Interview with Sarwar Jawadi, Member of Parliament and Political Analyst

Question: After the collapse of the Taliban regime, what has Afghanistan accomplished in the institutionalization of democracy?

Answer: This issue can be discussed from two sides: Form and Substance  

A. According to Form
After September 11, a significant change came about by the decision of the international community to end the situation in Afghanistan under a Taleban regime. There were positive changes in this context. Afghans met at the Bonn Conference after three decades of conflict and crisis and agreed on some principles:

• agreement on establishment of an interim government,
• agreement on the transfer of power,
• emergency Loya jirga,
• constitution Loya jirga,
• disarmament,
• establishment of the army and police forces,
• and most importantly, the agreement on an elected administration,

These agreements were among the achievements of Afghanistan after the Taleban era.

Election is the best, or in other words, most peaceful and most rational type of change of government and transfer of power, and for the first time Afghans agreed on it.

Since Afghanistan was established 250 years ago within a specified territory, the transfer of power and change of government has never been done through collective social will or in a rational and peaceful manner; instead, inheritance, coup d’e tat or other means have been used. Therefore, the agreements reached in Bonn, especially the agreement on holding elections, were an important achievement.

The collapse of the Taleban regime was also a big achievement. The three most important negative characteristics of the Taleban régime were:
1. They did not believe in any civilization, and their beliefs and practices were based on old, closed and inadaptable traditions.
2. All of their leaders and members had violent characters. Violence against opponents, violence against certain tribes, violence against intellectuals, violence against civilization, violence against culture, violence against peoples' traditions and violence against women.
3. They were melded with international terrorism, and therefore the end of this regime was the most important achievement we have witnessed in this decade.

B. According to Substance
Unfortunately, the Bonn Agreement was implemented in terms of form but was not in terms of substance.
In terms of form the President was elected through election, parliament was established, the cabinet was formed, the cabinet received a vote of confidence from the parliament, the judiciary was established, and received a vote of confidence.

In terms of substance this agreement was not implemented properly. We do still not have a legalized political system; therefore the government of Afghanistan comes first in corruption, narcotics production and weak governance in international rankings. This is because no attention was paid to the substance of the issue. From a substantive perspective, the government of Afghanistan is not an elected government, it is an interest-based government, and this issue can be viewed from several angles:

1. The interest of Mujaheedin parties:
Some of the Mujahidin leaders still think that they are the leaders of the people. There are a small number persons who believe that the term – Mujaheedin – can be used only for them. If you tell these persons that they have oppressed the people, they say that you are accusing Mujaheedin. If you tell them that they have committed treason, they will tell you that you are calling Jihad treason. These few persons claim to be the leaders of jihad, the nation and the ethnic groups. These people have shaped the government based on this kind of leadership.
On the other hand, some “so called technocrats” coming back from the west claim to be leaders of democracy and technocracy.

2. Personal interests:
When Mr. Karzai was a refugee in Quetta, Pakistan, he had some personal relationships with people who were staff in his hotel. These people have taken the highest ranks in the government. For example, the former transport minister, whose case is still under investigation by the Attorney General’s office, is supported by Hamid Karzai, because he was Karzai’s hotel manager in New York.

3. The other issue is the presence of economic mafia.
In the present administration some gangs have established themselves and they include foreigners in addition to Afghans. Donor countries are deeply involved in the corruption. The funding from the donor countries aimed for Afghanistan is often returned back by corrupted International NGOs.

Therefore, in terms of substance, we do not have a stable political system based on public will, and everything is corrupted. The present election is the result of a corrupt system. Its basis is corrupt, its pillars are corrupt, and the roof built on corrupt pillars will be corrupt and unsteady.

Contrary to the Constitution, the President established the Election Commission through a personal decree. The Constitution states that "in order to hold fair and sound elections the Election Commission shall be established according to the law". In the constitution it is not specified who will establish the Commission. According to the constitution, the law should specify who should establish this Commission and what its characteristics and combination should be. The government should have prepared a law regarding the Election Commission according to the Constitution.

