Afghan anxiety growing

Afghans look at the wreckage of a car at the site where it blew up the day before in Kabul, Afghanistan, yesterday. The explosion killed the driver and caused minor damage to a nearby military vehicle, police and military officials said. The blast was apparently a suicide attack. PHOTO: AP

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."

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."