Seats 249 | ||
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Type Lower house of the National Assembly Last election Afghan parliamentary election, 2010 | ||
The House of the People or Wolesi Jirga (Pashto: ولسي جرګه), abbreviated WJ, is the lower house of the bicameral National Assembly of Afghanistan, alongside the House of Elders.
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The House of the People is the chamber that bears the greater burden of lawmaking in the country, as with the House of Commons in the Westminster model. It consists of 249 delegates directly elected by single non-transferable vote (SNTV). Members are elected by district and serve for five years. The constitution guarantees at least 64 delegates to be female. Kuchi nomads elect 10 representatives through a Single National Constituency.
The House of the People has the primary responsibility for making and ratifying laws and approving the actions of the president. The first elections in decades were held only in September 2005, four years after the fall of the Muslim fundamentalist Taliban regime, still under international (mainly UN and NATO) supervision.
The 2010 Wolesi Jirga elections were held on September 18, 2010.
Elections
Elections were last held on September 18, 2010. Originally, they were planned to be held in May 2010, but after the disputed previous presidential election, elections were postponed. There were more than 2,500 candidates.
Members of Parliament (2005)
Some members of the Wolesi Jirga's 2005 election were: