Description of Electoral System:

(Courtesy of IFES election guide)

The President is elected by direct vote to serve a 5-year term. In the House of People (Wolesi Jirga) 249 members are elected by direct vote to serve 5-year terms. In the House of Elders (Meshrano Jirga), 34 members are elected to serve 4-year terms, 34 members are elected to serve 3-year terms and 34 members are appointed by the president to serve 5-year terms. The total number of seats may vary, but can be no more than 249 seats.The presidential appointees will include two representatives of Kuchis and two representatives of the disabled; half of the presidential appointees will be women.

Electoral system snapshot

(Courtesy of International IDEA)

* Click on links for definitions

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Politics of Afghanistan

(Courtesy of Wikipedia)

In recent years the politics of Afghanistan have been dominated by the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan by the United States and the United Kingdom and the subsequent efforts to stabilise and democratise the country. As of 2006 the system of government in Afghanistan is in transition. A new constitution has been adopted, and an executive president democratically elected, and parliamentary elections took place in September 2005.

DID YOU KNOW? A quarter of all Afgani parliamentary seats are reserved for women

The current president Hamid Karzai became the first ever democratically elected head of state in Afghanistan in late 2004. He now has begun the process of reconstruction. Still, the country lacks a legislature. Elections for this branch of government were supposed to have finished by mid 2005. The members of the Supreme Court were appointed recently by the president to form the judiciary. Together, this new system will provide a new set of checks and balances that was unheard of in the country. Also, the system is quite new, implementation of which began only 2004, just after decades of war between different factions and warlords. The remnants of the warlords are almost non-existent. The United Nations and other governments and organizations play a vital role rebuilding this new democracy's political environment.