Editorial: Prospects for the new parliament

For the first time after more than two decades of anarchy and chaos, Afghanistan has its own parliament. Its functions and development will be of momentous import given the continuing ethnic, political and social tensions that have resulted from a prolonged national crisis. The future of parliament is closely tied to our country’s past political history. In recent decades Afghanistan has suffered greatly from the lack of a national administration built up and run by an elected leader. Confidence and mechanisms were replaced by ethnic and ideological animosities, and eventually the country was precipitated into indescribable, irreversible turmoil. The attitudes of survivors of this long period of chaos have inevitably been influenced and shaped by it. People from all walks of life and various ethnic groups are strikingly sensitive to the policies of a government ruling a multi-ethnic society which has experienced chronic injustice and rule by one single ethnicity for many decades. Afghanistan has acquired a parliament under a circumstances where ethnic and political antagonisms, together with other issues, have the potential to plunge the country into another period of civil war and conflict.