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

Many Problems Suck Human Blood in this Country

It is more than one year since the second parliamentary election was held in the post-Taliban Afghanistan. But the government, legislature and judiciary continue to remain stuck in the dispute over the results. The force of emotionalism is still stronger in Afghanistan and drives the behaviors in the society. While the controversy over the parliamentary election result is yet to be settled, the country is facing so many other lethal and erosive problems that lead to the deaths of our countrymen on a daily basis.

These include the atrocious and brutal violent insurgency that sucks human blood on day-to-day basis, rising drug production and unemployment etc. Politics is about power struggle but it is not the sole nature of politics.

A minimum ethics is required to do politics. While we let emotions determine our behavior in one particular case, we continue to remain apathetic to and have emotionless disregard to the plight and suffering of our countrymen who continue to fall victims to the protracted war, brutal insurgency, poverty and other social injustice.

Over the last ten days, there have been growing empathy and sympathy with Semin Barakzai, the former female MP who was unseated as a result of interferences in the election results. She has been on hunger strike for the last ten to eleven days.

A growing number of civil society, human rights activists, students and also the MP's from the law-supporting coalition have been expressing their sympathy with Barakzai for her civil action to raise her voice against what she believes is the injustice done to her.

On Wednesday, October 12, 2011, President Hamid Karzai, through Wolesi Jirga's speaker, has asked female lawmaker Samin Barakzai to choose two representatives to investigate her case. The speaker told the Wolesi Jirga session that the president had told him that her case would be investigated with the presence of civil society and media representatives.

This step can help dispel the concerns about the transparency in the electoral bodies and it may leave a precedent for other protesting candidates to continue to engage the three branches of the government in the election issue while the country is facing so many other urgent issues that take the lives of those Afghans who often remain out of the sight of civil society activities, human rights defenders, justice-loving students, politicians and elected representatives and media.