assembly not yet established, he ruled by decree during Despite surrounding himself with Pashtuns in his inner circle, Karzai was credited for including ethnic and political factions in high government positions.
Ahmad Zia Masoud, brother of slain Northern Alliance supreme military commander Ahmad Shah Masoud, served as first vice president during Karzai's first elected term. Elections to establish the National Assembly and the provincial councils were held on September 18, The number of representatives varied by province, ranging from two Panjshir Province to 33 Kabul Province. The National Assembly was first inaugurated on December 19, The August 20, , presidential election was plagued by assertions of a lack of credibility of the Independent Election Commission IEC , whose commissioners were selected by and politically close to Karzai.
A separate U. The IEC set an August 20, , election date—somewhat later than the April 21, , date mandated by Article 61 of the Constitution to allow at least 30 days before Karzai's term expired on May 22, Registration during added about 4. However, there were widespread reports of registration fraud, including the selling of registration cards. A total of 32 candidates entered the race, and 3, people competed for provincial council seats nationwide.
In Qandahar and Uruzgan, there were fewer women candidates than reserved seats. In Kabul Province, candidates competed for the 29 seats of the council. Security was a major issue for all the international actors supporting the Afghan elections process.
In the first round, out of 7, polling centers were deemed too unsafe to open. The Northern Alliance backed Dr. Abdullah, who ran with a little-known Hazara and a Pashtun as his vice presidential picks. Taliban intimidation and voter apathy suppressed the total turnout to about 5. Twenty-seven Afghans, mostly security forces personnel, were killed on election day. Some observers said that female turnout was low primarily because there were insufficient numbers of female poll workers to make women feel comfortable voting.
Clouding the election substantially were the widespread fraud allegations. The final, uncertified total was released on September 16, , and showed Karzai at Abdullah at Karzai acquiesced to a runoff against Dr. Abdullah, but Abdullah refused to participate on the grounds that problems that plagued the first round were unresolved. The Obama Administration accepted the outcome on the grounds that the fraud had been investigated.
The provincial council election results were certified by the end of and council members took office in February In the election, Karzai's first vice presidential running mate was the Northern Alliance's primary military commander, Marshal Muhammad Fahim, another Tajik. Karim Khalili a Hazara ran for another term as Karzai's second vice president.
Fahim died of natural causes on March 9, , and former parliament speaker Yunus Qanooni, another Northern Alliance figure, was confirmed by the National Assembly on March 25, , to serve out Fahim's term. The split over the conduct of the presidential elections widened in the run-up to the September 18, , parliamentary elections. Mechanisms to prevent fraud were not fully implemented and the results were disputed until July , largely paralyzing the National Assembly.
Donors temporarily held back the needed funds in an effort to pressure the IEC to demonstrate that it is correcting the flaws identified in the election.
In February Karzai signed an election decree that superseded the election law and govern the parliamentary election, 23 even though the constitution requires that any new election law or decree not be adopted less than one year prior to the election to which that law will apply. Some of the provisions of the election decree—particularly the proposal to make the ECC an all-Afghan body—alarmed some in the international community.
The Wolesi Jirga voted against the election decree but the Meshrano Jirga did not act, thus allowing the decree to stand. Among other steps to correct the mistakes of the election, the Afghan Interior Ministry instituted a national identity card system to curb voter registration fraud.
However, observers say that registration fraud still occurred. The IEC also barred 6, poll workers who served in the election from working the election. On June 22, , a final list of candidates was issued after all appeals and decisions on the various disqualifications.
It included 2, candidates, of which were women. Sixty-two candidates were invalidated by the ECC, mostly because they did not resign their government positions, as required. Voter registration was conducted June August According to the IEC, over , new voters were registered, and the number of eligible voters was On August 24, , the IEC announced that stations considered insecure would not open in order to prevent so-called "ghost polling stations"—stations open but where no voters can go.
About 5. Preliminary results were announced on October 20, , and final, IEC-certified results were delayed until November 24, , due to investigation of fraud complaints.
Of the 5. Causes for invalidation most often included ballot boxes in which all votes were for one candidate. The results, as certified by the IEC, resulted in substantial controversy within Afghanistan and led to a political crisis. The certified results were as follows. The certified results triggered a major political crisis when several Pashtun candidates asserted that they lost due to fraud.
On December 28, , at the instruction of the Supreme Court, Karzai issued a decree empowering a special five-member tribunal to review fraud complaints.
Still, to give time for the tribunal to complete its review, Karzai postponed the inauguration of the new parliament. After of the certified winners threatened to inaugurate themselves, Karzai inaugurated the body on January 26, , but he insisted that the tribunal continue its work. The lower house elected a compromise candidate, Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi, from the Uzbek community, as speaker. The upper house was completed as of February 19, , when Karzai made his 34 appointments. The crisis became acute on June 23, , when the special tribunal ruled that 62 defeated candidates be reinstated.
