Afghan Presidential Vote Delayed For Second Time, Until September
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
March 20, 2019
KABUL — The head of Afghanistan’s Independent Elections Commission has said that the country’s presidential election has been postponed by two months to give the authorities more time to organize the ballot and fix the problems that occurred during the October parliamentary polls.
Hawa Alam Nuristani told reporters in Kabul on March 20 that the presidential election was now planned for September 28, together with the country’s district-council elections and parliamentary polls in Ghazni Province.
Nuristani added that the commission will only be able to organize the polls once the necessary funds have been provided by the stakeholders involved, including the Kabul government and the international community
The presidential election was initially scheduled for April and later delayed until July 20.
The October parliamentary elections, which Nuristani described as “the worst elections in the last 15 years,” were marred by inefficiencies including absent electoral staff and missing voting materials.
With reporting by Tolo News
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Afghan Officials Downplay Feud with Washington
Hamdullah Mohib
Hasib Danish Alikozai
Mohammad Habibzada
VOA News
March 19, 2019
An Afghan official in the country’s National Security Council Tuesday downplayed a Reuter’s report alleging that senior U.S. diplomats have informed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that his national security adviser is no longer welcome in Washington following his blistering public attacks on the U.S Special Representative for Afghan reconciliation last week.
Abasin Barial, an adviser for strategic relations at the Afghan National Security Council, told VOA that the U.S. and Afghanistan enjoy close relations based on common interests.
“We want to have very good and very close relations with the U.S. [because] we have common goals and objectives. It is very clear that during the last four years, the government of President [Ashraf] Ghani had the best relations with the U.S. government,” Barial told VOA.
“About the Reuters story, I think it is limited to this media outlet. I do not think it has relied that much on the actual issues that U.S. [officials] have discussed regarding this matter. I think we will see more of such analysis and comments [in the media],” he added.
Last week, Afghan National Security Advisor, Hamdullah Mohib criticized U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad over what he said was his approach of keeping the Afghan government in dark in the ongoing peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.
“We don’t have the kind of transparency that we should have,” he said. “The last people to find out are us.” Mohib told reporters Thursday.
“The reason he is delegitimizing the Afghan government and weakening it, and at the same time elevating the Taliban, can only have one approach. Perhaps all this talk is to create a caretaker government of which he [Khalilzad] will become the viceroy. We are only saying this because that is the perception,” Mohib added.
Related
Rashid Khan becomes UNICEF National Ambassador
Rashid Khan
1TV: Afghanistan’s cricket star, Rashid Khan, has been appointed as a National Ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the world’s leading organization for children. UNICEF Afghanistan announced this as the world commemorates 30 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child this year. Rashid Khan has made rapid strides since his international debut in cricket as a 17-year-old in October 2015. Click here to read more (external link).
A Female Afghan Lawmaker Slapped A Cop. She Says He Deserved It. Now She’s Wanted For Questioning.
By Ron Synovitz & Khan Mohammad Seend
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
March 19, 2019
KABUL — A female Afghan lawmaker who slapped and cursed a police officer during a Kabul traffic stop is defending her actions, telling RFE/RL the officer first struck her with his fist, pushed her, insulted her, and smashed the butt of his rifle against her car in an attempt to provoke her.
Afghanistan’s acting Interior Minister Masud Andarabi has praised the officer for “showing patience” and not retaliating when he was slapped in the face on March 17 by parliamentary deputy Parwin Durrani.
The officer, identified by the authorities as “Yassin” from the Interior Ministry’s 01 Unit in Kabul, has also been praised on social media by many Afghans after video showing part of the altercation was circulated online:
And many Afghans, angered by what was captured on the video, are now calling for Durrani to be put on trial for attacking a uniformed police officer.
As that video clip begins, Durrani can be heard shouting “damn your father” in Dari as she confronts the officer from a close distance at a Kabul roundabout near the U.S. Embassy.
The police officer responds by forcefully shoving Durrani backwards against her car and she nearly loses her balance.
Durrani approaches him again and continues to insult him with profanities as she tries to slap him, but he blocks the blow and scolds her, saying, “You are a member of parliament.”
She replies: “I am a member of parliament. There will be consequences.”
The officer then asks Durrani to show him a special Interior Ministry permit required in Kabul for her bulletproof car. She tells him she doesn’t have the card.
When the officer tells Durrani, “You should be ashamed of your behavior,” she slaps his face and continues to curse him.
‘It Was A Setup’
Durrani tells RFE/RL she thinks the incident was set up by officials in Afghanistan’s central government who want to defame her and prevent her from taking up a seat when the next Afghan parliament convenes.
She says she’d been stopped at the same traffic circle, Masud Circle, three days earlier because of the tinted, bulletproof windows on her car.
On March 17, she says, cameramen were already posted at the roundabout when her car was stopped in the same place.
Durrani says her own video footage of the March 17 incident captured the voice of the officer she slapped telling a cameraman to “film it, quickly.”
“That means it was a setup, and I think it was meant to destroy my reputation,” Durrani said.
Durrani won more than 4,000 votes from Kabul in October in her bid to be reelected as a representative for the nomadic Kochi in Afghanistan’s lower chamber of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga.
But in February, all votes cast in Kabul Province were invalidated over fraud allegations — effectively stalling the official release of results and preventing the new parliament from convening.
As of March 19, only 123 of the 250 Wolesi Jirga seats have been certified. If the results for the remaining seats are canceled, Durrani would have to run again in a new ballot.
“They tried to provoke me to make me angry and they insulted me,” Durrani told RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan about the police who stopped her on March 17, adding that the officer she slapped started to hit her car before she got out of the vehicle.
