Globalaffairs

Issue 16/August-September 2009
by Arif Shiri

The recent official birth of democracy in Afghanistan has introduced a few questions regarding the democratic government of Afghanistan and the way in which government has handled the presidential election. Most commentators and scholars has never theorised and analysed in a way to give a broader picture of the contemporary political situation in Afghanistan. Simply, the situation has been viewed from individual’s perspectives and political ideologies were simply ignored. In other words, most scholars has been adopted a historical description position rather a social scientific explanations. However, this article would rather offer a third-way explanation to the current situation in Afghanistan. This explanation based on different approaches of political theories and, also it theorises and analyses the role of actors in contemporary Afghan affairs such as media, newspapers, journalist’s reports and individuals’ speech. Also this article aims to engage with other commentators and scholars on Afghan domestic politics.

In this article, I will evaluate and question the democratic government of Afghanistan and the role of international community in Afghanistan. Since Afghanistan had been labelled as a democratic state, it will survive after the second presidential election which will be held on the 20th August 2009. Also how much democracy has been planted and what does this coming election really means for all Afghans. In the first part of the article, I will briefly engage critically with the professor Ali A Jalali who has been optimistic about democracy in Afghanistan and other scholars who simply give up hopes of wining for a small group of Taliban regime whom are not an organised political party. In the second part, I will question whether democracy exists in Afghanistan, if yes on what ground. In the third part, the focus will be on political participation in presidential election. In the fourth part, this article outlines the future of democracy in Afghanistan; whether it will be possible to stabilise the Afghan government; whether the Afghan government and international community should negotiate with the Taliban regime and finally the conclusion is reached.

Just for clarification, the concept of democracy does not mean only “freedom of speech” or freedom of ‘social desire’ as most of ordinary people understood it in this context in most of Islamic states, especially Afghanistan. Instead, it is a combination of the following: Firstly, it based on individual’s liberty such as “positive and negative freedom”. These freedoms allow us to be “free to” and “free from”. It has been believed that it allows us to exercise our freedom as long as we do not harm other people and a freedom that allow us to be free from other individual or a group of people. Secondly, the concept of democracy means that we as individual are free to exercise our civil and political rights. It has been believe that only these rights can be exercised under the democratic umbrella or in other words, a democratic government provides an opportunity for individuals to exercise their civil and political rights. The democratic government is a type of government of the people by the people for the people. A government can only be labelled as a democratic (or at least liberal democratic) only if all citizens of a specific country within the defined boundary participate in the general election in a “free and fair election”. The question would be whether the previous presidential and parliamentary election in Afghanistan has been a free, fair and without any ethnical discrimination or not.

The existence of theoretical explanations within all scholars on Afghan affairs is important: firstly, it offers theoretical explanations to the current political situation in Afghanistan because simply individuals may not necessarily report and deliver the right message to the wider community. For instance, a governmental official or a member of Taliban regime may not say what he/she means in his/her speech or during his/her interview so it is our part to analyse and understand what they really mean what they say. For example, most of scholars who write about Afghan domestic issues such as “whether the government should negotiate and talk with any member of Taliban regime or not”; they write from one perspective of the society and forgetting to add other point of view. The recent view has been shared as a positive perspective that “the government should negotiate with the Taliban regime” because through negotiation, the government can create division between open minded ‘Talib’ and the extremists member of Taliban regime. Even most of commentators in the West agreed to follow this strategy before taking people’s point of view. As a commentator, I would disagree to negotiate with a regime that has been violating human rights and whom are responsible for mass killing. The reasons will be evaluated in the last paragraph.

The roles of social scientists are important within international relations and daily politics in Afghanistan because daily politics in Afghanistan have been indistinct to the international community based on two facts. Firstly, daily politics has been shaped by the behaviour and understanding of individual politics. A long civil-war in Afghanistan has had many effects on today’s democratic elections. As a result of this civil war, the shape of Afghan politics has been transformed to ethnic-nationalism which will be explained in more details in the next paragraph. Secondly, the birth of Taliban regime and its violence against women, ethnic minorities, specifically Hazara ethnic and human rights in general made it even more difficult for the pro-democratic Afghans to fight against foreign fundamentalists because at this point, the foreign fundamentalists were operating within the Afghan society.

