Monday, December 19 2005 15:07 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Kabul: Afghanistan's first popularly elected parliament in more than three decades convened today (Dec 19, 2005), marking a major step toward democracy following the ouster of the hardliner Taliban.

US Vice President Dick Cheney flew in to attend the opening session, which was held under intense security.

The session began with a reading from the Quran, the national anthem and a folksong sung by schoolgirls dressed in brightly colored robes. After the delegates were sworn in, President Hamid Karzai called the gathering a display of Afghan unity.

"This gathering shows that all of the people of Afghanistan are unified," Karzai said. "This is an important step toward democracy".

He said the approval of a constitution and the establishment of the National Assembly "bring us all under one roof to discuss our problems."

The 249-seat body is made up of an eclectic mix of tribal leaders, Westernized former refugees, warlords, women and ethnic minorities, in itself a victory for a nation recovering from a ruinous civil war.

Afghans voted for the lower house in September, and also elected provincial councils that then chose two-thirds of the 102-seat upper chamber. Karzai appointed the remaining 34.

The legislators, with little or no experience at governing and many lacking basic education, will have to learn quickly if they are to help pull Afghanistan out of poverty, rid it of terrorism and rampant drug trafficking, and end a stubborn Taliban insurgency that shows no signs of abating.

Afghanistan's constitution vests little authority in the legislature. Most of the government's power is still concentrated in the hands of the president, although parliament will be able to pass laws and veto his Cabinet selections.

The country has had no elected parliament since 1973, when coups and a Soviet invasion plunged the country into decades of chaos that left more than 1 million people dead. Civil war raged in the early 1990s, followed by the disastrous rule of the Taliban.

After today's largely ceremonial opening session, security and stability were expected to be major issues for the lawmakers in the weeks ahead.

The inauguration of the assembly formally concludes the political transition process agreed on by Afghan factions under UN auspices in December 2001, though Afghanistan is still a long way from stability.

Some 20,000 US troops are deployed here, along with thousands of NATO peacekeepers. But violence is rife in the country's south and east, where remnants of the Taliban are waging an insurgency marked by near daily killings and bombings.

Just days before parliament was to open, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a car not far from the assembly building, slightly damaging a Norwegian peacekeeping vehicle.