Loya Jirga: Afghanistan's grand assembly, 1747 to 2020

At a glance

• A loya jirga (لويه جرګه, loya jirga), "great assembly", is a national gathering of delegates called by Afghanistan's ruler. The 2004 constitution calls it "the highest manifestation of the will of the people of Afghanistan". [1]

• Afghan tradition, the historian Hasan Kakar and the American country study of 1986 say the first was the 1747 gathering near Kandahar that chose Ahmad Shah. Benjamin Buchholz and M. Jamil Hanifi say the name and the institution were made in the 1920s. [7, 8, 12, 22]

• Almost every Afghan king and president in the last century used one, from the first held "arguably in 1915" to the last, for now, in August 2020. [10]

A Pashtun circle with a grand name

The jirga (جرګه) is the circle of elders described in the jirga. The loya jirga is the same word with loya, "great", in front of it. Hanifi, an anthropologist who says he is a Pashtun and a Pashto speaker, notes that in Pashto the adjective comes first and agrees with the noun: loya is the feminine adjective and jirga the feminine noun. In his description a village jirga seldom has more than twenty-five members, and the call for it comes from local people, not from a state. [8]

Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network draws the line the later story depends on. In the Pashtun code a jirga reaches a consensus and its decision binds; a shura only advises, and the ruler decides. A "consultative jirga", he wrote in 2011, is a contradiction. [9]

The 1747 gathering and how it was retold

After Nadir Shah's death in 1747 his Afghan horsemen rode for Kandahar. Ganda Singh, following the chronicle he cites, describes a council of the tribal chiefs held on the road. It sat eight times without result. At the ninth, Haji Jamal Khan of the Mohammadzai held a majority but not enough, and a darvesh, Muhammad Sabir Shah, put forward Ahmad Khan, who had said nothing in any session. [11] The full story is in Ahmad Shah and the founding of the Durrani state.

Kakar, writing in 1979, takes this as the first national assembly. In times of national emergency, he says, Afghan rulers convened a great assembly of local magnates, notables and officials, which advised on the one question before it and dissolved. "It was such an assembly that chose Ahmad Shah Durrani as king in 1747." [12] The country study says the same. [22]

Hanifi argues from the earliest account, a chronicle written between 1753 and 1774 by Ahmad Shah's court historian Mahmud al-Husaini. It has a gathering at Kandahar in 1747 where a mendicant named Saber put blades of green grass on Ahmad Khan's cap, but no organised assembly, no vote and no coronation, and it speaks of fighting between his supporters and opponents. In Hanifi's account the consensus election grew in later writing, through Mir Ghulam Muhammad Ghubar's 1943 book on Ahmad Shah, with its drawing by Abdul Ghafur Breshna of the wheat placed on Ahmad Khan's turban. [8]

Buchholz agrees on the point that matters. Source-based studies find that the term loya jirga was not used at the highest level in the eighteenth or nineteenth century, and Ahmad Shah "was not elected and crowned by a loya jirga as the common narrative wants us to believe". [7] Ruttig says the gatherings that chose Mir Wais Hotak in 1709 and Ahmad Shah in 1747 were much smaller bodies of tribal elders, balancing the strongest tribes. [9] That chiefs met and chose a leader near Kandahar is not in dispute. Whether it was a loya jirga is.

Assemblies before 1919

Kakar writes that Amir Abdur Rahman called the great assembly three times: in 1885, before his state visit to India, in 1888, when Sardar Mohammad Ishaq rebelled, and in 1893, after the Durand agreement was signed. [12] The country study says his assembly of princes, notables and religious leaders was advisory and left his autocracy untouched. [22] Hanifi answers that Kakar gives no documentation, and that he finds no record of any named assembly the rulers consulted before 1922. [8] See the Durand Line and Abdur Rahman Khan.

