UN rejects Afghanistan criticism

By Sanjoy Majumder BBC correspondent in Kabul

Afghanistan is struggling to rebuild

UN officials in Afghanistan have rejected a report by an international think-tank describing the process of choosing a new constitution for the country as flawed.

The Brussels-based International Crisis Group (ICG) said last week that the push towards democracy in Afghanistan lacked transparency and favoured factions already in power.

But a UN spokesman in Kabul said the findings of the report were ill-informed and based on factual inaccuracies.

Several members of the body that is drafting the new constitution have also said the ICG's remarks are without basis.

The UN spokesman, Manoel de Almeida e Silva, said the ICG had reached premature conclusions on a process that had barely started.

It was particularly regrettable, he said, that there were factual mistakes in the report, such as the suggestion that insufficient funds were being allocated towards informing the public.

An amount close to $20m had been set aside for public education during the process, he said.

The Independent Constitution Drafting Commission also rejected the ICG report, particularly the suggestions that it was ethnically imbalanced.

Elections suggestion

The ICG had also asked for the loya jirga - or grand assembly - which is scheduled to adopt the constitution later this year to be scrapped, saying it was unlikely to be representative.

The loya jirga: ICG says it is unrepresentative

Instead, it recommended holding elections for a national assembly which could debate and determine the constitution.

But members of the drafting commission argue that such an election would be unregulated and completely illegitimate.

Plenty of time had been set aside, they said, for feedback from ordinary Afghans whose views would be incorporated into the new constitution.

Over the past week, several teams have fanned out to the provinces, informing people and soliciting opinion.

The adoption of a new constitution was set out under the terms of the Bonn Agreement in 2001.

It is seen as a critical step towards unifying and stabilising this country after two decades of war.