Second Karzai cabinet

The second Karzai cabinet is the cabinet of Afghanistan that leads the government from the re-election of president Hamid Karzai in 2009 until the end of his term in 2014. Currently, the cabinet consists of the president and his two vice-presidents, 18 ministers who have received approval from the Afghan Parliament and 7 acting ministers who have not been approved.

First list of candidates

Under the Afghan constitution the president nominates the ministers, but the lowers house of parliament needs to approve them. After the fraud-plagued re-election of Karzai in the fall of 2009 and after reports about widespread corruption in the highest circles of the governments, Karzai desperately needed to restore his legitimacy at home and abroad. During his inauguration speech, Karzai pledged to "end the culture of impunity and violation of law and bring to justice those involved in spreading corruption and abuse" and make it "obligatory for senior government officials to identify the sources of their assets and to declare their properties in a transparent manner".^[1] Western officials publicly said his lineup of minister candidates would be a first vital test to show whether he was serious about combating corruption, which undermined his government's credibility and fed the Taliban insurgency.^[2]

So Karzai was under pressure to exclude ineffective or corrupt officials, but at the same time powerful Afghans who helped deliver his re-election were promised or demanding positions, including the Uzbek warlord, Abdul Rashid Dostum.^[3][4]

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Defense Minister of Afghanistan.

Renaming incumbent ministers

On 19 December 2009 Karzai presented his list of 25 proposed cabinet members. There was no candidate named for the position of Foreign Ministers, since Karzai wanted to keep to disputed foreign minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta until the International Conference on Afghanistan in London on 28 January 2010.^{[5][6][7][8][9][10]} Furthermore Karzai retained the heads of high-profile ministries of Defense and Interior, who were regarded in Washington as experienced professionals. In addition to that the finance, justice, education, water and energy, Women's affairs, Agriculture, counter-narcotics and Telecommunication ministers were renamed.^[11][12][13] The most important portfolio's were given a U.S. approval by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, when she attended Karzai's inauguration in November 2009.

Influence of power-brokers

Although only one warlord, Ismail Khan, was offered himself a cabinet position, the list proposed by Karzai mirrored the fact that he had to give in to demands of main power-brokers that helped him secure his re-election. The newly appointed minister of Haj, Enayatullah Baleegh, is a senior member of the Ettehad-e Islami of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf; the proposed minister of Public Welfare, Mirza Husain Abdullahi, is an ally of Mohammad Mohaqeq, as is the candidate for the ministry of commerce, Ghulam Mohamad Eylaghi. Vice-President Mohammad Fahim has two loyals on the list with the nomination of Wais Barmak and Enayatullah Nazari, as has vice-president Karim Khalili with the renomination of Sarwar Danish and General Khodaidad. Pir Seyyed Gailani is represented by the nomination of his son, Seyyed Hamed Gailani, as Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs. Seyyed Mohammad Amin Fatemi, the incumbent minister for public health, is affiliated with the Nejat-e Melli of Sibghatullah Mojaddedi. Finally, the Jombesh-e Melli, of strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum has two high-ranking members on the list with the deputy head of the party, Mohammad Ismail Munshi, named as Minister of Labour and Social Affairs and Dr. Mohammadullah Batash, a former Secretary of the Jombesh General Council as Minister of Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation.^[14]

Dual Citizenship

Shortly before Karzai presented his list with nominees, the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of the Afghan parliament, after three days of debating, decided against giving trust vote to ministers with dual citizenship.^[15] However, Karzai's appointee for Minister of Finance, Dr. Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, also holds the Canadian citizenship. In the end the parliament dropped the issue and voted upon Zakhilwal's candidacy.