The other candidate for the first is 1915. Ruttig says Habibullah invited 540 delegates to Kabul to explain Afghanistan's neutrality in the First World War, and calls that the invention of the institution. [9]

Amanullah's three jirgas, 1921 to 1928

Leon Poullada counts three loya jirgas in Amanullah's reign, in 1921, 1924 and 1928, where the king told the delegates to carry the news home. [13] The first is dated differently: 1921 by Ruttig, 1922 at Jalalabad by Hanifi, 1923 by Buchholz. [7–9] The constitution of 9 April 1923 ends by saying that the ministers and "all the representatives of the nation gathered in a Grand Council [Loya Jirgah] in the Eastern Province" approved it, and that 872 members signed and sealed it. [13] Buchholz says Amanullah took the court assemblies of earlier amirs, the darbar, and gave them the Pashto name. [7] See Amanullah Khan.

The second sat at Paghman while the Mangal rose at Khost. Poullada says it endorsed Amanullah's reforms in the main, asked for changes to the powers of the judges, and the king agreed to a committee of Islamic scholars to certify future laws. [13] Buchholz says conservative delegates denounced the new penal code as against the shari'a and forced the king to withdraw it. [7] Poullada puts the assembly in the autumn or at the end of 1924. [13] Hanifi, who read its printed proceedings, has delegates received at Kabul in early July 1924 for Eid al-Adha and sitting for three weeks. He counts 1,054 participants, about 32 per cent of them from mainly Pashtun areas. [8]

The third opened at Paghman on 1 September 1928 with nearly a thousand representatives, all required to wear Western clothes. [13] The sources split on what it did. Poullada says it adopted most of the king's proposals but the delegates left bewildered, and that minimum marriage ages were summarily rejected. [13] Dupree and the country study say it rejected most of the proposals, so that Amanullah called a smaller jirga of about a hundred loyal officials and notables to approve the rest. [15, 22] On 7 September the Hazrat of Shor Bazar gave the king a petition against the reforms signed by 400 religious leaders. [13] Ruttig says this led to a tribal uprising and the king's fall about a year later. [9]

Nadir Shah's jirgas, 1929 to 1931

After the fall of Habibullah Kalakani, a jirga of tribal lashkars acclaimed Mohammad Nadir Khan king: on 16 October 1929, says the country study, on 17 October, says Ghaus. [2, 22] The Afghan trade agent at Peshawar, who said he had financed Nadir to restore Amanullah, called it "a farce", and Amanullah's supporters argued, in Gregorian's account, that few tribes were present and that it had not waited for the western tribes on the road. [14] In September 1930 a loya jirga of 286 men confirmed Nadir's accession and chose 105 of its members as a National Council, which the country study says approved the cabinet's decisions automatically. [22] Dupree says the assembly backed his proclamation cancelling Amanullah's reform programme and pledged a return to the Hanafi shari'a. [15]

The 1931 constitution names "the jirga of 1930" as the source of the parliament's authority, and Nadir told the new parliament that "the Afghan jirgas are regular governmental channels of the people of Afghanistan". [14] Under a new law, Gregorian writes, a loya jirga was to meet at least every three years, and no new tax or radical change was to pass without it. [14] Dupree's study, the country study reports, judged the constitution a royal oligarchy with popular participation "only an illusion". [22] See Mohammad Nadir Shah and Hashim Khan and Shah Mahmud Khan.

Neutrality, the Durand Line and Pashtunistan, 1941 to 1955

In 1941, after Britain and the Soviet Union had occupied Iran, they demanded that Afghanistan expel German and Italian nationals. A loya jirga backed neutrality. [22] Gregorian says it agreed to comply and affirmed neutrality and independence; Dupree says it decided to resist further interference from either side by arms; Hanifi says it approved the government's decision without discussion. [8, 14, 15]

On 12 June 1949 a Pakistani aircraft bombed the village of Moghulgai, 2,100 yards inside Afghanistan, by accident according to Pakistan and on purpose according to the Afghans. A loya jirga that included the National Assembly met in Kabul and on 26 July declared the Durand Agreement of 1893, the pact of 1905, the Treaty of Rawalpindi of 1919, the treaty of 1921 and all other treaties touching the Pashtuns illegal and dead, and voted national support for "Pushtunistan". [15] Ghaus, who served in Daoud's government, records an Afghan official telling Pakistani officials during Daoud's presidency that only that body could revoke its decision. [2] The competing claims are set out in the Durand Line.

