Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, June 03, 2002
Afghans Gather to Choose Grand Council
The loya jirga, a grand council of 1,500 people, will meet in Kabul next week to choose a new leader for Afghanistan and solidify the country's recently found peace.
The loya jirga, a grand council of 1,500 people, will meet in Kabul next week to choose a new leader for Afghanistan and solidify the country's recently found peace.
"All Afghans have decided that without a loya jirga we cannot have peace in Afghanistan," said Wakil Abdul Wahab, 50, a nomad leader from Helmand Province. "Afghans can solve all their problems by loya jirga."
With the loya jirga just a week away, it will be convened on June 10 by the former king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, and select a transitional government to run Afghanistan for up to two years.
An earlier round of voting on the local level selected the delegates who have gathered here and at other regional centers around Afghanistan, for the second and final phase of voting for the loya jirga. The council is sponsored by the United Nations.
Kandahar is the site for four days of voting, one day for each of the four provinces in the region: Zabul, Helmand, Oruzgan and Kandahar. At Kandahar University, hundreds of delegates chosen earlier by their villages began, district by district, to select the final 150 delegates from the southern region to go to Kabul.
More than 300 delegates arrived from Zabul Sunday to choose 18 representatives from among themselves. Most delegates expressed pride and excitement at the process.