Professor Ali. A Jalali has been very optimistic about the current situation in Afghanistan as he outlined in his article:
The parliamentary elections in Afghanistan were the final event of the internationally-sponsored Bonn Accords of December 2001. During the past four years, Afghanistan has made significant progress toward democracy while reconstructing the country’s political, social, and security institutions. These include adopting an enlightened constitution (January 2004), holding a successful presidential election (October 2004) and parliamentary elections (September 2005), while creating a national army and a national police force, dismantling major factional militia units, building a national economy from ground zero, expanding and improving a formal education system, and improving the status and future of Afghan women. (Ali A. Jalali 2006, p1)

Jalali is right in a few points to claim that Afghanistan moved towards a democratic government. However, still there are many stages that the government should pass before the democratic system operates in a way it should do to call Afghanistan as a liberal democratic state.

As far as international democratic value concerns, many amendments are required within the political system to satisfy the conditions of a democratic government. For example, the civil war has been made the condition very difficult for us to analyse whether we should simply ignore the fact that the participation during the presidential election in October 2004 was a free and fair election or not. As most of critics argue that 2004 presidential election were based on ethnic-nationalist politics and “many votes were traded between individual and the warlords”. This means that firstly, since the end of ‘the Cold War’, Afghan’s domestic politics shaped from ideological-party system towards individual-nationalism. Majority of the political parties has been based on a biased ideology to represent a certain ethnic interests rather than an ideological representative. This segregated ethnic politics has to change from the way in which individual citizens choose their president through a direct vote to a more organised political parties if the society hopes for more democratic and transparent government. It is true that Afghan elites adopted this presidential system for the country but, I believe the government should do more to solve this problem. There are two solutions and options to solve this issue. The first option is to educate all citizens, making education as compulsory for all Afghans, such as European countries. As it requires a long term strategy and the government needs a huge budget to achieve it. As we know, the government does not have a grand strategy to do this so this is impossible to achieve in short-term as it requires economic growth. Also it is difficult to change the mentality of old-generation whom aged during the war time. The second option is to bring some changes in political system. The second option allows the government to tackle the issue quicker and cheaper and the parties will be accountable for the outcomes of their policies and decisions. The following are the reasons that the government should take it into account while hoping for a better and more democratic government.

According to the survey 2009, 9 out of 10 participants said that they will vote for the presidential candidate who represents their ethnic. Consequently, any candidate who belongs to majority ethnic such as Pashtun will automatically win the presidential election. Therefore, on the one hand, the chance to win the presidential election is very small for other non-Pashtun ethnic candidates. Therefore, no matter what policies these candidates (like Dr Ramazan Bashardost and Dr Abdullah Abdullah and others like them) may have for the country but still they will lose because Pashtun ethnic is the majority of the population in Afghanistan, estimated to be 50 percent. This voting behaviour in Afghanistan has been questioning the democratic government of Afghanistan. On the other hand, this is not a set of ideas but instead this voting behaviour has been shaped by Afghan civil war, past bloody historical era and the lack of education.

In order to make some changes to this type of voting behaviour in the future of Afghan presidential election, there are two options. The first option is to wait and hope that eventually the political system in Afghanistan may develop and will be shaped towards non-ethnic politics. Moreover, based on this optimistic hope, one would hope that these individual candidates adopt policies that would benefit all Afghans, rather than focusing on ethnic interests and also hoping that the people’s mentality will change one towards another. The second option would be to convince the political parties to form a new stance based on political spectrum. It would be more organised if the organised political parties choose one candidate for presidential post. So through this process, not only parties will be responsible and accountable for their action because they will be care about their reputation which will have effect on their political gaining and losing competition. So through this organised political system, there will be parties that choose their top-candidate for the post. So the competition will be between political parties that choose policies according to their political stance. The chosen candidate will be suitable to the post because he/she has to achieve the majority of party’s votes. Allowing individuals for presidential candidate can be confusing for the electorate as currently there are 41 names on the ballot paper. For example, Afghanistan and USA are running through a presidential system but what are the differences between the two and what should Afghan government adopt.

