Voting for Wolesi Jirga speaker goes to 3rd round

KABUL speaker position on Tuesday and the voting went to a third round.

After inauguration of the 17th legislative term of the Wolesi Jirga on May 18, an election was conducted for the speaker position of the house but the poll went controversial.

On Monday, a controversial ballot paper used in the earlier Wolesi Jirga’s speaker election was declared as ‘invalid’ through voting and today lawmakers voted for new speaker candidates.

About one and a half months back, after the inauguration of the Wolesi Jirga, lawmakers Mir Rahman Rahmani, MirwaisYasini, Kamal NaserOsuli and Omar Nasir contested for the speaker post.

However, none could bag enough votes to become speaker of the house and the ballot went to a second round, which was deferred to May 19.

Rahmani who needed 124 votes secured 123 in the second round. However, supporters of Rahmani said that one valid vote of the candidate had been counted as invalid by the temporary speaker while others said the vote was invalid.

This morning, Abdul Shakour Waqif Hakimi, a lawmaker from Badakhshan province, Javid Jaihon and Mir Afghan Safi from Kabul province nominated themselves for the Wolesi Jirga speaker position. However, none received the required number of votes.

At today’s session, 236 lawmakers were present and each candidate should receive 119 votes. But Jaihon got 76 votes, Safi 88 votes and 64 votes were invalidated and eight others were used blank.

After the announcement of today’s result, temporary speaker Malak Qais Noor Agha Malakzai said a third round of voting would be held among the two top candidates tomorrow (Wednesday).

Pk/ma