KABUL, June 13: The first woman to stand for Afghanistan’s leadership, Massouda Jalal, said on Thursday she had been offered a cabinet seat if she pulled out of the leadership race in favour of favourite Hamid Karzai.

“My husband came to me and told me of the offer but we are not going to accept it,” Jalal said. “I’m standing as a candidate and I’m hopeful that I’m going to win.”

Reporters had earlier seen influential defence minister Fahim Qasim in discussions with Jalal’s husband and spokesman Faizullah Jalal, pressuring him to ask his wife to step down on the grounds her nomination was un-Islamic.

“This is an Islamic society,” Qasim told the spokesman, who looked nervous and replied: “It’s good for democracy, let’s see what’s going to happen and what’s going to be the outcome.”

Faizullah Jalal confirmed the offer had been made and rejected.

“Yes, that is true but we are not going to deal democracy,” he told reporters. “No deal on democracy is acceptable for us.”

“The candidacy of my wife shows the maturity of our people. If she wins, Karzai should congratulate her and if he wins, my wife should congratulate him.”

Jalal is one of three candidates for Afghan head of state in a vote taking place Thursday at a traditional grand assembly called the Loya Jirga that has drawn together more than 1,500 delegates from across the country.

However, she and the other little-known contender are unlikely to mount a strong challenge to Karzai, who has been interim head of the war-torn country for the past six months.

Afghanistan is a deeply conservative country and male delegates outnumber females by about eight to one at the assembly.

Observers said the decision to elect Afghanistan’s new leader in a secret ballot would help Jalal’s chances, and she does have some support.

“Yes, we support Massouda because she is a woman candidate,” said female delegate Nasira Moheb. “This is the first time Afghan women can assert themselves.”

“Although we know that everything has been pre-arranged, we hope that with the help of God almighty, Massouda can win.”

Karzai’s chances received further boosts this week when former king Mohammed Zahir Shah was forced publicly to renounce any claim on the leadership and ex-president Burhanuddin Rabbani also decided to stand aside.

Jalal, 35, is a former professor of medicine at Kabul University and now works for the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

When the Taliban took power in 1996, the 35-year-old was a professor of medicine at Kabul University, but but the hardline militia did not allow women to occupy official positions so she joined the United Nations.

She has called on her fellow women delegates — 200 or so out of more than 1,500 in all — to support her leadership bid.

“I’m working in an aid agency in Kabul helping thousands of my countrymen and I hope that the women delegates will help me because this is the first time that an Afghan woman has stood for such a post and this is opening a new page in Afghanistan’s political history,” she said this week.

The imam of Kabul’s main mosque, Qari Abdurrahman Qarizada, expressed the sentiments of many men when he said recently that Islamic teachings proved women were unintelligent and too physically weak to run for president.

KARZAI: Newly elected Afghan president Hamid Karzai vowed Friday he would use his mandate to crack down on the power of the country’s warlords and push international donors to make good on aid pledges.