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Karzai has, until now, failed everywhere it matters. He possesses neither the oratorical skill nor the national popularity to rally his fellow citizens to come together collaboratively in the spirit of solidarity. He has also demonstrated, and done so quite clearly, that he lacks the political touch to build sustainable party alliances in Kabul.
Karzai has failed to convince the international community that he is the right person to meet the challenge of leading Afghanistan out of the depths of its current morass – which is shocking, because Afghanistan has accrued a vast reservoir of goodwill and the world stands more ready than ever to help.
But what is perhaps most troubling of all is that Karzai, now nearing the half-year period since his reelection, has yet to form a Cabinet to help him with the enormous task of governing the country.
Part of the problem is that the national legislature, which is constitutionally required to approve Karzai's Cabinet nominees, has on two occasions refused to accept all of Karzai's nominees. But the real problem traces its origin to Karzai himself, who has refused to take anything but an antagonistic and uncooperative approach in discharging his solemn duty to form a Cabinet.
All the while, the ones who have suffered most from the resulting political paralysis and the discontent that continues to chill relations between Karzai and the legislature are neither Karzai himself nor his failed Cabinet nominees, but rather the very people who Karzai was elected to serve: the citizens of Afghanistan.
Karzai's Cabinet quandary is a symptom of a larger problem that threatens to become a veritable crisis in Afghanistan: conflict over cooperation in public institutions. It is therefore critically important to address both the short-term obstructions to crafting a Cabinet and the long-term risk of a constitutional collision that will upset the progress that Afghanistan has forged since its liberation from the horrors of the Taliban.
To help solve Karzai's immediate Cabinet quandary, and more broadly to begin to move Afghan governance away from conflict and toward cooperation, two items should top Karzai's agenda.
First, Karzai should appoint the equivalent of a prime minister to act as his shepherd in the national legislature. Although, as a matter of constitutional structure, Afghanistan is a presidential system – not a semi-presidential one, which would allow the country to have both a president and a prime minister – nothing prevents Karzai, as president, from working closely with a legislator designated by him to serve as a liaison between the legislature and the president. This would help reduce some of the tension that currently sours legislative-executive relations, particularly if the legislator were an experienced politician whom both sides regarded as a respected mediator and statesperson.
Second, Karzai's first assignment for his quasi prime minister should be to introduce a law in the legislature to streamline the existing Cabinet structure. Under existing law, the Cabinet contains 25 positions. But many of these offices concern subjects who duties overlap and often result in duplication instead of the efficient administration of the state.
For instance, there are positions for both Education and Higher Education, just as there appear to be some intersection between the two separate departments of Economy and Finance, also between Commerce and Industries on the one hand and, on the other, Telecommunications and Information Technology, and also among the three departments of Mines, Energy and Water, and the Interior.
Reducing the number of Cabinet positions would increase efficiency and accountability, and it would furthermore eliminate some of the positions that Karzai is struggling to fill. This would in turn give Karzai a series of much-needed small victories, which, together, would give him great momentum as he pivots from the process of Cabinet formation and turns to the task of governing.
Both Afghans and the international community continue to express deep, and indeed justifiable, reservations about Karzai's ability to lead the nation, to reconcile sharply divided parties, to build the civil apparatus of the state and the basic elements of a financial market, and to inspire a culture of the rule of law. Not to mention the recurring charges of graft and corruption that undermine the legitimacy of Karzai's presidency, and only further deteriorate the trust of Afghans in their public institutions.
These are admittedly challenging responsibilities to lay at the feet of any single person, let alone an individual like Karzai whose personal approval hovers perilously close to Nixonian levels. This is precisely why Karzai cannot ever hope to accomplish the important work he must do as president without a fully functioning Cabinet behind him.
Only by approaching the momentous job of fashioning a Cabinet as a work-in-progress that must invite the views and recommendations of other Afghan leaders, both within and outside the national legislature, may Karzai ever hope, first, to secure broad support for his Cabinet nominees and more importantly, second, to scale the great heights that stand between him and the successful transformation of Afghanistan.
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(Richard Albert is an assistant professor at Boston College Law School, where he specializes in constitutional law and democratic theory. ©Copyright Richard Albert.)
