KABUL (PAN): The newly inaugurated Parliament failed for the second consecutive day on Sunday to elect its speaker, with members disagreeing on whether the election could go to a third round.
On Saturday, former speaker Yunus Qanuni, Abdur Rab Rasul Sayyaf, Mirwais Yasini and Zahir Qadir ran for the slot. Qanuni and Sayyaf qualified for the second round of the speaker’s election. But neither was able to win the required number of vote.
Under Article 8 of the Code of Conduct for Parliamentarians, deputy speakers and secretaries of the Wolesi Jirga can contest the election for a third time. But there is no provision for the speaker’s election going to the third round.
After a detailed debate on amendments to the relevant rules, interim speaker, Mohammad Sarwar Osmani, ruled that new candidates would contest the speaker’s election on Monday, when the Wolesi Jirga’s administrative board will also be elected.
An MP from Kabul, Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq, said that election procedures for the board and speaker should not be different. “What makes deputy speaker and secretaries so special as to run for a third time?” he asked.
But Mir Bat Khan Mangal, a legislator from southeastern Paktia province, believed that the code should not be changed to enable new faces to jump into the fray for speaker’s office.
Political analyst and former parliamentarian from Kabul, Kabir Ranjbar, said that Article 8 of the code should be amended. The lower house was authorised to make the changes with a majority vote, he insisted.
