An Afghan Constitution

Wednesday, December 24, 2003; Page A14

DESPITE CONTINUING violence from a regrouped Taliban, there has been a stream of modest good news from Afghanistan this month. A major reconstruction project, the 300-mile highway from Kabul to Kandahar, was completed as U.S. aid officials prepared to pour an additional $2 billion into development projects next year. The first steps were taken to disarm the private armies of warlords who rule over large parts of the countryside, and U.S. and NATO commanders announced plans to establish small military posts, or "provincial reconstruction teams," in a dozen places. The International Monetary Fund reported that the Afghan economy grew by 30 percent in 2002-03 and is likely to expand by another 20 percent next year.

Most strikingly, some 500 delegates to an Afghan political convention, or loya jirga, including more than 100 women, have spent the past 10 days peacefully debating the draft of a new constitution that would make Afghanistan an electoral democracy for the first time in its history. Thanks to some behind-the-scenes brokering, it now seems probable that the assembly will approve, largely unchanged, a draft that will create a strong presidential system of government -- one seemingly designed to perpetuate the influence of the moderate interim president, Hamid Karzai. So far, the objections of dissenters have been overruled: not just women seeking greater recognition of their rights, but ethnic and regional warlords who want a more decentralized system, and Islamic fundamentalists who want to mandate rule by religious law. The end result will almost certainly be unsatisfactory to advocates of liberal democracy and human rights. But it could give Afghans a chance to hold a legitimate democratic election for president sometime next year -- an extraordinary advance for a country that little more than two years ago was subject to the Taliban's primitive despotism.

Liberal objections to the constitutional draft begin with its concentration of power in the hands of the president, who will be able to legislate by decree and probably will appoint provincial governors. There will be a two-chamber assembly, with designated places for women, but no prime minister who might emerge as an alternative source of authority. One concern is that this system could give excessive power to one ethnic group, such as Mr. Karzai's Pashtun. But most Afghans seem more worried about the opposing risk that decentralization could revive the factionalism and, eventually, civil war that destroyed the country in the early 1990s.

The draft constitution commits Afghanistan to abide by the U.N. Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But women at the conference object to its omission of specific language granting women and men equal rights. Other experts point out that while the constitution's references to Islam are relatively mild -- sharia, or Islamic law, is not mentioned -- clauses prohibiting laws or political parties opposed to Islam could be used by conservative judges to limit democracy or squelch religious reform movements.

These are serious issues. That the Bush administration appears not to be greatly troubled by them reflects the fact that its political strategy for Afghanistan is centered not on a document but a man. The reasoning is that as long as the moderate and pro-Western Mr. Karzai controls the central government, and warlords and the Taliban roam the countryside, a powerful executive is in the interest of the United States. It's certainly risky to bet so heavily on one leader: Mr. Karzai must be counted on not only to survive but to use his power in ways that unite rather than split the country. In the longer term Afghanistan will need a political system more responsive to its ethnic diversity and more protective of civil and religious rights. But the country has already been through nine constitutions. If the 10th leads to the legitimate democratic election of a president whose authority is recognized throughout the country, Afghanistan will have taken a historic step forward.