Afghanistan today inaugurated its first democratically-elected parliament in decades, in an emotional ceremony that reduced Hamid Karzai, the nation’s president, to tears.

Dick Cheney, the US Vice President, and his wife, Lynne, were among the guests as the assembly opened amid tight security. He said it was "a privilege to be present" for the historic event.

Concern remains however whether the legislature, where regional warlords sit alongside Westernised former refugees, women and ethnic minorities, can be a constructive political force.

The assembly opened after a reading from the Quran, the national anthem and a folksong by schoolgirls dressed in brightly colored robes. President Karzai, while acknowledging the country’s problems with poverty, corruption and terrorism, hailed the parliament as a symbol of unity.

"This is an important step toward democracy," he said, closing his speech by tearfully declaring that Afghanistan was "again standing on its feet, after decades of war and occupation".

Mr Cheney sat in the front row, and signed a guest book afterwards. "It’s a privilege to be present on this historic day for the people of Afghanistan," he wrote.

Half of the members of the 249-seat assembly are warlords, and many MPs lack basic experience. Some are illiterate. Still, the fact that a parliament is sitting at all is regarded as a victory for a nation recovering from years of ruinous warfare, followed by the repressive Taliban.

Afghans voted for the lower house in September, and also elected provincial councils that then chose two-thirds of the 102-seat upper chamber. Karzai appointed the remaining 34.

"Today was a very good day," said Kubra Mustafawi, one of the assembly’s women. Nearly one third of the delegates are women. "After 30 years, the Afghan nation has gathered under the umbrella of peace."

Most of the government’s power is still concentrated in the hands of the president, although parliament will be able to pass laws and veto his Cabinet selections.

The country has had no elected national assembly since 1973, when coups and a Soviet invasion plunged it into decades of chaos that left more than 1 million people dead. Civil war raged in the early 1990s, followed by the rule of the Taliban.

Security and stability were expected to be major issues for the lawmakers in the weeks ahead.

The inauguration of the assembly formally concludes the political transition process agreed on by Afghan factions in December 2001, in a deal brokered under UN auspices.

Afghanistan remains a long way from stability, however. Some 20,000 US troops are deployed there, along with thousands of NATO peacekeepers. Violence is rife in the country’s south and east, where remnants of the Taliban are waging an insurgency marked by near daily killings and bombings.

Several days ago, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a car not far from the assembly building, slightly damaging a Norwegian peacekeeping vehicle.

The country’s economy also continues to rely heavily on the trade in illicit drugs - a threat that NATO’s top operational commander, US General James L Jones, has suggested is more serious than the Taliban rule. Opium production has boomed since the fall of the Taliban and Afghanistan is now the source of most of the world’s heroin.

The presence of warlords in the assembly has also caused concern.

"The international community will try to portray the opening of parliament as a triumph," said Sam Zia-Zarifi, Asia research director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch. "But many Afghans are worried about a parliament dominated by human rights abusers."

Among those in the parliament with bloody pasts are Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful militia leader accused of war crimes by Human Rights Watch, and Abdul Salaam Rocketi, a former Taliban commander who has since reconciled with the government.

Another MP is the former Taliban leader who oversaw the destruction of two massive 1,500-year-old Buddha statues during the fundamentalists’ reign.

"People are concerned about the warlords, because they entered parliament by force, by guns, by money," said delegate Malali Joya.

Times Recommends

• Fish and chip shops ‘selling cobbler as cod’
• T in the Park festival at Kinross
• How to get Madonna’s Thighs