Our parliament has become a weak and ineffective house of people's representatives. Besides the constitutional over-centralization of power to the President, those limited administrative and legislative powers that Wolesi Jirga has and which are supposed to be effective, have been weakened by President Karzai's utter disregard about relevance of parliament in the current system and his deliberate moves to undermine the effectiveness of this institution. The current parliament has also deep internal dilemmas. It is a weak, disordered, rubber-stamp ragtag house. MPs have summoned several cabinet members, including several acting-ministers running their respective offices for two years now, unable to use their allocated budgets.
The house has warned the new fiscal budget will not be approved unless President Karzai nominates his cabinet members to replace the acting-ministers. A timely move as it is, but unlikely to make any difference. A house where election of a second deputy speaker caused a serious deadlock taking more than a week, how can they call vote-of-no-confidence against ministers? Or force the government to introduce new cabinet members and replace the acting-ministers?
The new and fiery First Deputy Speaker Zaher Qadir said the budget will not be approved until government does not introduce remaining cabinet members, Chief Justice of Supreme Court and Attorney General. Once Finance Ministry submits the budget proposal, if MPs do not reject, the draft will be considered approved within 30 days. They can start another game by starting a round of rejections, as did the previous house last year. But in vain, as it is not going to make any trouble for the government. Despite his retirement-age, the Chief Justice is in his office for many months. It is not understandable why President Karzai does not replace him.
The government can make up reasons for failure of several ministries to use their budget. It also shows the disunity inside parliament that Interior Minister Bismillah Muhammadi has been summoned for "promoting his party Jamiat Islami". Finance Minister Zakhilwal will be questioned over the amendments in budgetary allocations after it was approved from parliament.
As always, he has his own story. He says under Article 47 of internal budgetary procedure, the Finance Ministry can "add funds with approval from the President", even after the parliament has approved the budget. Now another Special Commission is needed to decipher the legitimacy of Zakhilwal's claims, and avoid the coming deadlock.
MPs warn to bring vote-of-no-confidence against those ministers who have failed to use less than 40% of their development budget. No big deal. In that case, President Karzai will issue a decree appointing the disqualified cabinet members as acting-ministers, giving no damn to the parliament.
Already the ministries of Public Health, Transport and Aviation, Higher Education, Power and Water, Women Affairs, Communication, Urban Development are run by acting-ministers for over two years now. Legally, an acting minister cannot run office for more than a month, and a nominee rejected from parliament cannot serve as acting. Acting ministers are appointed at a time of emergency or crisis when there is no parliament or other administrative hurdles in the system. But we had not such circumstances.
There was a battle in the parliament over this issue last year. It is likely that a similar game will start soon once the President sends his 'new' list of nominees for approval. It has been disappointing that members of the Committee for Oversight and Implementation of the Constitution have kept a blind eye to such utter mockery of the system.
President Karzai has been bypassing the parliament with utter disregard, but there are internal problems of the Lower House/Wolesi Jirga too.
Last week, MPs were unable to elect their 2nd Deputy Speaker for days of consecutive nominations and voting. As ridiculous as it was, there were factors for the deadlock. Most importantly, it showed the depth of differences among opposition factions who are unable to come to an understanding for a worthless second deputy speaker slot. How can they succeed in their claims to organize a strong movement for reforms against the increasingly authoritarian attitude of President Karzai?
After failures for six rounds of elections, the session was postponed for 15 days last month. Some of the MPs from previous term, who are again elected, had punched each other last year in a similar drama for election of Wolesi Jirga's Administrative Board.
In absence of political parties, we cannot have a parliament better than this. The current system has been made a total mess. There is no rule of law and the constitution is being violated by the very Presidential Palace that blames foreigners for intervention in our internal affairs.
Some problems are on ethnic, tribal, linguistic, regional and political factional lines. This is the most serious issue for Afghanistan with nation-building and efficient functioning of governance institutions. Insurgency, corruption and lack of capacity can all have solutions, but the issue which will keep our country politically unstable and a crumbling failed state will be the ethnic and tribal rifts in our so-called 'national' politics. The root causes of these problems are in an over-centralized Presidential system more like a monarchy.
The Karzai Administration has also failed to promote a culture of political pluralism and harmony providing space for our political evolution. His administration has avoided a pragmatic politics of national reconciliation for a genuine nation-building. We are experiencing deep rifts on ethnic and tribal lines in the very foundations of our system—the parliament. It is a very bad omen for political stability in Afghanistan, particularly given exit strategy of the US and its NATO allies. Who knows what will happen in 2014 when foreign troops will leave Afghanistan. Whether we will have the next Presidential election is strongly doubtful.