AFGHAN POLITICAL PARTIES: THE PAST, THE PRESENT AND THE

FUTURE

By: Ajmal Shams, President Afghan Mellat Party

Originally Published in
The Frontier Post Peshawar, July 2008
The Outlook Afghanistan, July 2008
 AFGHAN POLITICAL PARTIES: THE PAST, THE PRESENT
AND THE FUTURE
T
he history of political parties in
Afghanistan goes back to the
period of King Zahir Shah’s
monarchy when the 1964
constitution legalized the formation
of political and social organizations.
This freedom soon resulted into three
major political movements which
can be broadly classified as Islamist,
Marxist and Nationalist. Abdul
Raheem Niazai founded the Islamic
group called Jawanan-e-Musulman
(The Muslim Youth) in 1969, which
took inspiration from the Ekhwan-ul-
Muslimeen (The Muslim Brotherhood)
founded by Hasanul Bana in Egypt. It
is noteworthy that most of the
Mujahideen Leaders were
associated with this movement
including those currently influential in
the Afghan government. Marxists
formed People’s Democratic Party
under Noor Muhammad Taraki and
looked towards the Soviet
communist party as their guiding
force. The nationalist movement
which rejected all kinds of foreign
ideologies appeared in the form of
Wekh Zalmyan (Awakened Youth),
and Afghan Mellat Party founded by
Eng. Ghulam Mohammad Farhad,
the Kabul mayor and a respected
parliamentarian.
Each movement or party had its
peculiar manifesto and a vision for
Afghanistan and each saw its
ideology as the only panacea for all
political and socio-economic
problems of the country. The Islamists
believed that only a radical Islamic
government was the solution of all
problems. They asserted that being
Muslims, Afghans had no other
option but to jointly struggle for the
establishment of a truly Islamic
government where all affairs of the
state would be strictly dealt with as
per their own narrow interpretation
of Islam. The Marxists viewed
problems of the country as a class
struggle, where the so-called upper
class exploited the working class.
While the reality was no such classes
existed in country at the time. They
believed unless the authority of the
upper class has been abolished, true
social justice cannot be established
in society. On the other hand
Afghan Mellat Party advocated the
cause of Afghan Nationalism based
on social democratic principles to
lead the country towards real
development and progress.
However, it was able to attract
mainly the Pashtuns and its message
did not get much appeal among
the ethnic minorities of Tajiks, Uzbeks
and Hazaras due to its stance
regarding Pashto language and
Patkhtunistan.
All the three major political
movements were able to attract a
large number of Afghans towards
their respective ideologies. Schools,
colleges and universities became
the hub of political activities and
student unions were formed in
several universities. Besides these
major political parties, there also
emerged minor parties like Shola-e-
Jawid (The Eternal Flame), which
had Maoist orientations and a small
nationalist party called Mellat Party,
an offspring of Afghan Mellat.
Another significant development
was the splitting up in 1967 of
People’s Democratic Party into its
Khalq and Parcham factions each
one led by PDPA founder Noor
Mohammad Taraki and Babrak
Karmal respectively. Most members
of Khalq were from rural Pashtun
areas. On the other hand, Parcham
was mainly composed of urban
middle class Tajiks. Afghan Mellat,
due to its peculiar nationalist
agenda attracted diverse sections
of Afghan society. However, a
majority of its membership was
concentrated among Pashtuns.
In 1973, Sardar Mohammad Daud
Khan, the former prime minister and
cousin of King Zahir Shah overthrew
him in a bloodless coup with
communists’ support. Eventually
Daud tried to eliminate the
communists, but it was too late since
the latter had already established
themselves very well in the civil and
military bureaucracy. Daud was
overthrown by the communists in a
bloody coup, killing him and all
members of his family thus ending
Mohammadzai Dynasty in
Afghanistan. Noor Mohammad
Taraki became head of the
revolutionary council and president
of the communist regime thus
starting an era of public uprising,
instability, bloodshed and misfortune
for the country. The Pakistan-backed
Islamist insurgency which had been
initiated to destabilize Daud’s
government further intensified
against the communist regime.
However, its role became truly
significant only with the Soviet
occupation of the country.
The Afghan resistance against
foreign invasion was broadly
classified into two main groups
divided along ideological lines i.e.
