Not so long ago, Mohammad Tahir was a government official with a comfortable salary and a position in the Defense Ministry. Today, he sells bread from a mud-and-wood shack along the side of a road.
To Tahir, democracy is a distant dream.
"It appears our country is moving in that direction," he said as just a few kilometers away the final preparations were being made to open Afghanistan's first parliament in more than 30 years. "But my life is getting worse."
PHOTO: AP
Though proud to be once again participating in the administration of their own government, the anticipation many Afghans feel ahead of the opening of parliament on Monday is marred by deep-rooted pessimism and doubt.
Like Tahir, many cite a litany of pressing day-to-day concerns -- rising unemployment and prices, long stretches without electricity, the dangers of crime and the random violence of an ongoing insurgency.
"I'm not optimistic at all," Tahir said as a group of fellow shopkeepers nearby nodded in agreement. "We've done our part. Now it is up to the politicians to do theirs."
In a historic vote, Afghans filled the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga in elections three months ago. They also elected provincial councils that then chose two-thirds of the 102-seat upper chamber, the Meshrano Jirga.
President Hamid Karzai, a popular figure here, appointed the remaining 34 members.
The elections were generally seen as a success and marked a major step forward after the ousting of the hardline Taliban regime four years ago. It will be the first time parliament has convened in this war and strife-torn country since 1973.
The elections were even more impressive considering the hurdles Afghanistan continues to face. After three decades of occupation and civil war, its economy is a shambles and its security is in large part in the hands of the 20,000 US troops and thousands of international peacekeepers deployed here. Bombings and suicide attacks are a daily fact of life.
So on one point everyone agrees -- the road ahead will be bumpy.
Many critics -- and average Afghans such as Tahir -- believe the legitimacy of the parliamentary elections was undermined by the government's failure to keep warlords from strong-arming their way into office.
"The opening of parliament will not be viewed by many Afghans as a positive step," Saman Zia-Zarifi said, the research director for the Asia division of New York-based Human Rights Watch. "They will see it as a potential disaster."
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
OVERHAUL: The move would likely mark the end to Voice of America, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda and operated in nearly 50 languages The parent agency of Voice of America (VOA) on Friday said it had issued termination notices to more than 639 more staff, completing an 85 percent decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda. US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) senior advisor Kari Lake said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of US President Donald Trump’s agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
RSS