Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

The Government’s Resistance to Change

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The Government’s  Resistance to Change

The political war between the government of President Karzai and the main opposition bloc, Afghanistan's National Front, has found a new issue and a new battleground. The call by a number of leaders from the National Front to make a shift to a parliamentary form of democracy has been the hotbed of a new wave of controversies. Some prominent political leaders from the National Front had participated in a meeting in Germany organized by the Aspen Institute earlier this month.

It is now obvious that the calls for decentralization of power have not gone down well with President Karzai and, as we can safely assume, also with the powerbrokers who make up the inner circle in the Arg (Presidential Palace). President Karzai, in his speech in the inauguration ceremony of the second year of the parliament, lambasted these calls and ruled out any possibility of changing the system saying Afghanistan is not a political laboratory and that he would defend the system "until his last breath".

The president, in his speech, attributed the National Front's demands to some dark conspiracies hatched by foreigners. The National Front, in turn, has rebuffed the assertions made by the president and insists on a parliamentary form of democracy, one that can allow for greater decentralization of power and better accountability to the people and the elected institutions.

It is important to take an impartial view of the situation and take the arguments and counterarguments made by both sides to the court of reason and see what the modern principles of government and governance offer and prescribe for a post-conflict country such as Afghanistan. The National Front seems to have rightly diagnosed the problem but the question here is whether, along the way, it can also offer the right strategies and sets of solutions for the nation as well as the government and gradually build a consensus around these imperatives.

It appears that, at this juncture, the need of the moment is to launch a national dialogue and to raise greater awareness throughout the country and among the ordinary people about the need for greater empowerment of local communities through de-centralization and devolution of power. The National Front says it has collected one million signatures from throughout the country in support of introduction of a parliamentary system but the question is whether tens of millions of ordinary people throughout Afghanistan have been told regarding the problem of over-centralization and the ways to address it.

As said, the need of the hour is to drastically raise awareness among people and tell them about the problem. The National Front will be in a much stronger position to bargain with the government when it has the support of a significantly wide section of the Afghan people.

Furthermore, it is important to mention that the country's political class and the leaders in the opposition should strive towards softening the government's as well as the Afghan bureaucracy's strong sense of paranoia and 'resistance to change' as evident in President Karzai's fiery opposition even to the idea of reforming the system. Gradually building a political consensus should be a priority.

After crossing this milestone and as the experience in similar countries has shown, it is also important to overcome the static inertia and opposition to change of Afghanistan's bureaucrats and its vast administrative and bureaucratic system. 'Resistance to change' is a fact and an important factor in any political and administrative system. In the context of Afghanistan, this resistance should be controlled and channeled towards constructive contribution.    

It is possible to work towards these imperatives of empowerment of local communities and greater local self-rule as overarching goals both within the current presidential set-up as well as within a parliamentary system whereby the Prime Minister, unlike the current president, can be much more accountable and consensus-oriented.

The leaders of the National Front admit that they are insisting on a parliamentary form in order to break the current logjam of over-centralization. It is a fact born by various studies conducted in public administration that the approach to state-building should be a bottom-up one rather than a top-down one. Even if the country can overcome the power of vested interests that stand in the way and successfully introduce a parliamentary form, the primary goal of empowering communities will not be achieved unless wide-ranging reforms are introduced in the country's public administration system.  

Some publications and commentators in various Afghan media wrongly reported that the National Front's leaders pitched for a "federal' system in Afghanistan. This is absolutely wrong as these leaders never talked of 'federalism' but demanded a parliamentary form of democracy which is entirely different from federalism.

The opposition's assertions are based on the recognition that the current arrangements and structures of power and authority have led to an over-centralization of power in the center in Kabul with the president of the country appointing all the important provincial and district level government functionaries such as the provincial and district governors, all the judges and numerous others.

While decentralization of power in Afghanistan is an absolute necessity as I have dealt with this issue in detail in my previous articles, decentralization should take place in such a fashion that it can lead to greater empowerment of local administrative divisions, (provinces and districts) with local communities finding a greater say in how and where the government goes about the task of governance. The demand that the system be changed into a parliamentary form is quite distinct from the issue of decentralization of power within the current government structures.

Changing into a parliamentary form, per se, cannot guarantee achieving the goal of de-centralization if it is not accompanied by wide-ranging reforms aimed at empowering local governance structures at the provincial and district levels. In other words, for the goal of devolution of power to the local bodies and government functionaries and in order to make local governance in Afghanistan more representative, a series of sweeping reforms are needed be it whether in the context of the current presidential set-up or a parliamentary one.

According to various academic studies undertaken on the issue of local governance in Afghanistan including the one carried out by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit in 2011, local governance in Afghanistan continues to be in a pathetic condition.

The apathy and incompetence of the central agencies restricts the effectiveness of the local agencies which remain at the mercy of the center even for the smallest of task authorizations or funding. Moreover, local governance continues to be characterized by a lack of coordination among provincial and local departments of Kabul's line ministries.

Developmental efforts at the provincial and district levels by the government are undermined by this lack of coordination and cooperation. A vast and cumbersome system of bureaucracy, that disregards local peculiarities and diversities, is fatally dependent on Kabul has killed off local initiative-taking and has rendered ineffectual and incompetent a vast network of local and provincial government functionaries.

The author is the permanent writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at outlook afghanistan@gmail.com

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