Building democratic institutions in Afghanistan: Seeing beyond economic and security disquiets
Shiraz Sheikh*
On 5 April 2014, third Afghan Presidential Elections were held with no candidate securing clear mandate leading to a second round of elections between two of the principal competitors. Hopes of the Afghan nation and concerned international community, for the first democratic transition of political power, were put on halt due to the impasse between the main candidates. Abdullah Abdullah, who was trailing against Ashraf Ghani in the preliminary counting, accused that the polls were rigged and refused to accept the undeclared final results and warned of forming his own parallel government (Graham-Harrison 2014). This hinted at the resurgence of potential conflict along ethnic divisions. The United States, which has invested so much in Afghanistan and is about to withdraw its forces, send John Kerry – the US Secretary of State – to mediate a deadlock between them (Jeong 2014). The failure of Afghan political leaders to arrive at consensus, without external intervention, underscores the immaturity of political leadership.

The aforementioned situation of Afghan electoral politics suggests that in the current context of Afghanistan, political determinants such as party ideology, party leadership, and party policy and so on are less important than social determinants such as traditional ‘tribal’ loyalty, ethnic ties, clan associations, sectarian identities and so on. In its search for a dignified exit route, the US sees progress in Afghanistan in terms of security (development of the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police), bringing Taliban to the negotiating table, and curbing the outbound flow of narcotics. International assistance – military and economic – is seen as quintessential for sustained peace and a functioning democracy in Afghanistan.

Methodologically, the author will apply the Schumpeterian dictum of ‘creative destruction’ (2011, pp. 82-3) to understand the transition of a primordial political system into a modern democratic system. Moving beyond economic and security dimensions, the paper will examine the impact of societal and historical forces in the process of establishing democratic structure in Afghanistan. It will also analyse how besides economic and security challenges, there are other factors such as presence of warlords, jirga, absence of a sizable middle class, ethnic fragmentations and inexperience of political parties and leadership that affects the process of transition and stability of democratic institutions. The study proposes the following:
•    Afghanistan should have a parliamentary system, which is more representative, and will be more suitable for the multi-ethnic Afghan society than the present presidential system where the winner takes all; or a mechanism like the proposed ‘National Unity Government’ which is similar to Russia’s political system to address representative grievances efficiently if evolved with consensus.
•    The process of democratic institution-building in the country should be self-propelled and the Afghans need to be made part and in-charge of it in genuine representative spirit.
•    The traditional institution of ‘wardlordism’ needs to be undone.
•    Institution of Jirga (council of elders) should be reformed and recalibrated to complement the modern system.

References
Graham-Harrison, E.  2014, ‘Afghan presidential candidate hints at parallel government’, The Guardian, 8 July, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/08/afghan-presidential-candidate-abdullah-parallel-government>, accessed 15 July 2014.

Jeong, M. 2014, ‘Afghanistan’s presidential rivals reach agreement after Kerry flies into Kabul’, The Guardian, 8 August, <http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/08/afghanistan-presidential-kerry-kabul-ghani-abdullah-election-dispute>, accessed 8 August 2014.

Schumpeter, J. A. (1942, reprinted 2011), Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Adarsh Books, New Delhi, India.
* Mr. Shiraz Sheikh is a doctoral scholar at the Centre for Pakistan Studies, Academy of International Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. He is the author of Democracy in the Shadow of Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan (KW Publishers-India, 2014).