Dissension greets opening of Afghanistan's grand council

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghans offered solemn prayers and hopeful songs from children Sunday as they kicked off a landmark constitutional convention.

Some 500 delegates gathered under a huge tent to hammer out a new constitution in a traditional loya jirga, or grand council.

Their former king urged them to overcome the deep ethnic divides left by more than two decades of conflict.

"The people are relying on you and you should not forget them," the 88-year-old former monarch, Mohammad Zaher Shah, said. "I hope you will try your best to maintain peace, stability and the unity of the Afghan people."

"We are set to determine the future of the nation and of coming generations," President Hamid Karzai said. "This constitution will guarantee the rights of all Afghan people."

But arguments at the start of the convention over Karzai's authority exposed the difficulty of securing agreement on the country's first post-Taliban charter.

Officials hope the loya jirga, meeting at a Kabul college campus, will take about 10 days to finalize a 160-article draft drawn up by a constitutional commission.

Delegates are divided by pressure from U.S.-backed Karzai for a strong chief executive, with opponents pushing for a prime minister who would share power. Karzai this week said he would not stand in next year's elections if a strong prime minister's post is created.

Karzai scored a victory Sunday when an Islamic moderate viewed as a close ally was elected chairman of the council. Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, an aristocratic former president, secured 252 votes.

Some fear the power struggle will overshadow issues like the rights of women, or that the president would bargain away too much to religious hard-liners in return for their support for a presidential system.

The fault lines were quickly evident Sunday, as speakers aligned with the Northern Alliance, the anti-Taliban coalition dominated by ethnic Tajiks from the north, challenged Karzai's right to appoint 50 of the delegates.

"The order issued by the president is completely illegal," said Hafiz Mansour, the publisher of a Northern Alliance-affiliated newspaper who won 154 votes in the runoff for the chairmanship.

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