Afghan council close to constitution agreement
President Hamid Karzai said today that delegates at a marathon constitutional council have overcome the chaos of an ugly walkout and are close to agreeing on his demand for a strong central government.
But rebel delegates were holding out against a clause that allows dual citizenship for top officials – an apparent shot at liberal ministers who have returned from exile in the United States to take up key Cabinet posts, but have been unwilling to give up coveted American and European passports.
Some 500 members of a grand council, or loya jirga, have spent three draining weeks arguing over a new constitution that is supposed to lay the foundations for stability and reconstruction after more than 20 years of fighting.
The debate has exposed fault-lines between modernisers and Islamic conservatives and aong the raw ethnic divisions left by the country’s recent civil war.
Karzai had insisted that the constitution could be ratified even with a narrow majority. But with the powerful presidency he wants apparently secured, he adopted a more conciliatory tone today.
“Lots of solutions have been found for the problems and there are one or two other matters that are going to be worked on this morning,” he told reporters outside his palace in Kabul.
“It is important to have a constitution that comes with near consensus if not total consensus.”
In the huge jirga tent erected on a Kabul college campus, delegates milled around frustrated at the slow progress.
Mohammed Gul Yunisi, a prominent critic of the US-backed government’s plans, said the citizenship issue was the last remaining stumbling block and accused ministers unwilling to give up their foreign passport of lacking patriotism.
“We say keep your Afghan passport and drop your foreign one,” he said. “This is betrayal.”
Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official, and Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, once a Voice of American reporter, both spent years in the United States.
It was unclear whether they still hold US passports. Both have adopted a high profile and bring an air of Western sophistication to Karzai’s Cabinet.
Both are also ethnic Pashtuns brought in to rebalance a government initially dominated by members of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, which helped US forces drive out the mainly Pashtun Taliban two years ago.
Deputy Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said delegates were also still divided by the explosive issue of language rights.
A block of Pashtun delegates who have swung behind Karzai’s presidential plans are opposing the recognition of Uzbek alongside Pashto and Dari as an official language.
“We are asking our Pashtun brothers to be generous, but so far the discussion is still going on,” Wardak said.
Outsiders worry that the jirga is dominated by proxies of Afghan warlords and regional faction leaders who still control much of the country.
Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara delegates have led the opposition, boycotting voting on amendments to the latest draft on Thursday, and holding crisis meetings with American and UN officials on the sidelines in an attempt to win concessions.
Council leaders and Western diplomats suggest faction leaders are fanning the debate on ethnic issues in order to secure powerful positions in a constitutional commission or as a vice president.
