Taliban poke fun at Afghan leaders on Twitter for inability to form cabinet
After 100 days in office, Afghanistan’s new leaders have still failed to name a new cabinet, causing frustration across the country. Twitter has been awash with jokes, with even the Taliban joining in to poke some fun at the government.
It has been over three months since President Ashraf Ghani was elected as the leader of Afghanistan. However, he and his rival in the election, Abdullah Abdullah, who has now joined forces with Ghani, cannot come to an agreement over who should take up key positions within the cabinet in the multi-ethnic country.
Many deadlines have been missed and now the public has taken to Twitter to mock the government’s inability to come to an agreement.
Joke: #Afghanistan#NUG leaders in 2050: "In coming days we will announce our cabinet" photo @TariqMajidipic.twitter.com/1nDcnAJqBj
— Parwiz Shamal (@PShamal) January 6, 2015
One Twitter user cleverly doctored a photo of Ghani and Abdullah to show them as old men with long white beards, along with the caption – “#Afghanistan…in 2050: In coming days we will announce our cabinet.”
Even the Taliban got in on the act: the militant group, who are more used to tweeting about threatening Afghan and foreign troops in the country, had a jibe at the Afghan leaders, with spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid tweeting: "Perhaps the cabinet is frozen!"
شاید که کابینه را یخ زده باشد! http://t.co/h3D3fUHn1u
— zabihullahmujahid (@zabihmujahid) January 6, 2015
Perhaps the cabinet is Frozen!
The tweet linked to an article written under Mujahid's byline, saying Ghani and Abdullah "have no convincing excuse for the failure to name a cabinet - they might as well blame the freezing weather in Kabul,” Reuters reports.
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The Afghan government faces a testing period, following the withdrawal of the vast majority of the US-led coalition forces, with the remainder staying in just an advisory capacity. At least 3,188 Afghan civilians were killed in the intensifying war with Taliban insurgents in 2014, making it the deadliest year on record for non-combatants, the United Nations said in a recent report, according to Reuters.
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The worsening security situation prompted Ghani to ask US President Barack Obama on January 4 if Washington might consider extending the deadline to pull out the remaining American troops still in Afghanistan. However, the following day, the US announced that they will stand by plans to halve the number of their troops in Afghanistan this year and reduce them further in 2016.
