Karzai to meet MPs over parliament row

Afghan lawmakers are set to hold a fresh round of talks with President Hamid Karzai over the disputed inauguration of parliament.

Karzai said he would open the parliament on Wednesday on the condition that lawmakers would respect the findings of the special tribunal on electoral fraud.

“What’s being said about the opening of the parliament on Wednesday, that’s conditional,” AFP quoted an official source as saying.

Karzai set up the tribunal after complaints by defeated candidates following the September 2010 parliamentary elections. The final election results were released in December but the parliament has so far failed to reconvene.

Most of lawmakers want the president to scrap the findings of the tribunal.

“We are going to inaugurate the parliament on Wednesday with or without Karzai,” lawmaker Molawi Rahman Rahmani said on Sunday.

The atmosphere is tense and the supporters of the disqualified candidates have held protests. Many claim that the vote-rigging this time was worse than the 2009 presidential poll.

The electoral chief says another election will not be possible.

About 2,500 candidates competed for 249 seats in the lower house of parliament or Wolesi Jirga.

The elections were held amid militant attacks on several polling stations and wide-spread threats by the Taliban to disturb the vote.

Some Afghan officials have described the presence of foreign forces as the main obstacle to holding free and fair elections in the war-ravaged country.