KABUL, Afghanistan  

After months of bitter political wrangling and parliamentary crisis involving fist fight, the Afghan parliament on Saturday managed to elect its speaker.The new speaker, Mir Rehman Rehmani, is a millionaire former contractor for the U.S. forces in Afghanistan. He secured 136 votes in the Wolesi Jirga (lower house) with 245 MPs present. His rival, Khan Mohammad Wardak, an industrialist, secured 96 votes in this fourth round of voting.It took the country’s electoral commission at least six months to compile the final results for the October 2018 polls. After delayed results for the parliamentary polls, the MPs engaged in political wrangling for months, which also resulted in fist fight, causing parliamentary crisis in the war-ravaged country. Scores of angry candidates and their charged supporters staged a demonstration in front of the parliament building last month on what was supposed to be the maiden session of the newly elected legislature against the results.According to the country’s Independent Election Commission, at least 8.8 million people had obtained voter cards to cast votes for 2,500 candidates who were running for the lower house of the parliament. 

In its special report titled “2018 Elections Violence”, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) noted last year the Taliban launched deliberate campaign of violence and intimidation to disrupt elections. The report verified a total of 435 civilian casualties (56 deaths and 379 injured) during the process.