Afghanistan needs an
acceptable
regime and three
or four strong political parties
Abdul Khaliq Fazal
August 16, 2010
In the last 200 years, most countries around the world have established a
political regime for their government that are acceptable to the politics,
culture, religion, economy and the tribal system of its nation.
There are four acceptable governments (regimes) which most of the world
nations are now practicing.
1—Monarchy (Kingdom)
2---Monarchy (Commonwealth) like Britain.
3---Presidential System “the president is elected by the people, He or she
then forms a cabinet.
4---Presidential and parliamentarian prime ministerial system, which the
president is directly elected by the people, and then the prime minister is
elected within the parliament.
The current presidential system (regime) in Afghanistan is not the answer to
the Afghan problem and to the Afghan multi tribal nation.
In the Afghan constitution of 2004, section one clause one says that
Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, independent, unitary and indivisible state
I was one of the participants in the 2004 Loya Jirga which passed the current
Afghan constitution. The presidential system was one the most important part of
this constitution that the delegates to the Loya Jirga should have looked in and
put more time to it. The delegates should have been given more time to debate
the Afghan multi tribal nation and its structure, and then they would have found
the right answer for the future, the kind of regime and the government system
that would have been acceptable to the current and future generations of Afghan
society.
The current presidential system is only satisfying the needs of some of
Jihadist groups, who can get together, and stand behind one person of their
choice to be the president, and then they can share the cabinet posts and other
top government positions. This kind of system does not have a future and cannot
be a medicine for the problems of the current and future generation of the
Afghan nation.
In our current presidential system, there are no strict conditions for the
post. The president is not obliged to have any political base or a political
party, no working team, and no policies.
In a country like Afghanistan, if you do not establish the right regime,
political system for the government, then people will use the word of democracy
for their own benefit. Like what we have witnessed in the 2004 and 2009
presidential elections, the number of presidential candidates came up to 47;
this high number of candidates has never been recorded in any other under
developed country.
In Afghanistan, the presidential post is the most senior job, thus there must
be very strict conditions attached to the candidacy to this post.
The condition for a person to be president of Afghanistan has been in the
current constitution, chapter three clause sixty two are not enough, it has to
be looked into, and an amendment should be made to suit the Afghan society and
its needs.
On the top of other preparation, the candidate for this post must think about
how he or she can get the majority of votes to be the president. Therefore this
person must have leadership, political, economical, cultural, religious, tribal,
management knowledge, and skills. Above that, the candidates must have good team
and policies, and be able to tell the nation what will his or her policies and
team do for the country for the next 5 years while he or she is the president.
Coming back to the current Afghan constitution, there are many issues that
have to be corrected and amended so after the correction we can have a
constitution that has answers to all those legal matters that the government and
the parliament had problems and experienced in the past five years.
On the 22nd of April 2010, I organized a conference in Kabul .There I had
invited more than 200 Afghan intellectuals, politicians, religious scholars,
members of parliament, members from the Afghan business community, leaders of
the political parties and some tribal leaders. I put the following proposal to
them:
PROPOSAL
Afghanistan current presidential system (regime) needs to be reformed to a
long term new political stable system. So its nature and the style of the regime
can be an answer to the needs of the Afghan multi tribal nation for at least the
next 50 to 100 years.
POLITICAL PARTIES
Afghanistan needs no more than three to four strong political parties. Each
of these parties can gain strong national base and membership and support within
the Afghan nation. If each party can have a national agenda, good structure,
administration, working body, good leaders, and good economic, political, social
and cultural policies, then they will be in a position to get the support of the
majority of the nation.
The currently 156 political parties and other organizations registered with
the ministry of justice should come to be part of the following unity groups;
1—Those political parties and other groups whose believes are based on
democratic principles and values (Democrats) should get together in one national
coalition (Etilaf). The name can be finalized in the general meeting once an
agreement is reached amongst the various parties and groups to be united.
2---Those political parties and other groups whose believes and values are
based on middle ground and principles (Liberal Republicans) should get under one
umbrella national coalition (Etilaf).
3---Those political parties and groups whose believes, principle and values
are based on religious issues should get in one national coalition (Etilaf).
All these coalition (Etilafs) should elect good smart leadership for their
national coalition (Etilaf). At the same time, they should have attractive
policies so it can be presented to the nation to increase their membership and
win the support and vote of the voters during the local, districts, provincial,
national parliament’s and presidential elections.
In this kind of political system, the people will know who they are
supporting and voting for during the election. People will also see the leaders,
polices and strategies of each coalition (Etilaf).
This system will bring the Afghan multi tribal groups together and will at
the end share the government power together, through the national unity (Etilaf).
All this distribution of power sharing will be done inside the national
coalition (Etilaf).
After some time, once there are full trusts amongst the members of each
national unity group (Etilaf) then each political party and other group will
dissolve their party registration. The national coalition (Etilaf) will then be
turned to a strong national political party. The party will be named in their
national conference.
As Afghan people in the past 40 years have experienced and have bad memories
from Afghan political parties, thus its extremely important that any political
party wish to have grassroots support of the Afghan people, it has to come up
with good, and efficient set up, structure, policies, and trusted leadership,
and be honest to the people.
PRIME MINISTER FROM THE PARLIAMENT:
The prime minister chosen by the parliament is one of most important,
political and national system that has to be established in Afghanistan.
The president directly elected by the people, and the prime minister by the
parliament can create the balance of power in the multi tribal Afghan society.
The cabinet can be made by the prime minister in consultation with the
president, and approved by the parliament.
Once the political parties are established, then all the parties will be in
competition with each other. Each party will do their best to have more members
of their party in the national parliament, so that party can win the majority of
the members and then can have the prime minister and the government be made of
them.
If one party does not have the majority in the national parliament then the
two parties having more members can make a coalition in the parliament, based on
certain principles, and can create a joint cabinet. The above system is very
much in practice in many countries in the world and has been proven to be
successful.
The above political set up can create computations amongst political parties
and from there the economical, social and political development occurs and that
is what Afghanistan and the Afghan nation needs right now.
Abdul Khaliq Fazal was the former Minister of Public Works from 2001-2002,
President of the Evaluation and Privatization Commission of Public Enterprises
from 2002-2004, and an advisor to President Karzai in the 2004 Presidential
Elections. He can be reached at
a_k_fazal@yahoo.com.au
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