In comparison, there are some obvious differences. Firstly, the birth of democracy in Afghanistan is new thus the governmental system has not been developed enough, whereas the US is the leading and the oldest democracy in the world which published in 1789. Despite the fact that the US is federal system, what means the power is divided between a central and national government and the states. But in Afghanistan the power is shared between the president, MPs and other members. However, there is a point for Afghan to adopt the US system, as in the USA, people get involved in the process of choosing the party’s candidate for presidency before the general election. At this process, not only organised political parties are involved but a member of every political party can participate and have some influence too. The issue with the current system in Afghanistan is not only the behaviour of individual actors who chose to vote on the basis of ethnicity but also the circumstances have changed the behaviour of individual actors. One way to avoid these circumstances would be to have organised political parties based on political spectrum, therefore these parties should choose the only presidential and MPs candidates.

In order to evaluate and analyse the outcomes of the presidential election (20th August 2009), this paper examine the following points, a) previous general election b), the candidates for presidential post and, finally briefly evaluating the future of democracy in Afghanistan.

Previous General Election

According to the BBC website, “the road to democracy in Afghanistan was opened following the overthrow of the hard-line Taliban regime in 2001. The Western governments backed a new leader, Hamid Karzai, and promised elections to underpin efforts to rebuild the country” (bbc, 09/10/2004). It is true to mention that the Western government has been playing an important role in the democratization of Afghanistan since 2001, even though, the first aim of US was not to focus on nation-building when Bush administration decided to go for military intervention. The Bush administration aimed to destroy the enemy abroad (the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime who allowed Osama Bin-Laden, the leader of Al-Qaeda) before they re-attack the US main land. However, as a result of the US engagement in a war with Al-Qaeda and Taliban regime, Afghan society has appreciated it because the war in Afghanistan were forgotten after afghan and Soviet-Union war as it normally refer to the “forgotten war”. So this gives an opportunity for Afghan society to exercise their political rights under a democratic umbrella so the Afghans will make the most of it.

According to historian Thomas J. Barfield (2005), the government of Afghanistan has been successful holding a ‘successful election’ even though the country lacks security. He argued that: “focuses on the efforts of the afghan government to produce a successful election in a country that still lack security. Historical background on the rise and fall of Taliban; Selection of Hamid Karzai to form the interim government of post-Taliban Afghanistan; Concerning on the holding of a parliamentary elections in a country with no firm foundation on party politics; Highlights of the election campaign and its outcomes; Political initiatives of Karzai as the legitimacy of his government assured by the electoral victory”. Even though Barfield focuses on post-Taliban time when Karzai was selected as temporary president from 2001-2004, but still the government managed to hold a ‘successful election’ while facing security threat from the Taliban regime and Al-Qaeda. The previous president election of 2004, according to BBC, over 10.5million Afghans have registered and voted. 41 % of the registered voters were women. This clearly shows that Afghanistan has been moving towards a democratic state, allowing all citizens, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, gender and language to participate during the election and exercise their political rights.

Current Presidential Candidates

As mentioned above, the current political system in Afghanistan does not satisfy the current domestic politics. Currently, the presidential system allows individuals to find a way to register their name on the ballot paper without being qualified to do so. According to the Independent Election Commission, the figure reached to 41 candidates for presidential post, including the current President Hamid Karzai. Amongst these candidates, there are unqualified candidates whose names are still on the ballot paper. For example, as quoted in the Breaking News 24/7, Azizullah Lodin, the head of Afghanistan’s election commission (AEC) disappointedly mentioned that “I personally feel ashamed that when I ask someone are you literate, and he says no. I ask if he has a professional background, and he says no. I ask if he was a mullah in a mosque, and he says no. And now he comes and registers himself and he wants to be president of Afghanistan. This is really shameful”, Lodin told the reporter. This is not the only issue that the AEC has been facing but also this political system allows corrupted individual politician to participate and work at the highest level of the government because simply these individuals does not belong to any political party to be accountable for their action. If the presidential candidates run by the party then they have to take the full responsibilities after wining the general election. As results, ultimately the corruption will disappear and the competition between mainstream parties will take the nation towards economic achievements.

