KABUL: The Afghan Parliament rejected the majority of President Hamid Karzai’s second slate of Cabinet choices Saturday, dealing a new setback to the US-backed leader’s effort to assemble a team that can focus on badly needed reforms.
The US and other countries contributing troops and aid have pushed Karzai to get his second-term administration in place ahead of a Jan. 28 international conference on Afghanistan to be held in London. The mixed results will further delay the process, two weeks after Parliament rejected 70 percent of his first Cabinet picks.
Lawmakers have complained that some of the candidates on the president’s new list lacked the credentials to serve in the 25-member Cabinet. Others claimed that some nominees are too closely aligned with warlords, or were picked to pay back political supporters who helped get the president re-elected.
The 224 lawmakers present approved just seven of 17 nominees, including Karzai’s longtime national security adviser, Zalmay Rasoul, who will be foreign minister, a new justice minister and a woman who was named to the portfolio of Work and Social Affairs/Martired and Disabled.
The 10 rejected included two other women nominated for the posts of women’s affairs and public health as well as Karzai’s choices for the ministries of higher education, commerce, transportation, public works, refugee and border and tribal affairs.
The slew of rejections — which leave Karzai with nearly a third of his Cabinet posts unfilled — is sure to worry the international community, which had hoped last year’s elections would usher in a strong government to help keep disenchanted Afghans from siding with Taleban insurgents amid warnings violence will worsen as the US and other countries step up efforts in the country.
Continued political turmoil has distracted Karzai from that fight, even as the insurgency grows more virulent.
A NATO service member was killed by a roadside bomb Saturday in southern Afghanistan, according to the international force. “The rejection of the majority of the list shows that the people of Afghanistan are not happy with the work of the government,” said Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Mirwais Yasini, a lawmaker from Nangahar province.
“This will disrupt the work of the government and it’s not good for the future and the fate of the country.”
Kabul resident Mohammad Ershad agreed, saying Karzai’s picks “will never win because the government didn’t do anything the past eight years and there is no hope from it in the future.”
Karzai’s office issued a brief statement saying he had chosen the nominees “based on their talents, expertise and national participation” and regretted the outcome.
He must now put forward new nominees, which must be approved by parliament according to the Afghan constitution, but his office gave no indication when that might occur.
Also Saturday, a district official was wounded when his vehicle was hit by a remote-controlled bomb in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, said police spokesman Wazir Pacha.
Latifullah Babakherkhail, chief administrator of Bak district, was on his way to his office when the blast occurred, damaging his vehicle, Pacha said.
