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The perils of presidency in
Afghanistan
By Ramtanu Maitra
After wrangling for three weeks, Afghanistan's
loya jirga, or grand tribal council, voted on
January 4 to adopt the constitution drafted by the Hamid
Karzai government under the process set forth in the
2002 Bonn Agreement.
As the constitution was
written by a handful of people under the direct, or
indirect, instructions of a trio of relative outsiders -
interim president Karzai, United States ambassador
Zalmay Khalilzad and United Nations envoy Lakhdar
Brahimi - it should not have been surprising that its
passage was so contentious.
How faithfully the
constitution will be followed is another issue. Former
president Burhanuddin Rabbani, who led the minority
groups' opposition to Karzai, told Reuters on January 4
that the constitution was not one that represented a
consensus, as claimed by its architects, and expressed
concern that "this will push Afghanistan to
dictatorship".
Many in Afghanistan and beyond
are asking whether adoption of the constitution will, in
fact, ease the way for holding national elections. It
may, but not all are convinced. For instance, UN envoy
Brahimi, whose two-year tenure just ended, claims that
the security situation within Afghanistan puts a
question mark over the elections scheduled for June.
Voter registration and the actual presidential election
are expected to be arduous tasks, if not downright
life-threatening, because they cannot be performed
within the confines of a tent.
A strong
presidency
A number of clauses of the
quietly-drafted constitution provoked angry debate
inside the tent during the 22 days of discussion, but it
was really one issue - the strong presidency demanded by
the Karzai-Khalilzad-Brahimi trio - that dominated
discussion and laid bare the ethnic divisions within
Afghan society.
Clearly those who want
Afghanistan to become a stable nation did not relish the
exhibition of these ethnic divisions in their rawest
form. It is likely that even the trio who maneuvered the
situation to obtain a constitution that makes the
president irremovable did not want to see the divisions
show up. Apparently, however, the desire to get a
constitution that provides for a strong presidency was
so overwhelming that they were quite eager to risk the
fallout generated by the open show of ethnic divisions
and hostility.
In his op-ed in the Washington
Post January 6 celebrating Afghanistan's new
constitution, Zalmay Khalilzad, a member of the
neo-conservative cabal that runs the Bush
administration's anti-terrorism and axis-of-evil-related
foreign policies, patted himself (and Brahimi) on the
back. While he expounded on how the constitution
endorses human rights, the Islamic republic and women's
rights, his views about the much-discussed presidential
system showed up as only a part of a sentence: "The
Afghan constitution sets forth a presidential system
with a strong parliament and an independent judiciary."
But that strong parliament only has the authority to
impeach the ministers that the president picks, not the
president himself. Should the Afghans' chosen president
turn out to be a despot, the Afghans will have to live
with him, or plunge into yet another round of
blood-letting to remove him.
Why was it
necessary for the Karzai-Khalilzad-Brahimi trio to push
for a strong presidency? One of the prime reasons was to
undo the mistake which the United States had earlier
made in the winter of 2001.
Past mistakes
At that time, the US objective was to remove the
blood-curdling Islamists, otherwise known as the
Taliban, from power in Afghanistan. The Taliban were
almost all Pashtuns, who also represent the majority
ethnic group in that country. (The reverse of it, that
all Pashtuns are Taliban, however, is not true, but it
seems nobody told that to Washington at the time.) The
US sought the help of the ethnic minorities, represented
broadly by the Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, among others, to
physically oust the Taliban, loosely grouped in the
Northern Alliance. This was an obvious and efficient
move, however short-sighted: given the minorities'
anti-Pashtun reflex, they needed scant convincing to
take on the Taliban.
The task was accomplished
in no time, but it also created new imbalances. The
Tajiks, Uzbeks and other minorities who participated in
the anti-Taliban campaign were veterans of numerous
anti-Taliban and anti-Pashtun campaigns conducted over
the years. When the apple of Kabul fell into the lap of
these new conquerors, they did not want to share it with
the Pashtun. If one takes a good look at the Karzai
cabinet even today, one may get the impression that the
Pashtun are only a tiny minority in Afghanistan, while
the Tajiks as an ethnic group dominating
demographically.
The dilemma, then, is how to
bring the Pashtun back into power before they convert
the Taliban wholesale into an anti-American Pashtun
movement. The Bonn Agreement allows for the
powers-that-be to write up a constitution projecting a
strong president. The president, of course, would be
elected by the people. It means that if there is a
Pashtun candidate, he can be sure to be elected. In
principle, this would allow in due course any leading
member of the Taliban militia who garners the majority
community's votes to return to power in Kabul, now as a
legitimate Afghan president. The Tajiks, Uzbeks and
others who helped get the Taliban out and the Americans
in would be relegated to a sideshow in this setup.
Naturally, they are upset at the prospect.
Why
did Karzai throw down the gauntlet, saying that he would
only stand in next year's presidential polls if the
loya jirga approved the presidential system laid
down in the draft document? First, in the case of a
strong parliament - the other alternative - the leader
needs to draw support from the parliamentary parties.
But then that leader needs to have a political base in
the party he represents and the support of some others.
Karzai was handpicked by the US and legitimized through
the emergency loya jirga in 2002. The second
reason: Karzai was assigned that role to play by
Khalilzad and Co.
As we saw during the Cold War
days, Washington, like the erstwhile Soviet Union,
generally found it more convenient to deal with an
individual, usually a president and his coterie, than
with a strong parliament. A single individual can be
manipulated, awarded or uprooted at will. Pakistan and
South Vietnam, among others, were victims of this kind
of politics for years as allies of the US, while the
gamut of Warsaw Pact countries were victims of the
Soviet Union. The objective of a strong presidency in
Afghanistan is not the future well-being of Afghanistan,
but to make sure that the control of the country at the
highest level remains at the fingertips of Washington.
