Transparency Merely "Symbolic" in Afghan Politics

Local officials in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar have warned that the government needs to clamp down on corruption in order to build greater public confidence in the democratic process.

IWPR’s first-ever debate in the main provincial town Asadabad, held on October 27 as part of the Afghan Reconciliation project, heard that ordinary people had little faith in the current system.

Nasima Shafaq Sadat, head of the provincial women’s affairs department, said that not only was transparency the basis for good governance, development and social welfare, it was also essential if a relationship of trust was to be built between the government and its people. Successive administrations had not been able to do this in the past 13 years, she added.

“Transparency is merely symbolic in the Afghan system,” Sadat said. “Officials talk about it proudly, but transparency in the real meaning of the word does not exist in Afghanistan. The public does not know what transparency means.”

This severely weakened the state, she continued, emphasising that transparency “can play a positive role in good governance, implementation of the law and ensuring peace”.

Shah Wali Salarzai, chairman of the Kunar labour union, agreed.

“The system which came into being after the Bonn conference [held in 2001 to agree on a transitional government] is democratic just in name,” he said. “The values of a democratic system exist only in the form of slogans. They do not truly exist.”

For more than three decades, Afghanistan had been wracked by war, he said. Good governance, the rule of law and peace were needed above all else, but these could only be brought about by eliminating corruption and ensuring transparency.

Nizamuddin Malyar, head of the secretariat of the High Peace Council in Kunar, added that good governance was as vital to peace as food was to human survival.

“I do not think that relations between society and government can be repaired if there is no transparency,” he added.

Ghulam Nabi Shafaq is a student at Kunar university and an IWPR-trained reporter.

This report is based on an ongoing series of debates conducted as part of the IWPR programme Afghan Reconciliation: Promoting Peace and Building Trust by Engaging Civil Society.