Today, we do not have any law to specify the authority and framework of the Election Commission. The President appoints members of the Commission; the President provides them with directives; the President gives them orders although he is a presidential candidate.

Due to pressure by the parliament, the law for the procedure and the authority of an Independent Election Commission was prepared by the government and sent to the parliament for approval. This law was approved in the parliament, but the President refused it. The parliament approved this law again with two thirds of the MPs, therefore according to the law it should have been implemented without Karzai’s signature, but it has not been implemented yet.

Therefore, the Election Commission that is intended to work for the institutionalization of democratic principles and holding free and fair election has the following problems:
1. It is not established according to law;
2. It is established by the President and is directed by him, while he is a presidential candidate; and
3. The Election Commission lacks a national directive that should have been approved by the parliament or at least by the Cabinet of Ministers.  

So, the performance of such a Commission is suspicious and doubtful.

Question: What will be the impact of such a process on peoples' belief in democracy and election?

Answer: Well, why was the turnout in the August 20 Elections very low? The people are tired of this system, tired of the present government and tired of the current President. But why didn't they participate in the election to change the situation? The answer is that the people do not believe in the election. Few people participated in the election because most of the people did not believe that there would be a free and fair election. You see that the turnout was so low that the legitimacy of the election is under question.

Although this election was more competitive than past elections, and there were strong candidates in the process, and these candidates spent a lot of money for election campaigns to motivate voters, still people did not participate in the election, because they did not believe in the transparency of the election.

With the present system, election commission and the existing lawlessness, the confidence of the people in democracy will diminish and if the election goes to the second round, the turnout will be much lower than it was in the first round.

Question: It is believed that the parliament of Afghanistan is also involved in damaging democratic principles, because it is said that some of parliament members have been involved in election fraud?

Answer: As the general process in Afghanistan affects the parliament, it does not have the required substance either. Irresponsibility of some of the MPs and deadlocks created in parliament by the government and the President, resulted in more observable and more serious lawlessness, weakness of democracy and fraud in the election, and now, no one takes any effective measure against these issues.

On the other hand, the present grouping in the parliament is such that nothing better can be expected from it; therefore some MPs contributed to this unpleasant condition.

Question: In Afghanistan’s recent history, different regimes have taken measures to institutionalize new political beliefs. King Amanullah tried some modernism; in the last years of King Zahir’s era, he took some loose measures to institutionalize democracy; after that, communists tried to institutionalize communism and socialism, and then the Taleban came with religious extremism. But none of these measures brought about the required outcome. Considering these historical experiences, is a democratic system applicable to Afghanistan? And how do you see the outlook for democracy in Afghanistan?

Answer: We have no other way but to institutionalize democracy in Afghanistan. Afghanistan experienced various political systems and all of them have failed because those systems could not establish and strengthen the complicated political management of a country.
Therefore, because there is no other way but to accept democracy and a democratic system, considering the nature of nation relations, and considering the fact that today's world is becoming a global village, and considering that a civilized life is impossible without having a relationship with the world, it is essential that the democratic system should be strengthened in Afghanistan. But to succeed, we need to consider the following contexts:

Afghanistan has some complex social structures, each of which has created a problem, we need to consider them:

1. Ideological problem. Some regimes have used extreme interpretations of the religion and Sharia Law. This was misused to turn the peoples beliefs to actually being used against them.  

2. Afghanistan has a conflicting and furious ethnic mixture. Throughout history, this issue was and still is one of the bases of the policies and managements in Afghanistan. Even the intellectuals in Afghanistan are ethnocentric. Those coming from the west have brought a modern type of ethnocentrism. Those living in the most traditional conditions, too, have some type of ethnic thinking. This problem is born on the fact that one specific ethnic group had always been effective in political equations, has always had the political power, and the governments they established – whether hereditary, through coup-de-tats or based on religious beliefs – had always been supported by some foreign powers. Or in other words, all the time a foreign power supported a specific ethnic group, and put them in power.

