Afghanistan - Further Delay to Introduction of Cabinet Nominees to Lower House

The Administrative Board of the Lower House of Parliament has warned there would be a further two-day delay to the introduction of cabinet nominees because President Ashraf Ghani will not meet the meet the board until Saturday.

It was originally expected that the cabinet nominees would be brought to the Wolesi Jirga for vetting on Saturday and the MPs would start the voting process soon thereafter. But after almost five months of delay since the national unity government took power, President Ghani is not expected to introduce the names of the nominees until Monday.

"Wolsi Jirga of Afghanistan has sent a letter to the government requesting the introduction of the nominees by the president or one of the vice-presidents, but, according to our information, the President will not introduce them tomorrow," Lower House Secretary Sayed Ikram said.

MPs had originally planned to review the documents of the cabinet nominees on Saturday and then hand them over to the Higher Education and Religious Affairs Committee of the Wolesi Jirga for further review. But it is clear that will no longer be the case. "We did not receive any of the documents of the nominees on Tuesday, but it is expected that when the cabinet is introduced to the Wolesi Jirga, they would be sent to us," committee member Khalil Ahmad Shahzad said.

Mr. Shahzad vowed that the representatives would focus on the credentials and qualifications of the nominees, and not the wheeling and dealing that bedeviled past appointment processes. "These are the last appointments by the MPs and in this regard the MPs will work seriously," he added.

The two-day delay comes after President Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah finally announced on Monday the much-awaited list of 25 minister-designates and the nominees for the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and the Central Bank of Afghanistan.