In November 1955, as Pakistan merged its western provinces into One Unit, a loya jirga of 360 men unanimously backed the demand that the Pashtuns of Pakistan be given self-determination. [2, 15]

The 1964 constitution

King Zahir Shah's assembly of 1964 had 452 members: the two houses, the cabinet, the Supreme Court, both commissions, 176 members elected in the provinces and 34 appointed by the king, six of them women. [15, 22] Dupree notes that earlier monarchs had decided who attended and usually packed the hall. In 1964 the provincial elections were indirect and officials screened out anti-government candidates, but many tribal units, especially in Pashtun areas, chose their members in an open jirga. He judged that the delegates on the whole represented the full range of social, political and religious opinion. [15] See Mohammad Zahir Shah.

It opened on 9 September. Dupree wrote that fears of a docile, "stacked" assembly mostly disappeared by the end of the first day. Rural delegates used the skills of local jirgas, and dissenters were allowed to put their opinions in writing, which made it the first literate loya jirga. [15] A ban on banishment was extended to banishment "within its territory", because older members remembered the forced migrations under Abdur Rahman. Four hours of debate on the word "Afghan", which many citizens took to mean Pashtuns only, ended with the sentence that it "shall apply to each such individual". [15, 22] The assembly approved the text on 19 September and the king signed it on 1 October. [15, 22]

The constitution gave the loya jirga a legal form for the first time: the members of both houses and the chairmen of the provincial councils, summoned by royal proclamation, with a part in amendments. [3] Buchholz dates the loya jirga's first institutional change to 1964, and the start of the telling that made it ancient. [7]

Daoud's assembly in 1977

In 1977 a loya jirga approved President Daoud's constitution, set up a single party and elected him president for seven years. [16, 22] Ghaus, one of his officials, says government measures kept communists from being chosen as delegates. [2] See Mohammad Daoud Khan.

Two kinds of jirga in the 1980s

After the Soviet invasion the Afghan elders in Pakistan held their own. Kakar describes jirgas in Peshawar from February to May 1980, ending with a round of 916 members on 11 to 13 May. They asked the Islamist party leaders to join them, proposed a national council, and said only a state set up by free elections would be legitimate. The leaders came in, a member of the Gailani family chaired in breach of the rules, and the majority boycotted. [16] The country study says it produced no consensus. [22] In September 1981 more than 3,000 men gathered at Quetta, moved to Pishin at the authorities' request, and proposed the former king as national leader. Kakar's judgement is that the jirga had not become anachronistic: neighbouring governments backed the Islamist parties and opposed any national leadership. [16]

Kabul held its own, the first on 23 April 1985. The government's Kabul New Times said the delegates were chosen by "traditional tribal and popular jirgahs"; the country study says many local notables had to be bribed to attend. [22] Buchholz counts four loya jirgas between 1985 and 1990, made up almost wholly of party members, which approved party policy, a constitution and a president. [7] On 30 November 1987 Najibullah's loya jirga, whose members the authorities picked from social organisations, the National Front, officials and the party, adopted a constitution that allowed political parties, and elected him president for seven years as the only candidate. Four rockets fired from the Paghman hills hit near the hall as he began to read. [16] See Mohammad Najibullah.

The assemblies of 2002 and 2003

The Bonn Agreement of 5 December 2001 ordered an Emergency Loya Jirga within six months, opened by the former king, to choose a transitional authority, and a Constitutional Loya Jirga within eighteen months. A commission of 21 members set the rules, with seats for settled and nomadic people, refugees, civil society, scholars and traders, and "a significant number of women". [4] Delegates were elected by province after a district selection meant to include every social group, with a secret ballot at the provincial level. [19] The United Nations counted 1,656 voting delegates when it opened on 11 June 2002. Hamid Karzai won 1,295 of 1,575 votes, and Massouda Jalal, the first woman to run for such a post, came second. [5] See the Afghan republic.

