Afghan parliament rejects most of Karzai's cabinet nominees

Yahoo News (AFP) ^ | January 2, 2009 | Sharif Khoram

[UAConservative]

KABUL (AFP) – Afghanistan's parliament showed its teeth Saturday by rejecting the majority of President Hamid Karzai's nominees for cabinet posts, state television showed.

Of 24 nominees, only seven were approved in a secret ballot by more than 200 parliamentarians, in a process that appears to have undermined the president's authority.

"Of the 24 nominees introduced to parliament, seven have succeeded in getting your vote of confidence," parliamentary speaker Mohammad Yunus Qanoni said after counting finished.

The seven ministerial nominees who won approval included those who had been approved by Karzai's supporters in the international community as competent and clean technocrats.

Those rejected included a warlord, Ismail Khan, nominated for the post of water and energy minister, widely seen as a reward for supporting the president during the fraud-tainted August presidential election.

Also rejected, surprisingly, was the only woman nominated to a cabinet post, incumbent women's affairs minister Husn Banu Ghazanfar, who lost out by two votes.

[Impy]

“Those rejected included a warlord”

Good job Parliament.