The Bunyadgara (Islamic radicals)
and Milligara (The Islamic nationalists
or moderate Islamists). While there
were more than twenty political
parties and groups, but Pakistan only
recognized seven of these and they
alone were the recipient of all kinds
of military, financial and political
support from both Pakistan and the
West. The Bunyadgara included
Hezb-e-Islami (Party of Islam) led by
Hekmatyar, Jamiat-e-Islami (Unity of
Islam Party) led by Rabbani and
Ittehad-e-Islami (Islamic Unity Party)
led by Sayyaf and Jamiat-e-Dawa-e-
Islami led by Mawlavi Hussain, who
later on changed his name to Jamil-
ur-Rahman, who had realized that
his previous name was in conflict
with the Islamic faith of Wahdanyat
(Unity of God). The Miligara included
Mahaz-e-Mille-wa-Islami (The
national Islamic Front) led by Pir Syed
Ahmed Gelani and Jabha-e-Nijat
Milli (National Salvation Front) led by
Hazrat Sebghatullah Mujaddedi. The
Harakat-e-Inqilabi Islami (Islamic
Revolution Movement Party) did not
include the word Milli meaning
nationalist in its name but was more
moderate and did not seem to
pursue any extremist agenda.
Besides the above seven parties,
which were recognized by Pakistani
government, there were also other
parties and pressure groups. The
most significant among them was
Afghan Social Democratic Party well
known as Afghan Mellat Party. Its
founder president Engineer Ghulam
Mohammad Farhad was in Kabul
and the party was led by Shamsul
Huda Shams, one of Afghan Mellat
stalwarts and a nationalist politician.
Afghan Mellat was the main target
of Pakistani government’s anger
because of its nationalistic agenda
and its stance on Pakthunistan issue.
This was the main cause of the party
being deprived of all kinds of military
and financial assistance. Several
members of the party were
harassed, terrorized and even
assassinated since the extremist
parties had been given a free hand
to suppress their ideological
opponents. While the seven
recognized parties were highly
divided among themselves, in their
opposition with nationalist Afghan
Mellat they were all united. Being
nationalist was equated with being
secular and un-Islamic in spite of
Shamsul Huda Shams’s insistence
that Afghan nationalism had Islam as
an integral element and there was
no need to carry it as a banner. Only
Mahaz and Jabha-e-Nejat-e Milli
had a soft corner for Afghan Mellat.
The fact remains, however, that not
all parties who had became
prominent during the resistance
against soviet occupation had a
well defined political ideology
except Hezb-e-Islami of Hekmatyar,
Jamiat-e-Islami of Rabbani, Ittehad-
e-Isalmi of Ustad Sayyaf and Afghan
Mellat of Shamsul Huda. The rest
resembled more or less like Tanzeems
(organizations) than political parties.
Their main task was to distribute aid
and engage in military warfare with
the incumbent communist regime
with little to offer Afghans in terms of
an alternate political system once
the communist regime has been
defeated.
Inside Afghanistan, rapid political
changes came one after another.
Noor Mohammad Taraki was
replaced by hardliner Hafizullah
Amin in a coup that resulted into the
former’s assassination. Amin believed
more in home-grown communism
and did not agree with Soviet
intervention in his country. The soviet
regime quickly realized Amin’s
intentions and his potential motives.
His regime was overthrown by a full-
fledged military intervention killing
him and installing their loyal Babrak
Karmal thus paving the way for a
Parchami regime that the Soviets felt
more comfortable in dealing with.
In spite of the fact that the
Mujahideen parties were actively
fighting against the Soviet
aggression, they had essentially
been sidelined when it came to
determining the destiny of
Afghanistan. When the Geneva
Accords under which the Soviet
troops were to leave the country
were signed, Mujahideen were not a
signatory to it. Instead the anomaly
was that Pakistan was representing
the Afghan Resistance. Furthermore,
the top commanders belonging to
different Mujahideen parties had
direct links with Pakistani
government. The military and
financial aid, which in principle
should have been channelized
through the parties, was instead
delivered directly to the
commanders because it was
assumed that dealing directly with
them was more fruitful for long-term
political interests. While the manner
in which the resistance progressed
was flawed in more than one way,
there was no effective nationalist
force among Afghan refugees to
oppose it. The main causes included
a suppression of all such forces by
depriving them of any privilege
whatsoever and internal differences
of nationalist parties and these were
the main obstacles in their way to
become a mass movement. For
example, when Afghan Mellat Party
held its congress to elect its new
president in 1988 after the death of
its founding president Farhad, the
Wakman supporters refused to
accept Shamsul Huda Shams as their
new president although the latter
had won by an overwhelming
majority. Hence the party was split
into three factions. It is Wakman’s
faction that is currently led by
Afghan finance minister, Anwarul
Haq Ahady.