How free the choice was is argued. The UN briefer, Prendergast, called the assembly a representative sample of Afghan society, said intimidation was documented but confirmed in only a few cases, and noted doubts about some delegates. [5] Jan Malekzade, a UN officer who helped run the elections, wrote that it was more representative than anything in the previous 25 years, but that the UN's silence let the warlords back into power. [6] Ruttig, who helped organise it, writes that the former king was the only contender who could have beaten Karzai in a free election there. In Peter Tomsen's 2011 book, the American envoy Zalmay Khalilzad learnt of a meeting of 900 of the 1,500 delegates behind the king, delayed the opening and pressed them to back Karzai; Khalilzad denied using pressure. The king took the title "Father of the Nation", which the 2004 constitution preserves. [1, 17] Hanifi calls the assemblies of 2002 and 2003 a charade staged by an American-controlled government. [8] Buchholz judges them the best option available, "an Afghan solution for Afghan problems" in Lakhdar Brahimi's phrase. [7]

The Constitutional Loya Jirga sat for 22 days with 502 delegates, 102 of them women. Ruttig, who was present, says there was no valid formal vote after the election of the chair. Karzai's allies used the ethnic card with Pashtun delegates, who distrusted the Northern Alliance. Pashtun delegates fought to keep Pashto the sole national language, and the compromise made Dari the second official language and gave Uzbek and Turkmen official status where their speakers are the majority. [18] The text defines the loya jirga as the members of the National Assembly and the heads of the provincial and district councils, meeting to decide matters of independence and national sovereignty, to amend the constitution and to impeach the president. [1]

Consultative jirgas, 2010 to 2020

District councils have never been elected, so the full body the constitution describes has never met. [19] From 2010 governments called what they convened "consultative". The 2010 peace jirga had about 1,600 delegates, many hand-picked by Karzai, the 2011 "traditional" loya jirga about 2,000, the 2013 jirga on the security agreement with the United States about 2,500. In 2013 the delegates urged a quick signing and Karzai refused. [19]

In April 2019 President Ghani's jirga was planned for about 3,000 people. The guidelines called the choice of delegates an election, but AAN judged it a selection, by "elites' consensus", with a quota of at least 30 per cent women. Seven rivals for the presidency and eleven parties boycotted it, and the Taliban called it a "fake jirga". [19] In August 2020 the government put 3,400 delegates from 23 "classes" a choice between releasing 400 Taleban prisoners and continuing war. [21] The speaker of the lower house called the jirga illegal, and AAN judged that it gave Ghani political but not waterproof legal cover. [20, 21]

A council of the tribes or an instrument of the state?

There are two accounts. The first holds that the loya jirga is the tribal institution on a national scale. In 1981 the former king described a jirga that all tribes join on equal terms, and Kakar's histories call 1747 and Abdur Rahman's assemblies loya jirgas. [12, 16] The Pashtun writer Abdul Rauf Benawa wrote in 1957, as Hanifi quotes him, that "every Afghan considers it his obligation to act according to its decisions". [8] The second account holds that it is a twentieth-century invention. Buchholz says Amanullah "invented" it, that the 1960s and the 1980s gave it its ancient pedigree, and that no assembly has met in the form its constitution prescribes. [7] Hanifi goes further and calls it a hegemonic device and a colonial construction. [8] Ruttig, citing academics, says the outcome of most loya jirgas before and after Amanullah was designed in advance. [9]

The record supports parts of both. From the 1920s rulers called national assemblies by that name and decided who sat and what was asked. The delegates sometimes refused: in 1924 they forced Amanullah to withdraw a law, in 1964 they changed the draft constitution, and in 2013 they urged a signature that the president withheld. [7, 19, 22] Buchholz concludes that the loya jirga has no prototype and has always mirrored the politics of its time. [7]