Armanshahr Foundation, is pleased to invite you to its 51st (4th year) public Seminar GOFTEGU, a bridge between the elite and the citizens, to be held in cooperation with the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society.
Face to Face: From First Parliament to Second Parliament
In the run-up to the parliamentary elections, Armanshahr Foundation will be organising a series of Goftegu debates under the heading of “Face to Face” with the aim of establishing direct dialogue between the people on the one hand and the candidates and the officials on the other.
Speakers:
Ostad Seyyed Massoud, Professor of Economics, Kabul University
Dr. Sahebnazar Moradi, writer and scholar
Seyyed Es’haq Gilani, Member of Parliament
Dr. Abdolghayum Sajjadi, Member of Parliament
Moderator: Ajmal Baluchzada
Date & Time: Thursday, 10th June 2010, 14 hours
Venue: Deh Afghanan, Salangh Wat, across from Kabul Province Police Station, Foundation for Culture and Civil Society
Contact Tel: 0779217755 & 0775321697
E-Mail: armanshahrfoundation@gmail.com
A critical evaluation of first parliament
“From first parliament to second parliament” is the title of a series of face-to-face meetings on election issues that the Armanshahr Foundation has organised on the eve of the second parliamentary elections. During these debates, the record of parliament in the past five years, its structure, political weight and status within the administration will be analysed with a critical as well as fair approach to the first parliament with a view to develop the citizens’ responsibility for making proper and informed choices.
The first of the new series – 51stGoftegou – with the title of “A critical evaluation of first parliament” began on 10 June 2010, with 120 civil society, students, cultural and literary activists in the audience. The main speakers were: Messrs Sayyed Es’haq Gilani (MP), Dr. Saheb-Nazar Moradi (writer and scholar), and Dr. Abdolqayyum Sajjadi (MP, university professor, writer and scholar).
The moderator, Ajmal Baluchzada, introduced the meeting with the following words: “We begin the first meeting with a discussion of the performance of the first parliament. We want to know:What are the achievements of the first parliament? What challenges did it face? What was the relationship between the parliament and t he government? What was the political weight of the parliament and its position in macro decisions?”
Mr. Gilani, the first speaker, gave a brief history of the parliament in Afghanistan. Referring to the present parliament as a young parliament, he said he remembered the parliament from the time of Zahir Shah, which could have led to a strong one if that trend had continued in Afghanistan.
Mr. Gilani, who is MP for Pakita, said the women had gone to the polls in that province for the first time in its history and emphasised: That shows the interest of the people of Afghanistan to take part in decision making.
Reminding that MPs of the first parliament knew nothing or not much about parliament, he said: “After visits to other countries and with the help of other friends who knew what parliament is for, we managed to do some of the things that are expected of a newly established parliament.”
On the achievements of the parliament, he offered the following figures: “Since its first meeting on 19 December 2005, Parliament has had five opening sittings, 19 extraordinary and 531 ordinary sittings. It has passed 127 legislations and ratified 36 international treaties. Eighty ministers were introduced and 51 were approved. Ninety-two ministers were called to answer questions and provide explanations and 11 were impeached, with three losing vote of confidence.”
According to Mr. Gilani, the problems of the parliament were: 1) Lack of understanding of MPs of what parliament is; 2) Government’s lack of cooperation; 3) Failure to monitor the government properly; 4) Numerous trips abroad; lack of knowledge of foreign languages and parliamentary discipline abroad.
Unfortunately, the figures were not offered in a qualitative context. For instance: How many MPs were present at the sittings? How significant were 127 legislations? The problems mentioned of the parliament were indeed personal problems of the MPs. Other problems were not examined adequately. The problem of the government’s lack of cooperation with the parliament was mentioned only in a single sentence.
Subsequently, Dr. Saheb-Nazar Moradi said it was necessary to begin by referring to two points. First, we should know the principle governing every action; otherwise we would have problems with distinguishing its good and bad aspects. Second, when referring to a young parliament, we should also glance at our historical past. He gave a few examples:
– Cyrus the Great issued the first Human Rights Charter 2,500 years ago;
– The Kushani dynasty [in the 1st Century A.D.] had two parliamentary chambers;
– That is also notable under the Samanids;
– Parliament existed to the end of Zahir Shah’s rule.
Against that background, parliament has existed for a long time and we should not blame all the problems on its newness. If we do not have a specific framework for the government and government institutions, we will have many problems, but we should not raise the demands too high in a war-afflicted country.
According to Dr. Moradi, a national government is one of the most essential needs of Afghanistan today: “When a regime takes shape in our country, it tramples on all the great objectives, because it eyes governance with a limited ethnic attitude. Rulers ignore interests of the nation and limit themselves to specific regions. We will achieve little as long as we don’t have a legitimate national government based on national interests.”
On the issues that the first parliament should have tackled seriously and effectively, he said:
– Giving promises to build schools and clinics are tasks of governments not MPs;
– MPs should have programmes for key priorities, the most important of them being peace now. That should have been the first task of the parliament.
– Parliament should have offered a clear definition for the presence of foreign forces and given it a legal basis; it didn’t do it. That has created significant problems: 1) Within the coalition members; 2) Within the society, leading to different epithets for the foreign forces such as occupying forces, fighting terrorism etc.
– Poverty and economic backwardness; government intervention has led to creation of economic mafias;
– Deciding about terrorism and trafficking, which is bringing disrespect for Afghanistan worldwide;
– System building and government building.
The third speaker was Dr. Abdolqayyum Sajjadi, who began with the importance of critique and said a fair critique had four features: 1) Giving a picture of the ideal situation; 2) Analysing the existing situation; 3) Estimating properly the existing potentials and possibilities; 4) Evaluating the achievements. Thus, parliament has three types of tasks: Legislation; monitoring; representing the people.
He gave a mark above 50 to the parliament for its legislative performance, because the government has submitted 222 bills and such a large volume of work is not noticeable in any parliament worldwide. But the parliament has failed in the other two areas.
The reasons are its incompetence and lack of monitoring expertise, the government and absence of the culture of monitoring. As one example, he said, the parliament had asked many times to have access to basic foreign policy lines; that never materialised.
On the failure of the government to improve the general conditions of the country, he said: “The basic reason for our failure is the prevalence of the traditional and trial political culture. In that framework, people outside the tribe are not trustable; positions are filled not on the basis of expertise but ethnic relations. In this culture, the will of the tribe’s representative replaces the law.”
In Dr. Sajjadi’s opinion, a change in the political culture is the basic solution to the problems, i.e. the political culture should develop to a modern culture. We should raise the people’s knowledge and their political understanding.
Invitation
