Ugly words were exchanged among some MPs in the lower house of parliament on Monday regarding the impeachment of ministers sought almost a month ago. They have been trying to come to a consensus on whom to impeach on the issue that the ministries could not spend over 50 percent of their development budget. They include ministries of defense, interior, commerce, economy, counter-narcotics, water and energy, education, urban development, mines, higher education and information.
Two MPs almost went near a showdown to punch each other. They passed each other insulting remarks. In previous sessions of voting for the move to impeach ministers, majority have supported the call. But some MPs who are considered to be pro-government are trying to block the move by disrupting each session to be adjourned. In last Monday's session, they approved a change to impeach 7 ministers instead of 11 approved earlier. Four ministers, Interior, Defense, Higher Education and Urban Development who had taken office in 2011 were excluded. Violating their own rules of procedure, the move caused another division.
Two-third of MPs have to support a motion, which was approved last month. But debate in the house session raised issues such as new cabinet appointments and questions on the impeachment mechanism. It was decided that there will be a separate form for voting on each minister about the motion to impeach them.
Earlier, there was a debate about the voting procedure on day of ministers' appearance before the house. Given the shameful retreat of many MPs who had actually signed for impeachment of Water and Energy Minister Ismail Khan, the house approved that the voting be held in secret ballot. During the same session, they bypassed the normal procedure to collect minimum required 50 signatures for a successful impeachment petition, saying the body's general call to impeach the ministers was enough. The house was divided on the issue of secret ballot, it's supporters saying it would allow them to vote without political pressure from the government or fear, while opponents said it was an accuse to keep space for horse-trading and business on votes: both valid points.
Though none talk of the obvious in clear words, rather raising technical points like the rules of procedure and secret ballots, but we believe the ugly episodes in Lower House of Parliament actually reflects the realities of our society, where politics is deeply divided on ethnic, tribal and regional lines of solidarity, besides the business of horse-trading. In a country like Afghanistan, ethnic diversity is the ultimate factor of national unity, which the government has not only ignored to pay a serious attention towards strengthening unity in diversity, but rather the ethnic divide has grown more, from corridors of power to public arena.
The real issue in the current parliamentary deadlock on impeachment is also about the ethnic and regional divide, where rule of law has been violated, respect for performance and merit ignored and time wasted on nonissues, while urgent matters of importance like the elections law is still pending.
It also reflects the deficiencies in our system, where overconcentration of administrative power leaves little space for a systematic promotion of diversity top to bottom in the society. The parliament has been less effective in playing its due role because of the lack of respect and disregard for rule of constitutional law in this regard.
The parliament should move on with the current deadlock as soon as possible and conclude the issue of impeachment with consensus based on principles of good governance and merit, rather than ethnic and regional divides or political affiliations. They need to pay urgent attentions towards other very important issue of the election law, which needs to be debated extensively due to the controversial unconstitutional proposals in it.