Umer Daudzai, a former ambassador to Pakistan, and a leading opposition figure in Afghanistan, opposes Ghani’s strategy of including Pakistan in peace talks with the Taliban, saying Islamabad wants to control the insurgency, a common view in Afghanistan that Pakistan denies.
“For 10 years we went through Islamabad and it didn’t work. Pakistan will never give up its asset, which is most of the Taliban,” Daudzai said. “They are playing games.”
Instead he says, a small group of Afghans, acceptable to both sides, could start contacts leading ultimately to face-to-face meetings. “But it would be Afghan-brokered,” he said.
Daudzai’s criticism comes as Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif meets with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during a day-long visit to Kabul, where the two are expected to discuss reconciliation between the Afghan government and Taliban, as well as instituting a border-management mechanism.
‘Crippling power-sharing agreement in Afghanistan’
According to Daudzai, political horsetrading over appointments to Afghan police and army commands has created chaos for security forces fighting the Taliban in strategic areas such as Helmand province.
He said the power-sharing arrangement at the heart of President Ashraf Ghani’s National Unity Government was crippling the fight against the Taliban insurgency.
“It was a great mistake to include security forces in the 50/50 formula,” he told Reuters in an interview, referring to the power-sharing arrangement under which Ghani has divided key appointments with Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah.
Under the arrangement, worked out following last year’s inconclusive election, appointments are shared out between each side, with key commands often awarded for political loyalty rather than competence.
It is a complaint echoed by many local politicians, who say the patronage system has undermined the fight against the Taliban as it has overrun much of Helmand.
Even when strong commanders are appointed, the system leaves commanders often answering to different political masters, with conflicting priorities, Daudzai said.
“It creates chaos in the chain of command. Nobody knows who’s in charge of what or who’s responsible, the system should be depoliticised immediately,” he said.
The new opposition body, dubbed the Council for Safeguard and Stability, is a disparate group of former ministers and officials in the previous government of Hamid Karzai as well as veterans of the anti-Soviet Mujahideen.
It says it wants the government to hold parliamentary elections and a constitutional council or Loya Jirga next year as well as change in areas including security policy.
Critics say the body is just a platform for former politicians, some accused of corruption, now shut out of power. But Daudzai pointed to last month’s rally against the killing of seven members of the Hazara minority as evidence of mounting frustration with the government.