Controversy and new ministry's

By presenting his list of candidates, Karzai asked the parliament to create a new Ministry for Martyred and Disabled Affairs, for which he names Taj Ali Saber, a member of the Khost Provincial council as minister. The Parliament however didn't agree and voted only upon the candidacy of Munshi as minister of Labour, Social Affairs and Disabled. Karzai received harsh criticism for only including one woman, Husna Banu Ghazanfar, in his team. Furthermore, the incumbent minister of Womans Affairs was considered weak.^[16] So on 23 December, at a news conference with the Belgian prime minister Leterme he also announced that he planned to create from part of the ministry of education a ministry to fight illiteracy, and that he intended to nominate a woman to head it. Female politicians would also be appointed to preside several independent commissions and deputy minister’s posts.^[17] The same day Karzai changed the candidacy of Gul Agha Sherzai, who was initially mentioned as minister of Reconstruction, into the candidacy of incumbent minister Yusuf Pashtun. Wazhma Zurmati was named as minister of illiteracy, but just like the new ministry of Martyrs and Disabled, the parliament didn't agree with its creation and didn't vote upon her candidacy. The parliament also didn't vote upon the candidacy of Anwar Jegdelek, a former mayor of Kabul, as minister of Parliamentary affairs. Since this ministry is designed to merely coordinate the relations of Parliament with the other pillars of the State, as thus is not a position that requires parliamentary approval.^[14]

Voting on the first list of candidates

The Wolesi Jirga or Lower House of the Afghan parliament voted on the list on the 2nd of January. Since the session was attended by 232 of the 249 parliament members, 117 votes (50%+1) were necessary for acception. But a crisis emerged, when the count of the votes made clear that the parliament rejected two-thirds of the nominated persons.^[18][19] Of the 24 nominees introduced to parliament, only seven were accepted.^{[20][21][22][23]} The rules of the wolesi jirga prevented nominees from being put forward again and since the parliament was scheduled to begin a 45-day winter vacation 3 days later, it seemed that Karzai would have to go into the international conference of Afghanistan with a largely incomplete cabinet.^[24] But On 4 January, Karzai requested the parliament to delay its winter recess, so members could consider a new list of nominees.^[25][26][27] The parliament decided to take a short break of three days and demanded Karzai to come up with a list of names, including a candidate for the post of Foreign Affairs.^[28]

Accepted Candidates

Of the seven candidates that were approved by the parliament, five were incumbent ministers who had been nominated for the same post. The other two approved ministers, Wahidullah Shahrani and Sayed Makhdum Raheen, were respectively an incumbent minister on another post and a former minister. Seven other incumbent ministers were rejected, most notable the only woman on the list, Hosn Banu Ghazanfar, and the powerful warlord Ismail Khan.

Second list of Candidates

After only seven candidates from the first list were formally named minister, on 9 January 2010, Second Vice-President Karim Khalili read out a second list of 16 nominees to the parliament. This second list counted 16 candidates, with none of the rejected ministers on the list.^[30] This time, a candidate for the foreign ministry had been named, by putting forward the candidacy of Zalmai Rassoul, then the head of the national security agency. However, two other posts - that of the minister for communications and for water and energy - have been left vacant. For those two postings the incumbent ministers, Amirzai Sangeen and Ismail Khan, had been rejected in the first round of voting.^[30]

Candidates

Since no womam had been approved in the first round and Karzai had faced criticism for not taking up enough woman in his team, this second list contained the names of three female candidates: Amina Afzali for Social Affairs, Soraya Dalil for Public Health and Palwasha Hassan for Women's Affairs.

Zaraar Ahmad Moqbel was named as anti-narcotics minister. He had been Afghanistan's interior minister in 2008 and early 2009 but was removed from that post by Karzai under pressure from the UN special representative in Afghanistan, Kai Eide.^[31]

In a later state, before the vote, the list was expanded with a seventeenth candidate, Abdul Qodus Hamidi for the post of Telecommunications.

Criticism

Also on this second list there had been harsh criticism. While most comments on the first list were aimed at suspected links of candidates to warlords, this time lawmakers complained that many on the president's latest list lacked the experience needed to take on Cabinet posts.^[32] According to Wolesi Jirga member Fawzai Kofi "this list is much weaker than the previous one."^[31]

Voting

Parliament again confirmed seven ministers, bringing the total number of ministers to fourteen, leaving 11 ministry's without an approved minister. Among the confirmed ministers was Zarar Moqbel, a prominent leader of the Jamiat-e Islami who had been under received harsh allegations of corruption and unsavoury appointments during his tenure as minister of Interior. However, he played an important role in Karzai's re-election campaign and is said to have played the game of patronage and pay-offs well. He received the large number of 161 votes of confidence.^[33]

Arsala Jamal had a similar story. He had to leave his post of Governor of Khost due to allegations of corruption and also served as member of Karzai’s re-election campaign team. He, however, is allied with the Hezb-e Islami and was not confirmed by parliament.

