Wolesi Jirga to hold secret ballot on speaker slot

KABUL or lower house on Tuesday agreed to conduct a secret ballot tomorrow to end the deadlock over the speaker position.

On May 16, the election for the speaker slot became controversial after one vote polled for Mir Rahman Rahmani was declared invalid.

Rahmani had bagged 123 votes --- one vote short of the required threshold      against his opponent Kamal Nasir Usoli who collected more than 50 votes.

The lawmakers were unable to reach an agreed roadmap regarding the one controversial vote which Rahmani’s supporters termed valid.

In today’s session, most of the lawmakers demanded an open voting to decide the fate of the controversial election but some others asked for secret ballot.

Some lawmakers, however, left the house.

Usoli stressed the voting should be held secretly and in the meantime if any lawmaker wished to vote openly, he/she could do that. His remarks also went unnoticed and the lawmakers left the house.

Mirdad Najrabi, Abdul Rahman Wardak and Zahir Salangi told media persons that tomorrow there will be voting to decide the fate of controversial vote and today they discussed how to conduct the process.

Najrabi said if the quorum was complete, there would be a secret voting in order to end the crisis.

nh/ma