By Jahangir Ali (11 May 2020)
On April 30th, Hasht-e-Subh– a nationally known newspaper in Afghanistan – published the text of a document claimed to be the proposed ‘Framework Political Agreement’ to end the post-election impasse in the country. The proposal was reportedly put forward by the former Chief Executive Dr. Abdullah Abdullah.
The relationship between Dr. Abdullah – an anti-Soviet resistance doctor-turned-politician and former Chief Executive of the National Unity Government (NUG) – and President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani had taken a downturn long before the September 28 presidential election and the fixation with its results.
Uneasiness between the two national leaders is not the spur of the moment and was a common occurrence throughout the National Unity Government. In an interview two days before the much anticipated election, President Ghani ruled out the possibility of forming another NUG-like government under any circumstance.
However, their differences took to new heights in the run up to the presidential election in 2019 as regards to their unique positions on the US-T talks in Doha.
When talks between the United States and the notorious T Movement were being held in Doha in 2019, the pressure on Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad – the United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation – kept increasing as the presidential election date was fast approaching.
In order to reduce his stress levels and buy himself more time to conclude an agreement with the T before the due presidential election, Ambassador Khalilzad had apparently forged a privy alliance with the former Chief Executive Dr. Abdullah to ensure that the US-T talks under the banner of “Afghan Peace Process” trumps preparations for the election.
President Ghani and his close aides, on the contrary, had serious reservations about Mr. Khalilzad’s conduct from the start which was made public in March 2019. Speaking at a conference in Washington, President Ghani’s National Security Advisor, Dr. Hamdullah Mohib, labelled Ambassador Khalilzad’s efforts as “delegitimizing” the Afghan government.
Despite the diplomatic spat, the Trump Administration continued to go down the same road to end the United States’ longest war while President Ghani continued to fend off pressure to cancel or postpone the presidential election which was already once postponed.
While President Ghani’s election team campaigned resolutely and energetically, his rivals – among them Dr. Abdullah’s Stability and Convergence election team – swam against the national currents and hoped for its cancellation at best and postponement at worst.
The political dynamics, however, were instantaneously changed when the T threw a spanner in the works by carrying out a suicide attack in the heart of Kabul city killing an American soldier among a number of Afghan civilians on September 5th, 2019. Following that incident, President Trump announced that the US-T talks in Doha were “dead.”
The Stability and Convergence election team led by Dr. Abdullah soon realized that they had been betting on the wrong horse and were gulled into sticking their necks out for the U.S. agenda.
Throughout this period, President Ghani took carefully measured steps to ensure that the election will be held as planned and that he is able to respond to the nation’s call for leadership.
A delicate dynamic that features in the Afghan political history quite often is that in times of crisis and uncertainty people of Afghanistan mobilize around a national leader who stands up to the outsiders – particularly if those outsiders undermine national aspirations and pride.
Although President Ghani’s actions may have put Afghanistan-U.S. relations at great risk, his position among his rivals who supported a U.S.-T deal that would leave the Afghan people unprotected – ahead of the elections – was strengthened thus, giving him an edge in the election.
Although the electoral law was amended, as per the NUG agreement, and election management bodies accommodated much of the reforms and political demands of major contenders for presidency in the new legal framework, charges of mismanagement and mishandling of sensitive election material were pressed by Stability and Convergence team even before the election.
Roughly half a year after Afghans had gone to polling centers to elect their new president and months of rope pulling over the results between Stability and Convergence and State Builder teams, the Independent Election Commission announced on February 18th 2020 the incumbent President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani as winner of the election. The IEC associated 50.6 per cent of the votes to President Ghani and 39.5 to Dr. Abdullah.
A political crisis ensued as Stability and Convergence team led by Dr. Abdullah rejected the outcome of the election and called for the cancelation of its results. After weeks of vicious insinuations, the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Kabul on March 23rd to achieve exactly what John Kerry had achieved during the 2014 political impasse – a political settlement of the election-related squabble. After shuttling between Presidential Palace and Sapedar Palace, Secretary Pompeo accomplished nothing and left Kabul in “disappointment.”
One of the key reasons why Secretary Pompeo failed to achieve what his predecessor had achieved back in 2014 is that the former Secretary Kerry came to Kabul with the sole intention of breaking the political deadlock. Secretary Pompeo’s main purpose, however, was not resolving the political crisis for its own sake but because the crisis threatened the U.S.-initiated so-called “Afghan Peace Process.” In other words, he cared more about striking a deal with the T than he did for solving the differences between the two national leaders over election results.
Consequently on the same day that President Ghani took oath to second term in office, Dr Abdullah, along with his allies, too took oath to “Presidency”. Now more than a month after Secretary Pompeo’s unsuccessful trip to Kabul and weeks of mediation by, mostly, European countries Dr. Abdullah has proposed another political agreement to, supposedly, end the crisis.
The proposed framework political agreement is pretty much self-explanatory – in the sense that it is really not so much different from the NUG agreement. While the circumstances have changed, Dr. Abdullah’s position seems to have not. Here is why.
During the 2014 election impasse, Dr. Abdullah’s Reform and Convergence election team played electoral politics along ethnic fault lines; basically arguing that the Tajikswere not given a substantial share in the President Ghani’s government. Note that President Ghani’s two vice presidents were from Uzbek (General Abdul Rashid Dostum) and Hazara (Sarwar Danish) ethnic groups.
Although, President Ghani had appointed an ethnic Tajik Ahmad Zia Masoud – former vice president and a brother of the National Hero late Ahmad Shah Masoud– as his Special Representative for Reform and Good Governance, ethnic politics remained central to Dr. Abdullah’s campaign at that time.
President Ghani also had relatively less political clout than the opposition led by Dr. Abdullah and had not established trust with main Tajik political actors, inter alia, Amruallah Saleh and Atta Mohammad Noor – both of whom were staunch supporters of Dr. Abdullah in 2014 that became stalwarts of State Builder team in 2019.
A fewthings, though, are new in the proposed framework political agreement. For example, in addition to 50 per cent share in the government including ministers, governors and ambassadors, Dr. Abdullah has demanded promotion of General Abdul Rashid Dostum – an ethnic Uzbek strongman and President Ghani’s former first vice president – to Marshal rank.
General Dostum was President Ghani’s ally and his first vice president in NUG before their relations soured after Dostum allegedly harassed and physically abused another Uzbek leader in 2018.
In run up to the presidential election in 2019, Dostum joined Dr. Abdullah’s ticket and introduced one of his confidants – Dr. Babur Farahmand – as his running mate.
Likewise, besides himself declared as an “Executive Prime Minister”, Dr. Abdullah has demanded the creation of a position for the “Special Representative” of the Executive Prime Minister; a position he likely considers for Salahuddin Rabbani, former foreign minister and leader of the Jamiat-e-Islami political party.
Clearly, Dr. Abdullah would have not been in a position to engage in a political bargain with President Ghani without the support of Dostum and Rabbani and as such, he intends to pay them back through such lavish demands.
In the post 2001 Afghan political arena, no politician has lost his/her power. By securing high positions in the government, they have only gotten richer and stronger. The only losers of elections in Afghanistan are the Afghan people – who have risked their live by going to polling centers – and the international community who have paid for it in blood and sweat.
While the proposed deal may end the election-related political impasse – a necessary but perhaps undesirable choice, it will certainly undermine democracy in Afghanistan and further erode the Afghan people’s trust in elections.
(Mr. Jahangir Ali is an independent political analyst. Views expressed are personal.)
Also read on Tahleelnama: Afghanistan in Need of Systematic Reforms to Avoid Election Stand-Offs