The only woman that was appointed is Amina Afzali, a former minister of Youth an affiliated with the Jamiat-e Islami. Palwasha Hassan and Soraya Dalil, the other two female candidates who had extensive careers in Afghan NGO's, were both rejected.

With Zalmai Rassoul confirmed, Afghanistan received a new and minister of Foreign Affairs, who is close to Karzai, just before the start of the important London Conference. Rassoul also has good connections with the former royal family of king Zahir Shah. That is also the case for Habibullah Ghaleb, a member of the Afghan National Liberation Front of former president Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, who was confirmed as minister of Justice.

Engineer Abdul Rahim, a senior member of the Jamiat-e Islami and close associate to former President Burhanuddin Rabbani did not receive enough votes to become the minister of refugees. His nephew, Jarullah Mansouri, also a member of Jamiat but said to be closer to Vice-President Mohammad Faheem, did however gather enough votes and was approved as minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

Dr Yusuf Niazi became the new minister of Haj, and the leader of the (officially registered branch of) Hezb-e Islami, Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal, was confirmed as minister of Economy.^[33]

Aftermath: acting ministers

Karzai decided not to push for a third list before the international conference to fill the vacant positions, but instead to keep some of the candidates on as 'acting ministers' who were leading their ministry without official approval of Parliament. The following persons functioned as acting minister until at least July 2010.

Third list of Candidates

In June 2010, Interior Minister Hanif Atmar resigned following a Taliban attack on the national peace conference in Kabul together with Amrullah Saleh, the head of the National Directorate of Security (NDS). There was widespread speculation in Kabul that Atmar resigned because he disagreed with Karzai's plan to negotiate with the Taliban.^[34]

Since the Interior Ministry is an important post Karzai couldn't let this ministry be left vacant or run by an acting, not approved minister. Therefore, on 26 June 2010 he announced that he would present a third list of candidates to the Wolesi Jirga.

Candidates

This third list contained the names of 7 candidate ministers. The other 5 ministries that still didn't have an approved minister are still run by their acting ministers. This third list of seven names included those of Anwarul Haq Ahadi, who was rejected in January for the post of Ministry of Economic Affairs, Abdul Qadus Hamidi who had been rejected for the post of Telecommunications Minister and Sarwar Danish, who had been rejected for the post of Justice minister and had been acting minister of Justice ever since. General Bismullah Mohammadi, the Chief of Staff of the Afghan National Army was named as the new Interior Minister and the Governor of Kandahar, Assadullah Khalid as Minister of Border and Tribal Affairs. Daud Ali Najafi, who oversaw Afghanistan's election commission during the flawed presidential elections 2009 was on the list as minister of Transport and Aviation.

Voting

Five of the seven candidates were approved by the Wolesi Jirga. Only Sarwar Danish and Daud Ali Najafi were rejected. Since then Karzai kept Danish and Najafi as acting ministers.

Fourth List of Candidates

In February 2012 the Lower House of the Parliament (Wolesi Jirga) once again criticized the government for not nominating the remaining cabinet members so that a vote of confidence can be taken in the Lower House. MPs stated that they wouldn't approve next year's budget until President Karzai nominates the remaining Cabinet Ministers.^[36] On 15 February Karzai nominated candidates for the 7 remaining ministries that still had an acting minister as head, as well as new candidates for the ministries of Rural Development and Public works.^[37] Previously, a Cabinet pick could not be re-introduced for the same slot under the Wolesi Jirga rules. But the procedure was recently relaxed, allowing the president to refer his Cabinet choices to MPs for a second time. On the 5th of March, all 9 cabinet members received approval from the Wolesi Jirga.^[38]

References