VZCZCXRO4969
PP RUEHPW
DE RUEHBUL #0183/01 0261145
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 261145Z JAN 09
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6992
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 KABUL 000183 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A, S/CRS 
CG CJTF-82, POLAD, JICCENT 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV AF
SUBJECT: ANALYSIS OF 2009 PARLIAMENTARY LEADERSHIP ELECTIONS 
 
REF: KABUL 25 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY.  Both houses of Afghanistan's Parliament 
elected their leaderships to new one-year terms this week. 
This year's elections showed evidence of President Karzai's 
low standing among MPs and the continued tendency for MPs to 
vote along ethnic, rather than ideological or gender lines. 
There were no major changes from 2008, but the voting margins 
produced one of the few tangible insights into parliamentary 
blocs.  Parliament's usual system of voting by an unrecorded 
show of hands and electing MPs from non-partisan ballots 
otherwise obscures the machinations of most backdoor dealings 
(reftel). But even though voting for leadership positions is 
done by secret ballot, we can use the results to estimate 
certain factions' strength.   End summary. 
 
¶2.    (U) Both Lower House Speaker Yunus Qanooni (Kabul, 
Tajik) and Upper House Speaker Sebghatullah Mojaddedi (Kabul, 
Tajik) won five-year terms upon Parliament's first seating in 
¶2005.  Each year, both houses hold elections for one-year 
terms for the other leadership positions: First Deputy 
Speaker, Second Deputy Speaker, First Secretary, and Second 
Secretary.  The Deputy Speakers chair sessions in the 
Speaker's absence and manage other assigned duties (such as 
coordinating MPs' foreign travel requests and international 
donor assistance).  The secretary positions have little 
official power, but offer a chance for MPs to balance the 
ethnic or ideological makeup of the leadership.  All winners 
require a majority of votes from MPs present; a failure to 
win a majority triggers second-round balloting, usually held 
the following day.  For the 2009 Lower House elections, 213 
MPs (of 249 seats) were present on the first day of balloting. 
 
First Deputy Race Shows Karzai's Inability to Rally Votes 
------------ 
 
¶3.    (SBU) Incumbent Lower House First Deputy Speaker 
Mirwais Yaseni (Nangarhar, Pashtun) won re-election by a 
sizable 135-58 margin over Aref Noorzai (Kandahar, Pashtun), 
who held the position in the 2006 and 2007 sessions.  Minor 
candidates attracted a smattering of votes and some MPs 
intentionally invalidated their ballots, hoping to hold out 
for more payoffs in a second-round vote.  According to 
several MPs and Parliament watchers, Noorzai spent a small 
fortune trying to win back his position with implicit support 
from Karzai (Noorzai's sister is married to Karzai's brother 
and Kandahar strongman Ahmad Wali Karzai).  Yaseni told 
PolOff he didn't expect to fare as well as he did given 
Noorzai's financial investment in his campaign.  However, 
Yaseni estimated he won an overwhelming majority of Tajik, 
Hazara, and Uzbek votes, as well as about 40 percent of 
Pashtun votes.  Haji Ibrahim, Qanooni's brother and chief of 
staff, admitted United Front MPs rallied to Yaseni to block a 
Karzai ally from power.  Parliament staff said the vote 
confirmed their suspicions that Karzai's reliable supporters 
in the Lower House could not exceed 60 votes. 
 
Pashtuns, Tajiks Strike Deal to Maintain the Status Quo 
---------- 
 
¶4.    (SBU) Elections for both Second Deputy Speaker and 
First Secretary required second rounds, as incumbents 
Amanullah Payman (Badakhshan, Tajik) and Abdul Satar Khawasi 
(Parwan, Pashtun) initially fell short of the required 
majority.  Payman won 85 votes in the first round, which we 
believe is a good indicator of the United Front's baseline 
support.  Female candidates Raqia Niall (Ghor, Hazara) and 
Safia Sediqi (Nangarhar, Pashtun) captured 42 and 36 votes, 
respectively.  Third Line candidate Mir Ahmad Joyenda (Kabul, 
Hazara) was fourth with 28 votes, revealing the maximum 
support for the Lower House's most secular faction.  In the 
First Secretary race, Khawasi polled 98 votes to Abdul Satar 
Darzabi's (Jowzjan, Uzbek) 95. 
 
¶5.    (SBU) Incumbents Khawasi and Payman initially appeared 
to be in trouble amid talk of a Hazara-Uzbek alliance to 
support each other's candidates.  Moreover, two female 
runners-up in the Second Deputy Speaker race seemed to 
guarantee a woman would win a leadership position for the 
first time since 2006.  However, the mostly Tajik United 
Front MPs and a large bloc of Pashtuns struck a deal 
overnight to protect their incumbents.  With poorer 
attendance the following day and women tending to vote their 
ethnicity over their gender, Payman and Khawasi each polled 
comfortable majorities in the second round.  Niall, with no 
financial or political organizational efforts behind her, 
only added 19 votes to her first-day total.  Despite 
accounting for more than 25 percent of Parliament (and an 
even higher day-to-day percentage given their male 
 
KABUL 00000183  002 OF 002 
 
 
colleagues' absenteeism), women do not hold any of the 10 
leadership positions in the two houses. 
 
¶6.    (U) Second Secretary Dr. Saleh Saljoqi (Herat, Tajik) 
won a first-round victory over minor competition.  He is the 
only MP in a leadership position in either house from a 
Western province -- MPs' desire for regional and ethnic 
balances being one reason behind his easy win. 
 
Upper House Leadership Consolidates Support 
---------- 
 
¶7.    (SBU) Upper House election results were less vigorously 
contested.  Incumbents Deputy Speaker Hamed Gailani (Paktia, 
Pashtun), First Secretary Mawlawi Muzafari (Kapisa, Tajik), 
and Second Secretary Abdul Khaliq Hussaini (Laghman, Pashtun) 
won easy re-election on the strength of Gailani's Harmony 
Group faction, which he said now controls a majority of the 
102 Upper House seats.  In the sole change in this year's 
election, MPs swapped out one Harmony Group 2nd Deputy 
Speaker for another, as Engineer Aref Sarwari (Panjshir, 
Tajik) edged Burhanullah Shinwari (Nangarhar, Pashtun). 
WOOD