Supporters of Afghan President Hamid Karzai appeared to have won a majority of seats in landmark elections for parliament's lower house, observers said yesterday, as provincial councils finalized their vote for representatives to the upper house.
Meanwhile, hundreds of losing parliamentary candidates and their supporters held a peaceful demonstration in Kabul and called the results of the country's Sept. 18 elections illegitimate and also accused the electoral commission of corruption.
The protests came a day after the Joint Electoral Management Body announced the final results of the country's first parliamentary and provincial elections in more than 30 years.
The developments bring Afghanistan closer to re-establishing its national governing assemblies after a quarter century of war. But new violence killing six police and two pro-government figures in the past two days underlines the threat of further instability.
Nearly all winning candidates in last month's elections ran as independents, making it difficult to determine where power will lie in the 249-seat legislature. But Karzai's fellow Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group, and others who support him dominate, Western diplomats and other political analysts said.
"The government has the support of more than 50 percent in the parliament," said Ali Amiri, a respected political observer and local author on Afghan affairs.
Joanna Nathan, senior Afghanistan analyst at the International Crisis Group, a research institute, said the largest bloc in the parliament consists of religious conservatives, "but these are people Karzai can deal with."
A Western diplomat in Kabul, speaking on condition of anonymity because she is not authorized to talk to the media, also confirmed that Karzai's supporters hold a slim majority, saying his rivals were splintered along factional lines and not a serious threat.
The polls were hailed as a success in the country's slow march toward democracy, although their legitimacy has been undermined by suspected ballot-box stuffing that led to the dismissal of 50 election workers, as well as alarm that more than half of the winners are former regional strongmen.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique