President Hamid Karzai has decided to call a meeting with members of national assembly and judiciary in order to explore ways to eliminate corruption and improve governance. Perhaps President Karzai's motive is to kill two birds with one stone- that is to say- to attempt to restore his reputation among Afghan people as a good leader and to pave the way for mustering public support for his candidate in the 2014 presidential election. The initial reason for such a gathering could be international pressure because international community has conditioned its future assistance and aid to Afghanistan on transparency.

This new initiative is welcome news to Afghan people who have grown completely tired of widespread corruption and bribery that have rendered the government agencies inefficient and unable to deliver services to the people.

Since Afghan government must clean itself in order to remain the recipient of generous international support, any step taken to stamp out corruption is of vital importance. But it should be said that the government's meeting with judiciary and legislature will be cosmetic, just a show in response to international pressure and to deceive Afghan people. In addition, administrative corruption is too thick to be eliminated within the next two years of President Karzai's term.

Since Afghan people will not support President Karzai's team this time, the President will once again tend to strengthen his corrupt networks as these are the only things that the President can bank on when it comes to election and his future plan. In this case, the President will not only avoid to root out corruption from his government but also attempt more vigorously to keep his corrupt patrons.

So a fundamental political reform is sine qua non in order to have genuine good governance and obliterate corruption. International community must relinquish their policy and habit to rely on individuals or families as their Afghan partners. Individuals are difficult to be held accountable. There is a need for international cooperation and support for reforms of the political system and governance that have already been launched by some major political parties and coalitions that represent majority of the Afghan people.

When power is not devolved to the people to elect their provincial/district governors, when there is not a clear separation of power in place, when one individual decides for the remotest villages, it will be naïve to expect transparency and absence of corruption. So instead of continuing to be naïve, it is time to reform things fundamentally.