In all this, Karzai remained a mere pawn on the
chessboard.
Governing systems
Whenever the presidential system becomes a subject
of discussion, the American system is mentioned. While
there is no question that the separation of power in the
American system has been defined most adequately and has
worked like a charm, there are many hybrid varieties of
the presidential system that have been adopted by
developed and developing nations. The Afghan
constitution is yet another such hybrid variety.
Many of these hybrid presidential systems,
particularly those adopted in Africa and in Central
Asia, have turned out to be inadequate and highly
fractious. In Asia, among the major nations, the
Philippines has a strong presidency model. The country
has not done well, despite the fact that the Philippines
has a mostly-homogenous society. The Muslims in the
south remain a minority and have never been properly
represented. The presidential system has done little to
alleviate their problems.
Last October,
Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo said the
merits of a parliamentary system should be incorporated
in the debates among parties vying in this May's
elections, saying these would enlighten the public on
the issue. She also pointed out that she personally
favors a parliamentary system, noting that it would
enable "our country to keep in step with our Asian
neighbors in terms of political and economic
modernization and consolidation."
Weaknesses
of the parliamentary system ...
The strongest
arguments against the parliamentary system stem from the
fact that often the elected legislators convert the
parliament into a "club" which elects the chief
executive of the nation from among their members.
Surely, it is more democratic for the electorate to
directly elect the chief executive of the nation so the
people know exactly who will head the government for the
next five years. In addition, far from being dynamic,
the parliamentary system more often than not slows down
the decision-making process. Equally disturbing is the
occurrence from time to time of the spectacle of
unscrupulous legislators cobbling up a majority by
bribing or threatening fellow legislators.
But
the parliamentary system can also be effective in a
crucial way that has no corollary in the presidential
system. The constructive, as well as active, opposition
discussing matters of national interest generates public
interest under the parliamentary system more so than in
the presidential system. The participation of the
opposition in constructive discussions in the
environment of a parliament, as occurred during the
loya jirga, is universally acknowledged to be an
indispensable part of any democratic society. In a
fragmented society like Afghanistan, it can fairly be
said to be essential. The opposition monitors the
government, criticizes its policies and suggests
solutions of its own because it represents the
alternative to government. The most important instrument
of the opposition lies in generating public debate in
the course of which a government can be called to
account and alternatives presented.
The control
that parliament exercises over the government stems from
one basic principle: Parliament embodies the will of the
people and it must therefore be able to supervise the
way in which public policy is carried out so as to
ensure that the aspirations of the nation as a whole are
represented. The true strength of a parliament lies in
its ability to scrutinize the whole of the political and
administrative action of the government, even to the
point of arresting it when it no longer corresponds to
the movement of public opinion. In the plenary sessions
of the parliament it is possible for the opposition to
initiate debate, ask questions and move an adjournment
motion or even a motion of no-confidence. The use of the
question is extremely popular in countries like Britain,
India, Canada and Germany.
... and its
crucial strength
Democracy has almost never been
imposed from outside. The exceptions mentioned so often
are post-World War II Germany and Japan. But Germany was
divided, and West Germany came into being as much
through the leadership of key democrats like Konrad
Adenauer as through Allied guidance. The "MacArthur
regency" in Japan is also cited, but here MacArthur had
one great asset: the support of the emperor, the
unifying symbol of the Japanese state and people. In
Afghanistan there is no such unifying institution. In a
parliamentary system, the country, through deliberations
and a sometimes tortuous process, finds its democratic
mooring. To manipulate such a country from the outside
is much more difficult than manipulating a country that
has a president who is unimpeachable. This was perhaps
the central motivation that led the trio to push the
strong presidency for Afghanistan.
In addition,
the parliamentary system provides a better opportunity
for the ethnic, religious and racial minorities to
participate in national politics. In the most refined
presidential system, such as that exists in the US, one
Catholic (a minority in the US's Christian community)
president has emerged so far in 215 years. Not one
president, or even a vice president, has emerged during
this long period who is not either a Christian, or
white, or male. It is possible that no better candidate
could be found among the non-whites, or non-Christians
or women, but that also seems unlikely. Nonetheless,
this did not so far create any problem within the US
because it has remained a homogenous society. Whatever
racial tensions exist are seemingly manageable.
Such is not the case in the nations of Asia and
Africa, in particular. Many of these nations were
factionalized and fragmented by European colonial rulers
in the 19th and 20th centuries. Using one ethnic group
against the other and using one religious group against
the other, a handful of colonial rulers governed and
pillaged those countries, leaving behind ethnic and
religious groups who had helped the colonial rulers and
later came to be identified as "traitors".
Take
for instance the case of India. India's present
president, and perhaps the most celebrated one of them
all, is the third Muslim president. Within the span of
55 years since it became a republic, India, which was
partitioned by the British in 1947 to prevent violent
hostilities between the Hindus and Muslims, has already
picked three minority presidents. Would that have been
possible if the strong presidential system had existed
in India? Most likely not. Is it not important for India
to have qualified Muslim presidents? Yes, it is, even
though the president enjoys only mostly ceremonial
powers.
It is also likely that the strong
presidency voted into the constitution by the loya
jirga under duress will fail to produce a president
who is a non-Pashtun, or a woman, for decades to come.
By monopolizing the presidency, the majority ethnic
group may find that it has heightened the barrier that
already separates them from the minorities. It is not
even unlikely that the result will be increased
hostilities between the Pashtuns on one side and the
other ethnic minority groups on the other.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All
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