On August 10, , Karzai decreed that the special court does not have jurisdiction to change election results, and on August 21, , the IEC implemented elements of a compromise by ruling that nine winners had won their seats through fraud and must be removed fewer than the 17 that UNAMA had urged.
The newly declared winners were sworn in on September 4, , and the National Assembly resumed functioning shortly thereafter. The exposure of widespread fraud in the and elections increased strains between Karzai and the National Assembly. In the confirmation process of his post election cabinet, National Assembly members objected to many of his nominees as having minimal qualifications or as loyal to faction leaders.
Karzai's original list of 24 ministerial nominees presented December 19 was generally praised by the United States, but only 7 were confirmed. Another five were confirmed on June 28, , and on March 12, , the Assembly confirmed most of those ministers who were serving in an acting capacity as well as some new nominees.
The international community asserted that another fraud-filled election would cloud Afghanistan's ability to govern beyond The international community generally avoided holding the election to a standard of "free and fair:" Deputy Secretary of State William Burns said in Kabul on May 11, , that the election should be "transparent, credible, and inclusive.
Abdullah, of systematic fraud. Under the constitution, the presidential elections had to be held 30 to 60 days before the May 22, , expiration of Karzai's final term. On October 31, , the IEC set the election date as April 5, , overruling Northern Alliance assertions that the election should be later to allow for the northern part of the country—where support for non-Pashtun candidates is strong—to thaw after the winter.
Provincial elections were due in , but the IEC set these elections concurrent with the presidential elections because of the logistical difficulties and costs involved in holding a separate election. There were also provincial council seats up for election in The next parliamentary elections are expected to be held in The July 8, , "Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework" stipulated that Afghanistan "develop, by early , a comprehensive election timeline through for electoral preparations and polling dates.
In part because of the developments discussed above, many expressed optimism that the election would be more credible than the or votes. The "Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan," a domestic body, assembled 50 political parties to endorse demands for election reform and oversee the unfolding election process.
On December 9, , a delegation from the National Democratic Institute expressed "guarded optimism" that the April elections would not be as marred by fraud as were previous Afghan elections.
There were several potential frontrunners in the contest. By the close of candidate registration on October 6, , 26 presidential tickets had registered fewer than the 32 in In October , the IEC disqualified 16 candidates, including the only woman Khadija Ghaznawi , on the basis of lack of valid signatures or citizenship issues. After an appeal period, the final candidate list was announced by the IEC on November The Taliban vowed to disrupt the election, but the leader of an allied insurgent group Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin HIG , Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, instructed his members inside Afghanistan to vote.
For the provincial council seats, 2, candidates were approved to run, including women. The formal campaign period began on February 5, The major approved presidential tickets, mostly following the tradition of balancing different ethnicities, include those below. Several purportedly credible opinion polls were published in late December ; Afghan polling was sparse in previous elections.
Violence on election day was relatively minor and did not deter most voters, many of whom stood in long lines to vote.
Seventeen ANSF were killed in nearly total insurgent attacks, but no voters apparently were killed that day. Some polling centers ran out of ballots because turnout was heavier than expected, although voting hours were extended in order to allow for extra ballots to be provided.
After the April 5 first round, there were fraud complaints deemed serious enough to have potentially affected the outcome. However, the complaints were investigated and about , votes were deducted across the spectrum of candidates—compared to 1.
This is the first message appearing to come from him since the Taliban took control last month. Hassan Akhund, the new interim prime minister, served as deputy foreign minister from to , when the group was last in power. He is influential on the religious side of the movement, rather than the military side. His appointment is seen as a compromise, after recent reports of in-fighting between the some relatively moderate Taliban figures and their hardline colleagues.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the new acting interior minister, is head of the militant group known as the Haqqani network who are affiliated with the Taliban and have been behind some of the deadliest attacks in the country's two-decade-long war - including a truck bomb explosion in Kabul in that killed more than people. Unlike the wider Taliban, the Haqqani network has been designated a foreign terrorist organisation by the US.
It also maintains close ties to al-Qaeda. According to the FBI's profile on Haqqani, he is "wanted for questioning in connection with the January attack on a hotel in Kabul It adds: "He is believed to have coordinated and participated in cross-border attacks against United States and coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Haqqani also allegedly was involved in the planning of the assassination attempt on [former] Afghan President Hamid Karzai in The Haqqani network has also been blamed for an attack on the US embassy and nearby Nato bases in Kabul on 12 September Eight people - four police officers and four civilians - were killed in that attack.
A movement which has long moved in the shadows, whose names would surface only on the world's terrorism watch lists, is now announcing titles used in governments the world over. Acting prime minister Mullah Akhund appears as a compromise candidate after reported rivalries among leading military and political figures who will serve under him.
Its caretaker nature also provides breathing space as the Taliban move from guns to government. It also underlines the Taliban view that a Taliban victory can only mean Taliban rule.
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