Consulting the People

Afghanistan’s new constitution is getting its first public airing, but many ordinary citizens have yet to see the actual draft document. Some are complaining that the review process is too rushed and confusing, and does not fairly represent women or the various regions.

Members of the constitutional commission have been travelling around the provinces for more than a month, holding public meetings to tell people about the process and ask them what they think the new government should look like. They have collated 30,000 surveys, and received 7,000 other comments – some in unusual forms such as a 200-metre banner from Bamian with 1,000 opinions scrawled on it.

But the difficulty of explaining the mechanics of democracy and figuring out the will of the 20 million-plus Afghan nation is apparent from the comments people have been making.

Even in Kabul, where the audiences tend to be better-educated and more sophisticated, those who attended the meetings found it hard to comprehend what possible forms their future government might take, let alone venture an opinion.

“This is the first time I’ve failed in a subject,” said a professor after attending a meeting at Kabul’s Polytechnic University. One hour wasn’t enough time for him to absorb a lecture on the different options for government or to give his thoughts on it.

In the adjoining province of Logar, where the population is more representative of Afghanistan’s largely rural communities, the complaints were even more basic. One local, Faiz Mohammad Atai, complained to IWPR that he has yet to see a copy of the draft constitution. And at a public meeting where banners on the walls proclaimed the rights of women, there was only one woman present among the 33 representatives from around the province.

Similar complaints were reported from other corners of the country, including Mazar-e-Sharif in the north and Jalalabad in the east, as well as from Afghans still living in Pakistan and Iran, where the commission members have also been soliciting views.

In southern Afghanistan in particular, security problems have prevented the constitutional commission from visiting certain areas. Islamic fundamentalist commanders who did not want the process to go forward reportedly told people to stay away from the meetings, and even the presence of Kabul police officers sent to provide security was not enough to reassure citizens.

Manoel de Almeida e Silva, spokesman for the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, acknowledged that because of the warlords people cannot always speak freely about the constitution. “In some areas people were told in advance what they have to say about the constitution,” he told IWPR. To cope with this, the commission is holding separate, small meetings, and UNAMA representatives as well as Kabul police are accompanying the commission members, he said. In addition, 14 of the 25 non-governmental organisations assisting with the process are focused on women.

The commission has been holding three types of meetings: to give general information, to solicit comments from invited individuals, and to talk to groups such as women, religious scholars, tribal elders or young people. Because of these efforts, “the constitution opinion polls process is generally democratic,” De Almeida e Silva said.

The opinion surveys, which were completed in writing by literate people and filled in by interviewers for those unable to write, asked questions such as whether the system should be presidential, parliamentary or monarchic, and whether it should officially be an Islamic republic or a secular one.

But for a nation that only had a brief experiment with democracy more than 30 years ago, answering such questions is a struggle.

Some participants said that, since the surveys were not marked with serial numbers, they don’t believe their opinions will be heard. Others wondered aloud why the survey didn’t address the touchy but symbolically important question of what the national language should be – Dari, the native tongue of Tajiks and the lingua franca in the capital, or Pashtu, spoken by the ethnic Pashtuns who predominate in the south of the country.

With little understanding of complex systems of government, citizens had to resort to simplistic responses. “The constitution should be according to Islamic standards and it should guarantee the social and political rights of all the people,” university lecturer Sher Maqsud Haidara told IWPR.

And two Logar farmers, Rosudeen and Jamal, stopped long enough from their day of manual labour to say that they want to see “an Islamic democratic central government which has a capable and strong president”.

But the conflict between the “rights of all the people” and “Islamic standards” is one which is likely to be the source of greatest debate, as scholars interpret Islamic law in widely differing ways.

Abdul Ghafour Lewal, who heads the constitutional commission’s press office, said it is to publish a booklet containing the opinions expressed during the process as well as information about forms of government on September 1. That is the same date as the final draft of the constitution is scheduled to be ready.

The drafting of the constitution and the consultations around it are being driven by a timetable set by the December 2001 Bonn Agreement. Comments are being solicited until the end of July this year. Once the draft constitution is published, a nationwide Loya Jirga, or grand assembly, will convene in October to approve it. Elections for a national legislative body and – if the constitution includes the post – the president, are to be held in June 2004.

Many are wondering whether this schedule is too rushed to ensure real input in a country with hundreds of isolated villages and low levels of education. They question whether Loya Jirga representatives, who will not even be chosen until the last week of September, will be able to absorb all the elements of the constitution and represent the views of their constituents in just a few weeks.

The timetable is meant to get Afghanistan’s basic governing framework set in place quickly enough for citizens to feel they have legitimate representation, and so that other reforms – economic, security, legal, judicial, and administrative – can proceed.

But the catch is that the legacy of 23 years of war presents great obstacles to making that process legitimate. Some two-thirds of Afghans are illiterate; women are still kept at home; transport and communications systems are in ruins; and in many parts of the country the local warlords command more power than official soldiers and police.

A report from the constitutional commission said that local officials in some areas, such as Nangarhar province in the east and Gardez in the south, had not cooperated with the process. The delegation was also unable to go to Quetta in Pakistan and some parts of Oruzgan, Nimruz and Helmand provinces “because of security reasons”, Lewal said.

In other areas, the “cooperation” of local officials has meant that only their friends and other figures with power and connections were invited to the meetings, citizens complained.

“We invited those who are educated and have influence in society,” commission member Mohammad Shafiq Muhmand told IWPR.

Soliciting the opinions of women is proving particularly difficult. In Logar, for example, deputy governor Abdullah said he had requested three men and one woman from each district of the province to attend the meetings with the constitutional commission. But Muhmand said that “because of regional problems, they could not send any women”. Girls’ schools in Logar and other provinces have been burned down and fundamentalists have issued threats on a regular basis.

Mirajudin, Abdul Wali Ludin, Asadullah Nazari and Noorullah Nawid are independent journalists in Logar who recently completed IWPR basic journalism training. Danish Karokhel is an editor/reporter for IWPR in Kabul.