Parties Fume on the Sidelines

The assembly that finally emerges from the September 18 parliamentary elections is likely to bear little resemblance to a viable parliament.

Observers of the political process say that if this happens, it will be far more than a failure by Afghans to understand parliamentary democracy. Instead, they argue, it is part of a well-thought-out plan to keep the legislature fractured and fragile so that it cannot present a challenge to the executive.

President Hamed Karzai has been ruling by decree since he was installed as the interim head of state in December 2001. His power increased after his landslide election as president in October 2004. It may be understandable that he would be reluctant to give up his near-imperial powers, but according to political analysts, the tactic that has been chosen will do little to bolster Afghanistan’s fledgling democracy.

“Democracy does not work without political parties,” said Joanna Nathan, a senior analyst at the think-tank Crisis Group. “We are not going to see a strong parliament, we are going to see a parliament of 249 individuals.”

This is largely the fault of the electoral method - the Single Non-Transferable Vote, SNTV, where each voter casts a ballot for one individual, rather than selecting a party list with a distinct platform. This leaves parties with little opportunity to foster debate on issues, promote their programmes, or enforce party discipline among their candidates. Instead, each of the nearly 3,000 parliamentary hopefuls is trying to stitch together a patchwork constituency based on ethnic identity and personal ties.

Nathan says that is a recipe for a weak and splintered legislature, “Even the most optimistic say it will take six months to a year to form workable caucuses.”

When the election law was being drawn up, the parties lobbied hard to be given a role in the campaign. They insisted that up to 70 per cent of the seats be apportioned according to party lists.

In the end, they got nothing. The electoral law even prohibits party symbols in campaign literature and on the ballot.

“We were one hundred percent against this voting system,” said Aziz Ahmad Asef, public relations officer for the Afghan Millat party. “It is clear that those communities in the world where political parties have no role are not democratic.”

But the decision to go with SNTV was made by the government and by the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan, UNAMA, which has helped shape the political process. “Why they did it this way I do not know,” said Asef.

Certainly there were understandable reasons to keep political groups from trying to dominate the process. For one thing, the sheer number of registered political parties - 77 at present, with 16 more ready to come on board - could make a party system unwieldy, to say the least.

The flood of party registrations can partly be explained by the leniency of the requirements. Only 700 signatures, a party platform and a list of top officials are needed for grant registration.

“Of course this is not enough,” said Abdulghias Elyasi, who heads the justice ministry department charged with registering political parties. “But this is a decision made by the cabinet and we cannot do anything about it. We simply give the JEMB [Joint Electoral Management Body] a list of all the parties with their platform, their symbols and their addresses.”

Some government officials say privately that up to 90 per cent of the parties amount to little more than personal followings, and would not withstand real scrutiny. But, says Nathan, this is part of the political process. “That always happens at the beginning,” she said. “People don’t have to vote for [these parties].”

In any case, say observers, the plethora of groups will naturally thin out or amalgamate, “I am sure that all these parties cannot run forever, and some will join together, and we will have a small number of true political parties,” said Asef.

The justice ministry was opposed to SNTV, according to Elyasi. “We wanted to give the parties a role for the elections. But the cabinet and the JEMB are stronger than us, and we can’t tell them what to do,” he said.

The SNTV system had two main selling points: first, it was simple and replicated the process adopted during last October’s presidential elections. Second, the Afghan people are suspicious of political parties, associating them with communism or the gunmen and warlords who left the country in ruins after years of civil war.

But Nathan says that this fear was blown out of proportion to give the government the clout it needed to push the SNTV system through.

“I think there is widespread distrust of parties,” said Nathan. “It is understandable, certainly. There were the communists and the groups associated with factional fighting. But I think these fears are being exaggerated and used by the political elite, who basically want a weak parliament.”

The old former mujahedin factions, the “jihadi” warlords who are among the most feared and despised in the country, are still very much in the mix.

“What this system is doing is discouraging the emergence of new, democratic parties,” insisted Nathan.

Many party activists agree that parliament will be the poorer without a strong party presence.

“This election is the heart of democracy, and one of the most important components of democracy are political parties,” said Hussain Yasa, the editor-in-chief of Outlook, an independent daily, who is also political officer for Hezb-e-Wahdat-e-Islami-e-Mardom-e-Afghanistan, the predominantly Hazara party led by Haji Mohammad Mohaqeq. “But this system does not benefit democracy or the country. People with money and power may get into parliament, and then we will have problems. It will all be ethnic blocs, not parties.”

But, he said, the parties had no choice, as the system was forced on them by the government, “They did not want a strong parliament.”

Asked about the need for a simple system to appeal to an unsophisticated electorate, Yasa scoffed at the idea.

“The government says Afghans don’t know about politics,” he said. “But during the past 25 years the people of Afghanistan have been through the lot, and they certainly know enough about politics now.”

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.