The Times
Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent and Jerome Starkey in Kabul

President Karzai has given his election cronies the authority to find new ways of filling women’s seats in forthcoming parliamentary ballots, in a move that critics fear will erode constitutional safeguards designed to guarantee female MPs.

A unilateral decree issued last week gave the Independent Election Commission, which ran the fraudulent presidential polls in August, the right to reallocate seats reserved for women in cases where there are not enough female candidates on the ballot sheets.

Under the existing law Afghan women are guaranteed two seats per province in the lower house of parliament. The system, designed after the collapse of the Taleban to promote women’s rights, guarantees women a certain number of seats on almost every elected body. (Read more…)