New York Times
MUJIB MASHAL
A political opposition of sorts to the Afghan government announced its presence last week, with warnings that President Ashraf Ghani’s struggling administration would lose its legitimacy if it failed to hold long-delayed local elections within the next nine months.
But one sense of relief for the Afghan president and his coalition partner, Abdullah Abdullah, came from the fact that the opposition, called the Council of Protection and Stability, already mirrors their struggling administration in its disunity.
Several prominent members of the council, all former cabinet ministers in the government of Hamid Karzai, walked out of the inauguration of the new alliance, saying that the demands were too soft. The current government had exhausted its opportunities for change, they said, and the opposition should call for an immediate meeting of tribal elders from across the country to discuss alternatives, including an interim government that would hold an early presidential election.While the dissenting members of the opposition group say they are independent of Mr. Karzai, their stance closely resembles that of the former president. In private, Mr. Karzai, who remains influential across the country, has told aides and advisers that the government has failed in the face of a territory-gobbling Taliban offensive and an economic crisis that has led to an exodus of people from the country. He wants the opposition to call for an immediate loya jirga, an assembly of elders, to decide the government’s fate.
“President Karzai and his team tried to manipulate the council in their own favor,” said one member of the opposition, a former senior official in the Karzai government who asked for anonymity so as not to anger his former boss. “They were willing to use the position and influence of the jihadist leaders and political figures to topple the national unity government. This was their will and prime demand.”
The new opposition alliance is made up of former warlords and cabinet ministers in the Karzai government, many of whom either ran for office during the previous elections or are preparing for the next. Several of them are also believed to have been involved in the embezzlement and corruption that plagued the former government. In softening their demands on the new government, many of Mr. Karzai’s longtime loyalists also seemed to have formally parted ways with him, with some disenchanted with his role in influencing last year’s messy election process.
Analysts see the formation of the council as both an effort to pressure a struggling government to deliver on its promises and an attempt to press for greater inclusion in power.
“They are after appeasements. They just want to announce their presence because they want to pressure the government to give them political and military positions,” said Wadir Safi, a lecturer of political science at Kabul University.
It was unlikely that the members of the opposition council would have much popular support, because many of them had controversial pasts, Mr. Safi said. But the government’s abysmal record has given many of them hope that they can exercise some power anyway, he added.
“The problem is also that the government hasn’t delivered at all — the two men came together in an illegal agreement, they have talked a lot and delivered nothing, and they are trying to extend that,” Mr. Safi said.
Mr. Ghani’s government came to power through a power-sharing agreement brokered by Secretary of State John Kerry after an election stalemate last year threatened to throw the country into a civil war. The agreement’s two-year deadline expires next September, and it calls for a thorough overhaul of the election process, the holding of parliamentary and district elections, and a national assembly of elders to amend the Constitution and formalize Mr. Abdullah’s position as a prime minister.
But 15 months after coming to power, the government has struggled with even the most basic steps needed for holding the elections, including an agreement on the makeup of the commission to oversee the vote. A harsh winter, and a Taliban offensive that is expected to intensify in the spring, makes their task of holding the elections as scheduled even more difficult.
“The knot that is opened with the hand, they should not open it with their teeth,” Abdul Rab Rasoul Sayaf, a former warlord and one of the leaders of the opposition council said during the inauguration, warning against the government’s failure to abide by the deadline, quoting a local proverb about dealing with problems before they get worse. If the election “doesn’t take place in time, or is delayed, then people will try to look for alternatives,” Mr. Sayaf said.
A senior official close to Mr. Ghani said the government was determined to hold the elections before the deadline. But, in the meantime, he said, it will also try to offer job opportunities to stem the youth exodus and improve local governance over the next several months. He said that if the security situation delayed the voting, the government’s fragility would be compensated for in the public perception at least.
“The will and determination is there on part of the leaders to hold the elections at the loya jirga on time, but they keep getting sidetracked because of crisis after crisis,” said the official, who asked for anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
The opposition council was also critical of how the coalition government has handled the security situation. The two leaders have bickered over appointments, with key positions such as the ministries of defense and intelligence run by caretakers, which has trickled down to demoralize the troops, said Mohammed Umer Daudzai, a former minister of interior and a member of the new council.
“The security sector needs to be reformed and made apolitical,” Mr. Daudzai said in an interview. “The current 50-50 system, where the minister belongs to one leader and the deputy minister belongs to the other, and vice versa, affects the chain of command during the war.”
A clear example of the chain of command’s struggle is the situation in the southern province of Helmand. The intensity of the battle there has drawn American Special Forces back to the fight despite their transition last year from combat role to a training and advising mission. Reeling under a tremendous Taliban offensive over the past couple of months, the security forces in Helmand have reportedly suffered heavy casualties as the insurgents reach the gates of Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital.
On Sunday, the district of Sangin, one of the deadliest places for British and United States forces during the long war, fell back into the hands of the Taliban, according to a district council member, Hajji Mohammed Tahir. Frustrated with a lack of attention from the central government, Helmand’s deputy governor took to Facebook on Saturday to write an open letter to Mr. Ghani. Claiming the president was being fed wrong information about the situation in the province, he said that over two days the forces had suffered about 90 casualties in two districts alone, and that such setbacks were a regular occurrence.
“I know that when you read this, you will get out of control and get very angry at me,” wrote the deputy governor, Mohammad Jan Rasoolyar. “But I have no other way — that is why I have turned to social media.”