Even after the Soviets left
Afghanistan, they kept supporting
Dr. Najibullah’s communist regime
and hostilities continued as ever
before. After resisting for a few year
Najibullah’s regime was eventually
overthrown in April 1992 through a
military coup by an alliance of his
own commanders in collusion with
some Mujahideen parties, the most
prominent being Jamiat-e-Islami and
its famous commander Ahmed Shah
Masood. It is significant to mention
here that overthrowing Najibullah
through a military coup was more of
a conspiracy aimed at sabotaging
the United Nations peace formula
under which power could have
been peacefully transferred to a 15-
member council under the auspices
of the United Nations. While
Mujaddeddi was the so-called head
of the new Islamic regime, the
political atmosphere in the country
had virtually degenerated into a
state of complete anarchy. Each
region was controlled by a certain
warlord or party. Fightings continued
among various Mujahideen parties,
groups and commanders to control
more power. At this point the West
had almost lost its interest in
Afghanistan while Iran, Pakistan and
central Asia together with Russia had
become more involved in the affairs
of Afghanistan and each country
was supporting a particular group to
better serve its interest in the war-
ravaged country. However, all this
was happening at the cost of
innocent Afghan lives.
Against this backdrop of chaos,
lawlessness, complete anarchy and
internecine fightings the Taliban
mysteriously emerged on the scene
as religious reformers in 1994. They
claimed that the Mujahideen had
been corrupted and did not to
deliver on their promises of
establishing a truly Islamic
government based on Sharia
(Islamic Law) in the country. In an
astonishingly short span of time, the
religious students were able to
extend their writ to large parts of the
country eventually taking control of
the capital Kabul in 1996. The Taliban
had their own ultra-conservative
interpretation of Islam and they
actually enforced a strict Sharia in
the areas under their control.
Women were banned from going to
school or work. Men were required
to grow beards. Music, photography
and even some sports were banned.
The way the Taliban pursued their
governance did not fit into the
norms of the civilized world. Their
main source of financial, political
and ideological support was
Pakistan. A major portion of the
movement was made up of students
both Afghan and Pakistani from
religious seminaries located in
Pakistan. The Taliban phenomena,
however, is not so simple to be
attributed to a single factor.
Together with an indigenous situation
that was favorable for their creation,
there were a host of other factors
both political, economic and
ideological that made their
emergence possible and their
subsequent victories feasible. While
the international community did not
recognize the Taliban regime and
had imposed sanctions against
them, it was the Osama Bin Laden
factor and the catastrophic events
of the September 11 that caused
their downfall
After the Taliban were overthrown in
November 2001, Hamid Karzai was
appointed as the interim president of
the country under the Bonn
Agreement. Subsequently he won
the presidential elections in 2004 and
hence became the first
democratically elected president of
the country. Meanwhile a new
constitution was drafted by a team
of experts and subsequently ratified
by the Loya Jarga (the grand
assembly) after lengthy deliberations
and discussions. The constitution has
allowed the formation of political
parties and social organizations.
These parties have to abide by and
work within the framework of the
constitution. The parties are also
required to get themselves
registered with Ministry of Justice in
order to be officially recognized and
benefit from their rights and
privileges. A new wave of
democracy and freedom at the
horizons of the country has caused a
party boom. So far more than 80
parties have been officially
recognized and more are on the
waiting list. Many of the old parties
have further split up into two or more
factions. For example Hezb-e-
Wahdat alone has four factions with
a slight change in name.
While more and more parties will be
formed in the future, their credibility
will remain in question unless they
offer a more practical ideology
within the confines of National-
Islamic character of Afghanistan
that has the potential to remedy the
socio-economic ills of the society
and put the country on the path of
real progress and development.
People can no longer be
manipulated in the name of religion
and social justice. While the buzz
words of democracy, development
and women’s rights might work for
some parties to justify their existence,
they will not be able to create a
mass movement unless they provide
the public with a solid action plan
accompanied by a supporting
ideology that could bring about a
change in the status quo.
Particularly the old Jehadi and
communist parties have little
prospects of attracting many
Afghans since both have been
examined in the past and neither of
them has managed to deliver on
their promises.
The role of political parties is crucial
to strengthening democracy in the
country. Although party registration
per se is a positive measure aimed at
systematizing the formation and
activities of the political parties, the
way it is being implemented raises
many questions as to whether the
government by making the parties
register with a ministry might be
trying to control them which is
undemocratic in essence. It is being
argued that parties should be
overseen by an independent
election commission instead of a
ministry. There are also concerns that
some of the high ranking
government officials who also
happen to be leaders of their own
political parties might be using their
office to harm their rival parties and
benefit their own party members.
Furthermore the registration process
should be simplified to avoid
complications and unnecessary
curbs. While democratizing the war-
ravaged Afghanistan, which is yet to
recover from a war-like mentality, is
a daunting and uphill task, a political
courage with intelligent decisions by
the rulers can make this happen.