CHARIKAR, Afghanistan: In the carpeted gloom of a mosque, village elders sat in circles around seven wooden ballot boxes, murmuring and gesturing. From one circle, voices rose sharply as an argument raged around a stocky, uncomfortable-looking man in a black suit.

He was a police chief and former Muslim militia commander named Fasluddin Ayar. The elders had unanimously chosen him to represent their district at the loya jirga, a traditional nationwide assembly that will meet in June to choose Afghanistan’s transitional government, to serve through the end of 2003.

But under the loya jirga rules, Ayar is ineligible to participate. As a former gunman and as a current security official, Ayar is disqualified under regulations devised to guard against armed violence and political interference in the country’s first democratic exercise after 23 years of conflict.

When a loya jirga organizer from Kabul explained this to the elders, they were incensed. “For 20 years this man has decided our destiny, and we want him to lead us now,” protested one. “If the law says he cannot, then the law is wrong.”

With patience and tact, the organizer, Abdul Razak Amiri, put his foot down. While praising Ayar’s service in defence of the nation and embracing him in traditional Afghan style, Amiri insisted that the rules be followed. Finally, the police chief agreed to leave the room, and the mollified elders chose a local doctor instead.

The quick resolution of the incident on Wednesday in Charikar, where seven districts chose delegates this week for the loya jirga, marked one small triumph in a political process that officials say is fraught with opportunities for disaster.

By the end of this month, more than 400 districts nationwide must elect 16,000 delegates; they in turn will choose about 1,000 local leaders to participate in the loya jirga, along with about 500 others who will be selected by government authorities to represent such groups as women, academics, refugees and civic organizations.

Loya jirga officials and UN advisers said that the voting process could easily fall apart as competition intensifies and groups with muscle and money - especially regional and ethnic Islamic militias that have held power in much of the country during 23 years of war and civil conflict - try to dominate the voting. In some regions, officials said, militia leaders have cooperated with the loya jirga process and vowed not to interfere. Loya jirga aides said two powerful regional leaders, Gen Rashid Dostum in Mazar-e-Sharif, and Ismail Khan in Herat, have pledged to support the elections while keeping their distance.

But in other regions, officials said armed factions have intimidated and bribed residents into supporting their candidates. With a weak interim government in Kabul and no national security force operating in the countryside, there is little authorities can do except nullify the results and start again.

In Farza and other villages, not a single woman was present at mass meetings held this week to prepare for the loya jirga, and only three women participated in the voting for delegates from seven districts. Among 4,618 delegates elected so far across the country, 42 are women.

Although the loya jirga rules stipulate that women should actively participate in the process, and more than 100 seats have been set aside for them at the June assembly, Afghan tradition dictates that women, especially in rural areas, do not venture out of their homes or mingle with men in public.

In Charikar, most women are illiterate, which means they would automatically be disqualified from the loya jirga, but even female teachers in villages there said their families and neighbours have strongly discouraged them from participating.

During the election at the mosque on Wednesday, Mahtab, 35, sat apart from the men, covered by a veil, during the discussion and vote. She said she had been unable to persuade other village women to participate, that she had been told to vote for a certain influential community leader and that no one had informed her she could be a candidate herself.—Dawn/LAT-WP News Service (c) The Washington Post.