KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan’s political crisis worsened yesterday with lawmakers voting to sack the five most senior judicial officials and international consternation growing after a presidential tribunal threw out a quarter of parliament.
The special court, set up by a decree of Afghan President Hamid Karzai after parliamentary elections last year were marred by fraud, ruled on Thursday that 62 lawmakers would have to be replaced because of alleged poll fraud.
Karzai’s critics have said the court was set up after the Sept 18 election, in which Karzai’s rivals made major gains, to further his own political agenda and silence opposition. Afghan and Western critics have questioned its legality.
With anger growing over the decision, lawmakers voted yesterday to sack the five most senior members of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court, including Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi and his deputy Bahahuddin Baha, for failing to stop the special court’s decision.
Fatima Aziz, a lawmaker from northern Kunduz province, said 183 MPs out of 190 who attended parliament yesterday voted to impeach the five members of the Supreme Court’s High Council.
Ahmad Humayoun, a lawmaker from eastern Khost province, said the vote was taken because the five had all advised Karzai to set up the special court to resolve the weeks of protests and infighting that followed the elections.
It was not immediately apparent if the five would indeed be sacked, with no comment from the presidential palace. Karzai is in neighbouring Iran attending a security conference.
The political uncertainty comes at a worrying time for Afghanistan, with violence at record levels and NATO-led forces preparing to hand over security to Afghans in several areas at the start of a gradual process that will end with all foreign combat troops leaving by the end of 2014.
Karzai’s court announced its new election findings only hours after US President Barack Obama detailed the beginning of a US drawdown, with 10,000 US troops to return home by the end of this year.
European Union Ambassador Vygaudas Usackas met a parliamentary delegation yesterday, including Speaker Abdul Raouf Ibrahimi and 35 other lawmakers, to discuss the crisis.
He said Afghanistan’s “peaceful future lies in the building of robust democratic institutions based on the rule of law and the clear respect for the separation of powers”.
He said in a statement the EU reconfirmed its commitment to work with the Afghan government and people to promote “the principles of a democratic state”.
Watchdog Democracy International (DI), which deployed a large team of observers during the poll, called for the court’s decision to be overturned and said the tribunal’s existence hindered parliament’s ability to operate without intimidation.
“This ill-advised and illegitimate court’s recent decision to invalidate individual election outcomes is potentially destabilising and inconsistent with Afghanistan’s constitution and electoral law,” DI mission head Glenn Cowan said.
Privately, other Western officials in Kabul have expressed shock and anger at the court’s ruling. Another Western diplomat said on Thursday he was “totally flabbergasted”.
There has been no comment on the ruling yet from Afghanistan’s Independent Election Commission (IEC) or from the United Nations, which helped fund and organise the poll.
The IEC threw out nearly a quarter of the 5.6 million votes cast last year over fraud and technical concerns, and later clashed with the attorney general’s office when the special court began recounting votes.
Karzai, re-elected after a similarly tainted presidential election in 2009, has often been criticised for treating parliament as a rubber stamp.
The latest assembly did not sit for the first time until Jan. 26 — four months after the vote — and bickered in public for weeks before it chose Ibrahimi as speaker.
Underlining the political paralysis, Karzai has still not been able to name a complete cabinet because of objections from parliament, with caretakers still in several key posts.
