Wolesi Jirga elects 1st deputy speaker

KABUL — the lower house of parliament — on Tuesday elected its first deputy speaker, but failed to choose the secretary.

Both houses of parliament elect their first and second deputy speakers, secretaries and their deputies each year, but the lower house speaker and the senate chairman remain on seats until the end of a legislative term.  

On Sunday, President Hamid Karzai inaugurated the parliament entering its fourth year of the five-year constitutional tenure.

Two days earlier, the lower house elected Mohammad Saleh Saljooqi as second deputy speaker and Irfanullah Irfan as secretary.

However, MPs running for first deputy speaker and secretary slots could not obtain the required number of votes in two rounds, with Speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi adjourning the vote to Tuesday.

During today’s session, 190 lawmakers were present. Each candidate was required to obtain 96 votes for election.  

MPs Seddiq Ahmad Usmani, Sharifullah Kamawal, Abdul Rahim Ayubi, Mohammad Akbar Stanikzai and Nazir Ahmad Ahmadzai, a Kuchi lawmaker, ran for the first deputy speaker slot.

Usmani won the election by securing 104 votes from the house. Kamawal bagged 19 votes, Stanikzai 18, Ahmadzai 14 and Ayubi nine.  

For the secretary position, Ibadlullah Mohammadi from Samangan, Samiullah Samim from Farah, Kamal Safi from Kunduz and Nazifa Zaki from Kabul had nominated themselves.

But none of them was able to obtain the required number of votes. The results showed 58 votes were casted to Mohammadi, to 43 Safi, 28 to Zaki and 23 to Samim. Mohammadi and Safi went to the second round of voting for the secretary slot.

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