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In-depth Business Intelligence
Books on Afghanistan
REPUBLICAN REFERENCE
Area (sq.km)
647,500
Population
26,813,057
Capital
Kabul
Currency
afghani (AFA)
President
Hamid Karzai
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Update No: 048 - (28/11/05)
A parliament to deal with
Afghanistan finally has an elected parliament and the focus of the political
debate is now moving towards its relationship with President Karzai. Most
commentators believe that his supporters have a slight majority within it, but
it is likely that a lot of horse trading will take place before Karzai can
secure a working majority. For example, a new minister of interior has not been
appointed yet, after the resignation of Jalali, and there are at least two major
candidates for the job, a conservative jihadi and a reformer. Since Karzai has
support both among conservatives and reformers, any choice for this important
and wished for position might alienate some supporters and endanger the solidity
of the parliamentary majority. Similarly, there are several candidates to the
position of parliamentary speaker, a highly visible and symbolic one. In the
Karzai camp, the leading candidate is Prof. Rabbani, a conservative former
president, although a woman, Shukria Barakzai, is also a candidate. In
principle, from the ideological point of view Rabbani should have much wider
support in the Parliament, but he is not popular among Pashtuns, some of whom
might prefer their fellow Pashtun, Shukria Barakzai, even if as a liberal and a
woman she might not be immediately appealing to conservatives. In the opposition
camp, the two main candidates are Yunis Qanuni and Mohammed Mohaqqeq, both
former presidential candidates. Mohaqqeq's chances are slim, despite the fact
that he was the most voted candidate in the parliamentary elections, because he
belongs to the Hazara minority and as such is unlikely to receive many Pashtun
or Tajik votes. Qanuni seems to have better chances, at least as a Tajik he
could be able to unify most of the non-Pashtuns in the parliament. All
considered, Rabbani remains the favourite.
Russia raises its profile
After some manoeuvring behind the scenes in recent months, Russia came
forward openly for the first time at the end of October, as Putin's envoy for
international organized crime asked for a greater role in Afghanistan, within
the framework of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Although
the request was officially linked to the issues of security and drug
trafficking, this move can also be seen in the context of the recent joint
Chinese-Russian counter-offensive against US influence in Central Asia. Russia's
renewed interest in Afghanistan was underlined in November by new deliveries of
military hardware to the Afghan army and air force, likely a way to tell to
Russia's allies within the Ministry of Defence that Moscow has not given up
Afghanistan yet. The Russians might be trying to undercut the virtual freedom of
action that the Americans have enjoyed over the last few years in Afghanistan,
in order to extract a friendlier American attitude elsewhere.
A future in the WTO?
The main initiative on the economic side was Afghanistan's application for
membership in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), where at present the country
only enjoys observer's status. Afghanistan's trade law is still incompatible
with WTO requirements, so that a major hurdle for the success of WTO membership
negotiations will be the willingness of the new parliament to change the law.
Other November headlines included the inauguration of the new 5-star Serena
hotel in Kabul, which is the first luxury hotel to open in the Afghan capital
and is expected to cater for businessmen and VIPs, when and if they will start
flocking to Afghanistan in order to invest there. In the meanwhile, more
economic data emerged to confirm that
demand in Afghanistan is still growing, but not as fast as last year. In
July-September, imports from Pakistan grew by 14.4%.
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