Afghan council faces southern challenge

A group of influential tribal leaders from seven of Afghanistan's 33 provinces say they're so dismayed at the process by which the loya jirga, or national assembly, is being formed that they will boycott the all-important gathering this June. The leaders are also demanding that the meeting, which will select a 111-person Afghan parliament, be postponed for 18 months.

The emergence of the movement represents the first organized opposition to the convening of the jirga, which was agreed upon in the Bonn agreement as the ideal hybrid of democracy and Afghanistan's traditional decision-making institutions.

But the leaders of the boycott, representing primarily Pashtun provinces in south and eastern Afghanistan, say that the selection process for the jirga has failed to keep out warlords and others who have committed atrocities. They also claim that the formula for the creation of the jirga is undemocratic: Approximately 500 of the 1,500 delegates to the week-long convention will be selected by 21 loya jirga commissioners, rather than being elected.

In a petition to the United Nations and to the loya jirga commission – and made available to the Monitor – the group says the meeting is being convened without heed to traditional guidelines. The leaders claim that it ignores the stipulations in last December's Bonn agreements that an "emergency loya jirga" be based on the country's 1964 constitution.

The document called for 216 electoral districts, a number that has climbed to 362 for the upcoming jirga – a shift that has come at the expense of southern Afghanistan, say the petitioners.

"It is not just us, but also Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and others around the country who believe there can be no loya jirga now," says Engineer Mohammed Shah Zadran, the head of the union of Pashtun tribal chiefs, surrounded by a crowd of some 50 other tribal elders who gathered around him, nodding in agreement.

"They are not following the real traditions of the loya jirga at all. They are just making it up according to their will. The current administration should stay in power for another 18 months until we can have a real loya jirga."

The threat could present a stumbling block on the path to a peaceful, governable Afghanistan – one of the international community's primary goals in toppling the Taliban regime after Sept. 11. The petitioners announced this weekend that they will go province to province around the country to persuade others to boycott the jirga.

Mr. Zadran says they are also demanding that Mohammed Zahir Shah, the country's recently returned king, be recognized as the nation's leader with interim Afghan leader Hamid Karzai below him.

One root of the dispute may be the radically different expectations Afghans have over how closely this loya jirga should resemble those of years past. Indeed, the last time one was held in accordance with tradition under the king's aegis, in 1964, he could veto the participation of anyone he chose.

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