“I was scared to open the door of the car. I was afraid they would attack me,” Durrani said in a video she made for social media on March 18 to explain her version of the altercation:
“I was afraid I would be another Farkhunda,” Durrani said, referring to Farkhunda Malikzada — an Afghan woman who was brutally beaten to death by an angry mob in Kabul in March 2015.
Durrani told RFE/RL she decided to get out of her car to film the officer she later slapped because he was “beating my car with his gun.”
“Then he started hitting me with his fist and he pushed me, and I have footage to prove it,” she said. “That’s why I retaliated and slapped the guy and insulted him.”
“They didn’t have any reason to do that to me,” Durrani said. “I didn’t have any bodyguards. I didn’t cause any problems. I didn’t have weapons.”
“I was beaten and I retaliated courageously,” she told RFE/RL. “I could not tolerate that he assaulted me and insulted me. I am a female diplomat and a politician. If he had insulted his own mother and sisters, they would have responded in the same way. I will leave it to God to be the judge.”
‘Evident’ Crime
Interior Ministry spokesman Nusrat Rahimi said the online video of Durrani slapping the officer proves that “crime is completely evident” in the case.
Rahimi said the ministry’s Kabul Police Command “has been ordered to take legal actions” under a special constitutional provision regarding parliamentary deputies.
That provision, Article 102, allows authorities to summon an accused lawmaker for questioning “without the permission of the house of which the accused is a member” in cases of an “evident crime.”
It says holding an Afghan lawmaker in detention requires approval of their parliamentary chamber.
If parliament is in recess, as it is now, the constitution says permission for detention of an accused lawmaker “shall be obtained from the administrative board” of their chamber and “the issue shall be referred to the first session” after the chamber reconvenes.
Durrani tells RFE/RL she was summoned to the Interior Ministry on March 19 and instructed that she must report to the Kabul Police Command.
“I cannot escape from the law, and I will not try to do so,” she said.
Written by Ron Synovitz in Prague based on reporting from Kabul by Khan Mohammad Seend
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Afghanistan: The children caught in conflict
BBC News: War photographer Andrew Quilty travelled with the charity Save the Children across Afghanistan, capturing portraits of children whose lives have been devastated by conflict in the country. Across a series of portraits, the children describe stories of losing loved ones, physical injuries from mines, and having to flee their homes because of the fighting. Click here to view photo essay (external link).
Ulumi Vows To Crash Possible Poll Riggings
Noorul Haq Ulumi
Tolo News: Presidential candidate and Afghanistan’s former minister of interior Gen. Noorul Haq Ulumi, who also leads a newly established political party, Afghanistan People’s National Front (Jabha-e-Milli Mardum-e-Afghanistan), on Tuesday warned to resist any kind of fraud and irregularities in the upcoming presidential elections scheduled for July 20. Ulumi said that he quit his position as minister of interior in the National Unity Government (NUG) under President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah over policy issues with the Mujahideen and the technocrats. He said that NUG leaders were preferring their personal motives rather than working on reforms. Click here to read more (external link).
Other Election Related News
1TV Afghanistan Dari News – March 19, 2019
U.S. ‘To End Contacts’ With Afghan Security Adviser Mohib Following Verbal Attack
Hamdullah Mohib
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
March 19, 2019
A senior U.S. diplomat has told Afghanistan’s president that U.S. officials will no longer deal with his national security adviser, Reuters news agency reports, citing four knowledgeable U.S. and Afghan sources.
The report published on March 18 said the diplomat told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that the United States was ending contacts with Hamdullah Mohib, who serves as Ghani’s national security adviser.
The State Department declined to comment, and a representative of the Afghan Embassy in Washington could not be reached for comment.
Mohib in a Washington news conference on March 14 accused the U.S. special envoy to his country, Zalmay Khalilzad, of “delegitimizing” the Kabul government by excluding it from peace negotiations with the Taliban and acting like a “viceroy.”
He added that Khalilzad had “his own personal history — he has ambitions in Afghanistan. He was wanting to run for president twice.”
Khalilzad is leading the U.S. negotiating team in talks with Taliban militants in Qatar as Washington attempts to bring an end to the long war in Afghanistan.
Many Afghan officials have been upset by their exclusion from the talks, as the Taliban has refused to talk directly to the Kabul government, claiming it is a puppet of the West.
A U.S. move to end contacts with Mohib would likely increase Kabul’s anger about being left out of the negotiations.
According to the Reuters report, the day after Mohib made his comments, David Hale — the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs — told Ghani by phone that Mohib would no longer be received in Washington and that U.S. civilian and military officials would not do business with him.
“Hale called Ghani and told him that Mohib is no longer welcome in D.C. The U.S. will not deal with him in Kabul or in D.C. any more,” said a former senior Afghan official who requested anonymity.
The former official said he saw the move as an effort to pressure Ghani to fire Mohib.
In mid-February, a planned meeting between Taliban negotiators and Pakistani officials in Islamabad was called off after Afghanistan issued a protest to the UN Security Council over the talks.
In a letter to the Security Council seen by RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal, the Afghan UN mission wrote that the Taliban-Pakistan meeting “constitutes a violation of the national sovereignty of Afghanistan.”
“These engagements, which are taking place under the pretext of support for peace efforts in Afghanistan, are void of any degree of coordination and consultation with the government of Afghanistan,” it said.
With reporting by Reuters, RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal, and The Washington Post
Copyright (c) 2019. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Kabul’s Expanding Foreigner ‘Bubble’ Trades Safety for Isolation
Reuters: Kabul’s green zone is a place where diplomats fly in cheesecake from New York and cases of wine from Europe, but many of those residing inside the heavily fortified enclave are not allowed to walk without an armed guard even for a distance of 100 meters. Click here to read more (external link).