Guerrilla chiefs to undercut Karzai

For the past two weeks, mujahideen leaders, including Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim, Yunis Qanooni, Abdul Rab Rasool Sayaaf, Kareem Khalili, and the late Ahmed Shah Masood's brother, Ahmed Wali, have been holding a series of meetings - often over dinner - to discuss strategy. Loya jirga delegates supportive of these mujahideen groups have been studying up and honing their arguments in favor of a parliamentary system.

"We have invited hundreds of delegates last night and had a large discussion on the issues," says Aqa Mohammad Nazari, a senior leader in Jamiat Islami. "The majority want a parliamentary system with a prime minister. People do not want a dictatorship. They do not want complete power to be in one man's hands, whether it's Karzai or somebody else."

The mujahideen have some unlikely allies in the drive for a parliamentary system. Those who have attended the meetings say that members of the monarchist party, the Movement for National Unity of Afghanistan, have also been discussing ways to rewrite the constitution and weaken the powers of the presidency.

Under the current draft, the president could sack officials and remove regional governors at will. While the draft allows for a legislative body, the president could encroach on its authority through decrees.

Western diplomats say privately that any move to weaken the president would make the Afghan government less effective. "It is only because Karzai has these powers that we're starting to see things getting done," says one senior US diplomat.

But publicly, US diplomats say that the very fact that it's possible to hold a constitutional convention to discuss these issues shows that Afghans have more freedom.

"The Afghans are discussing issues that they have not discussed ... during their past 5,000 year history," said US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, in a recent press gathering in Kabul. "They are debating it with freedom and with confidence."

Drafters of the constitution say that reaction to the draft thus far has been positive. "Everyone who reads this constitution is agreeing, not arguing," says Abdul Salam Azimi, deputy chairman of the constitutional commission.

While the mujahideen point to their overwhelming support of loya jirga delegates as evidence that they represent the true voice of the people, many Afghans themselves voice concerns that a prolonged power struggle could push the nation once again into violent factionalism.

A recent survey of 1,500 Afghans from various provinces by the aid group CARE showed that most Afghans are more interested in improvements in security and economic growth than in political loyalties. Asked what they would do first if they were president, 43 percent said they would improve security by beefing up police and disarming warlords. Forty percent said they would focus on job creation, health care, or education. Only 7 percent said they would focus on the balance of ethnic or tribal groups in the government.

Among ordinary Afghans, Safia Niazi is probably typical. Principal of a girls' high school in Kabul, she is neither satisfied with the present government nor happy with the savage history of infighting among the mujahideen. Instead, Ms. Niazi says she simply wants to see a country safe enough to send children to school.

"I've read this constitution, and it's very good for the people of Afghanistan," she says. "But we will see what the people of Afghanistan do with the constitution. Will they follow it or not?"

But while many Afghans blame the mujahideen for four years of civil war that destroyed the city of Kabul and ushered in the harsh Taliban regime, mujahideen officials themselves say they are ready to share power, and rule maturely.

"During the jihad [holy war] the Afghan people gave their own sons to the guerrilla leaders to fight the jihad, knowing they would be killed," says Nazari. "They trusted the mujahideen then, but now these people are called warlords. Why? We are the same people."

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