Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

‘Afghan Parliament’ out of Track

The Afghan parliamentary issue remains intact. Unfortunately, no considerable measures are taken towards the proper solution of the issue, as both 'the members of the parliament who are against the decision' and 'the Independent Election Commission (IEC)' do not seem ready to comprise at the moment.

The IEC's decision (which was thought to have been influenced by the pressure from the president office) to dismember 9 members of the parliament and the seating of the new members have left the parliament with another stalemate, as more than half of the members of the parliament have boycotted the proceedings in the house and insist that the decision has been an unjust meddling from the president.

They have formed a coalition named as Support for the Law, which is of the opinion that the boycott will remain functional as long as the decision is not taken back by IEC or the newly appointed members themselves decide to leave their seats.

Though the current number of the parliamentarians who have been dismembered and replaced by new candidates is too small as compared to the earlier number of 62 members that was announced by the special poll tribunal set up by the President Hamid Karzai, even then the decision has not been welcomed warmly.

Moreover, the members that are newly appointed believe that they are the deserving members and can not be replaced.

Asadullah Sadati, spokesman for the Support for the Law has mentioned, "We will not attend the parliament until we reach an agreement with speaker of the house whether it takes days or weeks.

" While the head of the coalition, Haji Abdul Zahir has insisted, "When the law is broken and principles are not respected, there is no need to attend the parliament," and "The house of people must have independence – they should not be represented by 'hand picked MP's."

As a matter of fact, none of the parties in the dispute seems to be in the compromising mood; ultimately the stalemate has caused the parliament to suffer another deadlock in its proceedings as the required quorum of 125 members to pass laws has not been achieved and the consequences have to influence the people of Afghanistan in some way or the other.

The country at the moment is going through a very crucial period of its history and during this particular period all the concentration and energy should be preserved for proper regulation of the policies that are required for proper planning and governance of the circumstances.

But unfortunately, the most responsible individuals of the nation are themselves involved in wasting time and energy for an issue that is now turning ridiculous. The issue has already put to serious questions the democratic values among the political leadership and has also defamed the very important institutions in the political system of the country; namely, the parliament, the judiciary and the president office.

It has now become very clear from the ongoing conflict that it may take a while before the democratization process is mature in the country. At the moment for the greater good of the country the members of parliament and president office should make sure that they are not responsible for an unnecessary delay in the matters of the state.

They have been elected by the people with a hope that they would be solving their problems and would be spending much of their time and energy to the issues more basic and important in nature.

Unfortunately, the ongoing conflict has proved that the people's representatives are involved more in the glorification of their ego-centric ideas than the matters of state, which is purely tribal attitude, not democratic.