Running for president

2004-08-12 12:05

Kabul - Her round face framed by a sky-blue scarf and her fist punching the air, Masooda Jalal, the only woman contesting Afghanistan's landmark presidential elections, is a picture of determination as she declares, "I'm sure of winning".

In a country where women have historically been kept out of the government, the courage of Jalal, a 41-year-old doctor from the ethnic Tajik minority, makes her standout in an otherwise male-dominated political arena.

Jalal dismisses religious objections that have been raised in the conservative Muslim country to women contesting the highest post in the October 9 poll.

"There is an interpretation of the Koran according to which a woman can indeed be a leader," said the mother of three, who is a trained paediatrician, and was an official with the World Food Programme in Afghanistan under the ousted Taliban regime.

Visitors to her apartment, in a block dating back to the days of the Soviet occupation, are met at the door and escorted in to the living room by Jalal's husband, an eminent philosophy professor at Kabul University who manages her diary like a secretary.

Asked why she chose to enter politics, Jalal said in an interview: "My patients said you should be our delegate to the loya jirga."

'Never involved in politics'

"I did not have this in my mind. I was never involved in politics," she said.

Jalal was elected in 2002 with some 200 other women to attend the first post-Taliban loya jirga, a gathering of hundreds of tribal members to choose the shattered country's interim president.

"During the loya jirga the warlords came into the tent and dictated to delegates they would vote for (Hamid) Karzai," she recalled.

However she defied the warlords by opposing Karzai, who would eventually be picked as Afghanistan's interim leader.

She was urged to abandon her quest but said, "I was not convinced. The women of Afghanistan preferred that I challenge (Karzai)."

"My husband was very worried," Jala recalled. "He said, 'If you get only four votes it is going to be a shame for the family'."

Jalal won 171 votes

Jalal went on to win 171 votes, second to Karzai's convincing 1 295.

She has tried to distance herself from the warlords, saying that the people know she was never involved in the war that gripped Afghanistan for 23 years.

If elected, she would build a strong government, fight corruption and try to tackle social injustices like discrimination between the sexes and forced marriages, she said.

"She will be the mother for this country," she said, referring to herself in the third person. She also vowed to take on the powerful warlords. "Karzai made a coalition with them. I will not sell the country."

But Jalal dismissed the obstacles in her quest for the presidency in a country where tribal rules inform all decisions and the warlords can dictate the votes for whole provinces.

"Of course it is difficult. We have no free press. We have no money but we have people power," she said.

"I will try my best and we will see. If I am not the winner, (my campaign) will still be important. As a woman, I am giving a lot of courage to the women of Afghanistan."

(Picture sources: AFP)

- AFP