KABUL, Dec 23: Afghanistan’s new cabinet ushered in the post-Taliban era on Sunday, holding its first meeting to prepare the way for the mammoth task of reconstructing the stricken nation.

The power-sharing cabinet, chaired by the country’s new leader Hamid Karzai, ended the first session of its six-month interim term a day after being sworn in, with an aide saying it had gone “smoothly”.

All 29 of Karzai’s ministers were present at the two-and-a-half hour meeting in the Gul Khana presidential palace.

An aide to Karzai said one of the cabinet’s first decisions was that the new ministers should meet their staff on Monday and get down to business immediately.

After taking the oath of office at a solemn, often emotional ceremony on Saturday, Karzai said the administration’s priorities were the reconstruction of the country and bringing “peace and stability”.

With the Taliban gone and the new administration yet to exert any control beyond the capital and its environs, security has broken down in many parts of the country and millions of Afghans face food shortages.

Residents of Kabul returned to work in their thousands on Sunday after a week of virtual inactivity linked to Eid-ul-Fitr and Saturday’s inauguration.

Hundreds of people staged a pro-government march through the streets of the city, welcoming Karzai’s new administration and calling for jobs.

“There are four reasons we are marching,” said one of the organizers, Khalil Delawer.

“The first is to welcome the new government; the second is to celebrate the end of fighting (against the Taliban); the third is that armed fighters have been called off the streets, and the fourth is to ask Hamid Karzai to give jobs back to professionals.”

There were many other signs of changes starting in the post-Taliban era.

Thousands of girls who were excluded from public schools during the Taliban era registered for classes at private schools on Sunday.

The classes are aimed at helping children who received no schooling in the past five years to prepare for the official opening of government schools in March.

Businessmen were seen in the streets wearing Western-style suits banned by the Taliban.

The buoyant mood on the streets was mainly due to expectations that the new government will bring peace and prosperity to Afghanistan — major challenges for Karzai after more than two decades of conflict and three years of drought.

Karzai, a 44-year-old Pakhtoon royalist, is well aware of the great burden of responsibility placed on the new administration’s shoulders.—AFP