Also this current political system allowed a former member of Taliban regime who was openly a candidate for presidential post. On the one hand, this individualisation of Afghan politics can be viewed as a dangerous politics, as it has been proven that those who had been a member of Taliban regime has not taken human rights into account, nor respected women’s or minorities rights. So they should be simply excluded from the decision making process, unless their mentality change completely, accepting democratic value, individual’s rights and pass the criminal trial procedures. For instance, the individual politician should move to the next level of democratization and form a political system based on their ideological believes rather than segregated ethnic political parties or individualism. As results, the party with the majority of the votes form a government such as the party system in the UK, (for more information on UK political system see the Kavanagh, D, et al (2006), ‘British Politics’). Also, this political system offers a better solution to the current Afghan parliamentary issues which has been hard to reach a national parliamentary consensus.

Who Might be the Next Afghan President

Amongst 41 candidates, the struggle for power is mainly between a few popular politicians. The strongest challenge to Mr Hamid Karzai, the current President is a few leading individuals like Dr Ramazan Bashardost a former Minister and a member of parliament, the former foreign minister Dr Abdullah Abdulah and Ashraf Ghani Zai a former finance minister and Ali Ahmed Jalali the former interior minister and a US based University professor. One of the popular messages of pro-Dr Bashardost is to seek changes. According to Oh My Gov (OMG) website, the catchy message is: “Afghanistan’s Obama, a candidate for change, who will stand against injustice, vows to empower minorities and curtail corruption”. This is a message has been posted on the internet, the young generation who campaign for Dr Bashardost, questioning whether Afghan society is ready for a change like the United States or not. It is very difficult for Dr Bashardost (from Hazara Background) to win this presidential election in a country dominated by Pashtun group long time who are the majority of the population but the race are still on. Meanwhile, there are two women (Shahla Atta, 30 years old and Frozan Fana, 40 year old) who struggle amongst these candidates, hoping to win the election where patriarchy continue to exists within the society. Even though, it is a dream for minorities and women to believe that “Afghanistan’s Obama” will happen one day but it is early to conclude that. The rise of minorities and women are a new hope that will change the face of Afghanistan’s domestic politics.

Nonetheless, even though many changes should have happened but the current situation in Afghanistan is far better than the Taliban regime and Mujahideen’s era, at least some basic human rights have been developed over the past seven years. One of the most important achievements of the government is the standardization of human rights, especially women’s right. In Afghan history, women had never had a chance of campaigning for presidential position, as now there are two candidates who are women. Moreover, there are women who run ministerial offices, even though they struggle against patriarchy at this stage of democracy in Afghanistan.

Should the government negotiate with Taliban regime?

The question have been asked by many commentators and analysts that whether the war against Al-Qaeda and Taliban regime has been weakening after the northern alliance agreed to negotiate with the Taliban regime, believe that through negotiation it would be easy to divide between far-extreme Pashtun nationalists and the moderate members of the Taliban regime. As most of pro-negotiation individuals believe that these moderate Talib simply could change their political stance if the government of Afghanistan gives them a chance. However, I believe that neither the government nor the international community should negotiate with the Taliban regime unless they fully accept and obey the constitution of Afghanistan, accept the principles of a democratic government. These principles primarily based on the value of a democratic government of the people by the people for the people (as mentioned above), individual rights, women rights and negative and positive freedom.

Meanwhile, the international community has been planting democracy in Afghanistan which ultimately will help to develop international peace and security so it is not the time to give up the hopes, to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan. I am aware that Obama’s administration agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan to stabilize the country which is the right decision. Nonetheless, most media commentators questioned that “whether it is worth to lose the live of our soldiers” to save strangers or not. I strongly believe that international community should not pull out their soldiers from Afghanistan, otherwise the history will repeat itself and the lives of all Afghans will be in danger again which will become an international issue again.

.hmmessage P { margin:0px; padding:0px } body.hmmessage { font-size: 10pt; font-family:Verdana } Arif Shiri
MA in International Relations

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