xDr. Massouda Jalal (داکتر مسعوده جلال) is the first woman in the history of Afghanistan who ran for the Office of the President of Afghanistan in 2002, and again in 2004. She holds the distinction of being the first woman to compete for presidency in Afghanistan, a highly conservative society where women's engagement in public life was considered improper, unacceptable, and previously banned. Dr. Jalal emerged as a leading voice of Afghan women in 2001 after her election as the Representative to the 2002 Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly). While serving her term, she became one of the frontrunners for the position of Interim President, opposite to ex-president Hamid Karzai.
She was also the only woman candidate in the
2004 Afghan presidential election. In 2004 election, Jalal was placed 6th among 17 male candidates. She has a background as a professor at the Kabul Medical University, and she has also worked in leadership positions in the UN World Food Programme and UNHCR offices in Afghanistan. She is fluent in Persian, Pashto, English and Hindi/Urdu and moderately fluent in French and German.
Early life and education
Born to a middle-class family in Kapisa Province of Afghanistan, one of seven children, Jalal moved to Kabul to attend high school. After scoring the second highest marks at the national level in the National College Entrance Exam of Afghanistan (Konkor), she attended the Kabul Medical University, where she later joined as a faculty. Amidst raging war in the early 1990s, she and her academic colleagues founded the Human Rights Commission which reported human rights violations to the UN Special Envoy to Afghanistan. She was a member of the faculty in the Kabul Medical University until 1996, when the Taliban government had her removed. After her removal from the Kabul Medical University's faculty, she worked as a National Senior Program Officer and Head of Women's Department for United Nations-World Food Programme (UN-WFP), Consultant to the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Senior Program Officer for the United Nation's Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Under the Taliban rule, her efforts for women and girls’ right to education and work led her to get arrested for political reasons. She was released from prison through United Nation Headquarter's intervention. Her husband, Professor Dr. Faizullah Jalal, has been a professor of Law and Political Science at Kabul University for the past 30 years and they have three children. Taliban security service officers arrested Professor Faizullah Jalal on 8 January 2022 for his alleged role in criticizing Taliban government on social media.
Political career
Jalal was elected as a Representative of her Kabul neighborhood to the 2002 Emergency Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) of Afghanistan. In 2002, when she ran for the Office of the President in the Interim Government of Afghanistan, she was placed into consideration to lead Afghanistan as Interim President, but she was finally placed a second to ex-president of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai. She turned down the offer to become ex-President Hamid Karzai's first Vice President in exchange for the withdrawal of her candidacy.
In 2003, Jalal was again elected from Kabul to the Constitutional Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) of Afghanistan. During the drafting of the Constitution of Afghanistan, she worked with fellow women delegates to lobby for the inclusion of women and human rights provisions, including Article 22; Article 53, Section 2; Article 44; Article 54, Section 2; and Articles 83 and 84. During the Constitutional debates on whether Afghan women should be given the right to vote and run as a candidate for high positions in government, her experience in running as a presidential candidate was used as reference by the supporters, citing that she had already practiced that right. By running as presidential candidate, she had already set the benchmark on the highest level of position in which Afghan women should be allowed to compete. This gist of the debate was reflected in the documentation of the Constitutional Commission and was covered by media.
Dr Massouda Jalal run again for the Office of the President of Afghanistan as the only woman candidate in the 2004 Afghan presidential election. In 2004 election, Jalal was placed 6th among 17 male candidates. From 2001 – 2004. She was the only Afghan woman who was part of the delegation of Afghanistan during the peace negotiations. In this role, she actively participated in formal peace negotiations.