Afghanistan's political experience over the past one hundred years has been marked by intermittent periods of peace and conflict. What has been a constant feature of Afghan politics in both periods of relative stability and utter chaos has been the stark lack of genuine, representative governance with power and so much of it always vested in very few hands. From the era of the monarchy to the rule of the Communists in the pre-Taliban years, political authoritarianism and a culture of rule by coercion rather than by consent ultimately rested at the heart of all the ills that Afghanistan went through.
The primitive, uncivilized and inhumane notions of 'winner takes all' and 'loser is condemned' have been pretty much the unwritten rules of the game, they have been the cornerstone of the foundation upon which Afghan politics has been built and sustained. To this day and more than a decade after the emergence of the new political dispensation, which is supposed to be "inclusive" and "democratic", unfortunately, Afghanistan is still in desperate need of greater and better democracy, less authoritarianism and genuine, meaningful empowerment of its diverse people and communities.
At this juncture and more than a decade after the Taliban were ousted from power, with two presidential elections and two parliamentary elections already over, and with a myriad of crises, including a looming danger of re-Talibanization of the country, laying siege on Afghanistan from every direction, the way forward is through pursuing reforms at every level of the Afghan state and its politics. What is painfully evident is that the current system and the Afghan state in its present form and shape are falling short of meeting the ever-growing needs of the country.
The road to success, evidently, goes through the area of reforms and lots of it. At a time when the country's economy, already weak, feeble and small, is about to lose the major pillars of support which have been holding it together since 2001, the government of Afghanistan remains utterly impotent and inept as manifested in the fact that in any given fiscal year, it has failed to spend more than 60% of its development budget.
With corruption, embezzlement, large-scale graft, misuse and abuse of power and immunity being pervasive, the governmental and state apparatus continue to languish in its addiction to humanitarian dollars from abroad. In the areas of development in major sectors of the country's economy, the government has long faltered while the non-governmental sector are fatally dependent on these humanitarian dollars that are fast dwindling as 2014 approaches.
What Afghanistan desperately needs is reforms. There is overwhelming consensus on this imperative among the international community as well as the Afghan private sector and civil society participants. Afghanistan's civil society members have long been warning about the current over-centralized political system and structure and long ago cautioned that this paradigm would only breed increasing corruption, a dysfunctional administration and greater chaos and disorder in the country.
No one, however, was willing to heed their warnings. Reforms, however, is a complex and multi-faceted issue that needs to be explored in depth and the ways and means towards achieving this determined in detail. In an environment like our country, the issue of reforms takes on many complexities and peculiarities that are unique to the context of Afghanistan.
In the current context of Afghanistan and at this juncture, political reforms is an overarching priority in that without introducing wide-ranging reforms in Afghanistan's political system and, more important, in the country's legal framework it would be impossible to a) drastically improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the government and the country's vast bureaucratic apparatus b) genuinely fight the pervasive corruption, theft and plunder of public resources c) hold the executive branch and the government including the president of the country to account and significantly reduce the ongoing authoritarianism and rampant abuse of power d) strengthen Afghanistan's nascent democratic experience e) pave the way for the rise and consolidation of a tolerant and inclusive political culture that allows for participation of a much larger segment of Afghan population in governance and prevents or significantly reduces the prevailing exclusivist culture of power-grab and power-sharing through informal networks of patronage f) allow for genuine political and economic empowerment of diverse communities and people throughout the country g) allow for accelerated economic development as a result of an improved public administration system, reduced corruption and adoption of an inclusive economic development model that would strengthen and expand the country's domestic consumption market.
All these imperatives would seem to be a tall order for Afghanistan of today but the fact is that these points constitute only modest imperatives that can indeed prove within our grasp. These imperatives would be possible to be achieved if there is substantive political will to do so on the part of the government and the entire spectrum of stakeholders in Afghanistan project including the international community, the political opposition groups and the country's vibrant civil society as well as the people in general are mobilized to move in tandem towards these ends. After all, the international community, including the government of U.S. during both George Bush and Barack Obama, has consistently overlooked the pressing need for political reforms in Afghanistan.
In my previous articles I have dealt with the issue of how to go about pursuing political reforms in Afghanistan of today. The over-arching objectives should be, at a minimum, creation and consolidation of strong and effective systems of checks and balances that would restore that first and foremost principle of democracy: separation of powers.
Restoring the independence and integrity of the country's Judiciary can never be compromised on. The current Constitution, put together hurriedly in the early years post-Taliban years, bestows extensive power and authority to the president of the country.
The result, as we see today, is the transformation of the country's president to the country's monarch with so much power that effectively renders meaningless democracy and causes rifts, corruption and a dysfunctional political and administrative system that consistently fail in delivering governance.
In the remaining few years in the run-up to 2014, the issue of political reforms should top the agenda of the international community in Afghanistan but in actuality it is not so. It is unfortunate and disturbing that such important countries as the U.S., while pushing for talks and negotiations with the Taliban, are actually disregarding the crucial imperative of political reforms.
In the long run, what would be the bottom line is whether we made the democracy in Afghanistan sustainable. Without initiating democratic reforms, Afghanistan's nascent experience with democracy would prove to be yet another "decade of democracy" as in the 1960s that disappeared as fast as it appeared.