CONDITIONS:

Afghan Leader Asserts Taliban Insurgency Will Fail (CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID ROHDE, 12/13/03, NY Times)

When Mr. Karzai took charge two years ago after the fall of the Taliban, the country was riven by ethnic and factional divisions, and heavily militarized after 20 years of war. He has held the government together and kept the peace by co-opting the powerful warlords and including members of all factions in the decision-making process.

Yet parts of the country have become so insecure because of the Taliban insurgency that the United Nations special representative in Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, said on Friday that the organization might have to withdraw staff members. Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, criticized the loya jirga, citing reported cases of intimidation and buying of delegates so that the assembly will be dominated by the armed factional leaders and their proxies.

Mr. Karzai, who brushed aside the criticism, is pushing a draft constitution that would provide for a strong presidency and a parliament whose powers would be limited mainly to approving the budget. Judges would be appointed by the president.

Mr. Karzai said he wanted to avoid the instability of a parliamentary system and what he described as "coalition governments built by armed gangs." If adopted, the constitution would pave the way for elections in June, and Mr. Karzai has already said he will run.

In an unusual example of political brinkmanship, Mr. Karzai said he would not run for president if the convention adopted a parliamentary system with a prime minister as well as a president, as some delegates have said they want.

"How can I be president for a system that I have said I don't believe in?" he said Friday.

Mr. Karzai and his senior aides appeared confident that the draft constitution he is expected to present to the loya jirga this weekend will be passed without extensive alterations. Mr. Karzai described it as combination of democracy and Islam that was "suitable for the conditions in Afghanistan today."

It remained unclear how the debate would go.

It would be appropriate for Parliament to have more power than seems contemplated here, but systems that contain both a president and a prime minister make no sense.

Posted by Orrin Judd at December 13, 2003 6:45 AM