Now, these governments created by the means of – inheritance, coup de’etats, invasion, military or religious force – have caused a substantial conflict at the national level and hampered our effort to form a national government. It means that we have not become a nation yet, and while we are not a nation, we will not have a national government. When there is no nation, everyone will go towards ideological and ethnic tendencies.

Therefore, it is very important that the international community, countries having a political role in Afghanistan and countries supporting Afghanistan, pay more attention to this issue and change their strategies. Otherwise, a number of people will always try to keep this ethnic rule, and some others will always try to get rid of this condition. And while this conflict exists, we cannot become a nation, and will not have a national government, and of course democratic institutions will not grow.

3. The issue of traditions is also important. When we study traditional beliefs in Afghanistan, we can see that there are different and various tribal, regional, linguistic and religious traditions in Afghanistan. These traditions are in contradiction with each other, and therefore we cannot use any of these traditions as a basis for our system. Therefore, only civil and democratic values can be the center for the system.

It should be born in mind that democratic values must not be totally opposed to ideological and even traditional beliefs of the people; instead, the democratic values should bring these beliefs together around a national center.

4. Another problem of Afghanistan is this fact that a large part of the country has no border. This issue has ethnic causes, as the same ethnic group lives on both sides of the disputed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Politicians and rulers of Afghanistan never had the will to resolve this issue, because whenever rulers of Afghanistan lose their national support, they seek ethnic support, and ethnic support can be sought after when the borderline is uncertain. When we do not have any door or wall in one side of our house, even the weakest beings can enter our house. Until we do not know where our borders are, we cannot define our nation, we do not know our population, we cannot define our interests, and when we cannot define our interests we cannot develop strategies for our country, and when we lack a strategy no system, including democracy, will be effective in our country.

5. Traditional and recurring figures. The institutions supporting institutionalization of democracy in Afghanistan must not seek traditional and recurring figures because in Afghanistan the trend has become “person- dominated”, not “thought-oriented”. In the past eight years the international community has sought its objectives through “person-dominated” policies. There are a lot of people who can play a positive role in the institutionalization of democracy in the country, but none has yet paid attention to these people
 
Those who before September 11 used to chant slogans of globalizing Islam based on their extremist beliefs changed their slogans completely into democratic basis after September 11. This shows that traditional figures manipulate every system and their only goal is personal interest.

As long as the government is constituted by these figures, the parties that are to implement democracy are selected among these figures, and the international democratic institutions seek these people, the democracy will be sacrificed. In order to solve this problem, we should seek new figures, who have different thoughts and can be a link between the society and democracy, modernism and civilization.

Question: What do you think about the role of Afghans in strengthening the democracy? What can people do for institutionalization of democracy?

Answer: The people of Afghanistan have always played their roles very well. The people of Afghanistan have welcomed democracy. In the first election, the turnout was very significant. But people are not given opportunities. The circles that see their interest in instability have deprived people of opportunity. They misuse the people's ideology, ethnicity, traditions and old beliefs against the people and revitalize old and obsolete believes, and the people then become victims of this situation.

In order to resolve these problems we must define our national interests. We do not have any defined national interests to unify our people and to create our nation. Only then we can have a stable political system based on humanity, not based on ethnicity or language.

Question: How can the international community and other nations help us in this regard?

Answer: If the international community cares for the people of Afghanistan, and if development of democracy is a principle and objective for them, the players who are providing soldiers, funds, and feel responsible; must think about changing the political system and the government of Afghanistan. There is no difference between destroying democracy by bombs and guns and destroying democracy by corruption, falsification and bribery.
What has been done by Mr. Karzai's government in the past and what is done by Mullah Omar and his group has only one result and that is failure. Failure of the international community, failure of democratization of Afghanistan, and failure of the process in which we can transform Afghanistan from a safe haven for terrorism into a fair partner of the international community. Therefore, just as the international community has developed a strategy against terrorism; it should develop a strategy for the domestic issues of Afghanistan. They should re-evaluate the present government structure, remove people and groups who are the main hindrance to democracy and whose leaders are Mr. Karzai and his team.

Interviewer: Jamaluddin Ansari Temori