First published at nmaleki.com.
Afghanistan’s history has been volatile, seeing many changes in leadership, internal wars, and invasions. The political instability has taken its toll on the country. Life is unpredictable and legitimate government authority, sometimes in the form of autonomous regional leadership, has come and gone. There has been a desperate need for clear laws to be universally applied and an environment of political stability to take hold in order for people to meet the basics of social life by meeting economic needs, to strive for basic healthcare, and to live free from violence.
This article will briefly review the function and foundation of the latest government in Afghanistan, so that the reader can understand the structural form of the new system that has emerged as the proposed solution to the country’s many political and economic problems.
After the defeat of the Taliban in Afghanistan, other major faction leaders met in Bonn, Germany where they outlined the process by which they would move to a representative democracy. This Bonn Agreement led first to an Afghan Interim Government, followed in 2002 by an Emergency Loya Jirga in which Hamid Karzai was selected as the interim leader of country. Loya Jirga’s are a traditional form of assembly in Afghanistan in which leaders and elders gather to decide on political matters such as selecting new national leaders.
A second assembly, the Constitutional Loya Jirga, ran from December 2003 to 4 January 2004 and succeeded in forging a new national constitution. With a constitution in place, the way was open to elections, and in 2004 Hamid Karzai was popularly elected as President. With 55% of the votes, the new President was sworn in on 4 December 2004.
Elections for other positions in government did not take place at the same time due in great part to security concerns. In September 2005, legislative, and provincial elections finally took place. District elections, to select representatives to a sub-provincial level, however, have yet to be initiated.
Afghanistan’s state structure has several main organs: the executive, the legislative, the provincial, districts, municipal, and the judiciary. The country is formally centralized under a unitary structure in which the central government in Kabul is responsible for the primary functions of running the country. All sub-national elected bodies and administrations are meant to directly or indirectly follow the lead of the President, the Ministers, and the National Assembly.
The Executive
The Afghan Executive consists mainly of the President, two Vice Presidents, 25 Ministers, and the Attorney General. The President is the head of government and army, selects Ministers, the head of the national bank, the Attorney General, and also appoints the Supreme Court Judges, the Governor of each province, Mayors, and other posts that require National Assembly assent.
The President of Afghanistan is popularly elected for a 5 year term and can hold office for a maximum of 2 terms. The two Vice Presidents have to be selected and named when the President registers for the election. The Presidential candidates require an absolute majority to win, and a run-off election is held with the top two candidates if one of them does not receive over half of the votes.
The Legislative
The National Assembly, also called the Parliament, is bicameral, with an upper and lower house. The lower house is known as the Wolesi Jirga (Assembly of the People), while the upper house is called the Meshrano Jirga (Assembly of Elders).
The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) outlines the National Assembly’s constitutional powers as such (1):
• Ratification, modification, or abrogation of laws and legislative decrees
• Approval of plans for economic, social, cultural, and technological development
• Approval of state budget, permission for obtaining and granting loans
• Creation, modification, and abrogation of administrative units
• Ratification of international treaties and agreements, or abrogation of the membership of Afghanistan to them
• Other authorities specified in the Constitution
Both houses can initiate legislature, as can the President, and the Ministers. Legislation becomes law once it is supported by both houses of the National Assembly as well as the President. If a bill passes through the National Assembly but is opposed by the President, the President can, within 15 days, send it back to the Wolesi Jirga as long as reasons are given for its rejection. The Wolesi Jirga, after review, can still enforce the new legislation by passing it with a 2/3 majority vote. A bill or decree must be passed by the National Assembly no later than a month after submission.
The Wolesi Jirga can have a maximum of 250 seats, with each representative elected to a 5 year term. Seats are distributed by province based on their populations. In addition, 10 seats are reserved for nomads. Of the provincial seats, a total of 68 are reserved for women (an average of 2 per province), and 3 of the nomad’s seats must also go to women. Candidates must be at least 25 years of age.
The Mishrano Jirga has 102 seats of which 2/3 are elected. The remainder of seats are by appointment. Constitutionally, each Provincial Council elects one representative for a 4 year term, while each District Council does the same for a 3 year term. Currently, with no District Councils in place, the Provincial Councils also elect an additional member in the place of a District. The President appoints the remaining 1/3, of which two must represent nomads, and two must represent the disabled. Half of the Presidential appointments must be women. Candidates must be at least 35 years of age.
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Part 2 follows with a report on regional governance and the judiciary.
The vast majority of the information in this report comes from The Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit’s "The A to Z Guide." To learn greater detail on Afghanistan’s state structure, the international agreements that affect it, and the international organizations that are shaping it, refer to the The A to Z Guide.
Sources
(1) Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), 2008. "The A to Z Guide to Afghanistan Assistance," sixth edition.
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