Presidential Palace pictures of President Ghani’s meetings show his running mate Amrullah Saleh sitting next to him, which adds fuel to speculation among critics of the Ghani administration that Saleh is performing government duties unofficially.

Saleh, who is running as Ghani’s first vice president, has also been referred to as a high-ranking official in Presidential Palace statements.

The deputy head of the environmental protection agency said, in response to an order by President Ghani, Saleh led part of a meeting of the high commission of preventing air pollution in the absence of the president.

Photos from some recent meetings of the president with local and foreign high-ranking officials at the Presidential Palace show also show Amrullah Saleh sitting in the second chair next to Ghani.

Ghani’s spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said Mr. Saleh has attended some meetings as a “political figure.”

“You have not seen Mr. Saleh in a cabinet meeting or other meeting, but (you have seen him) in other places as a political figure or as a political VIP where his (presence) was required,” Sediqqi said.

But Bashir Ahmad Tahyahj, the spokesman for the first vice president, Abdul Rashid Dostum, said that Saleh’s presence in such a capacity is walking the line of what is legal.

“He is moving towards a violation of the law and he is disrespecting the place that has been given to him by millions of people,” Tahyanj said, referring to President Ghani.

Lawyers and critics also questioned Saleh’s presence in government meetings.

“The National Unity Government has driven Afghanistan towards calamity from a legal point of view,” said Wahidullah Farzaee, a member of the Afghanistan Lawyers Union.

“Those who are not within the government, their presence in (government) meetings is questionable,” said Zubai Habib Zada, spokesman for the Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan.

Some members of the Stability and Convergence campaign team have also been seen attending meetings of the Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah. They defend the inclusion of unofficial leaders as part of an inclusive peace process:

“Peace is beyond the government and all political movements, and figures from these institutions and movements should have a presence in the peace talks process,” Abdullah’s spokesman Mujib Rahman Rahimi said.

Regarding attendance, recently Abdullah’s first deputy, Engineer Mohammad Khan, has not been attending the Council of Ministers meetings, which are led by the chief executive. But Rahimi said the deputy chief executive has traveled to Turkey for treatment.