Political Coalitions
The United Front / United National Front, the main political opposition to President Karzai in Parliament and the 2009 presidential election campaign, attempted to present itself as a unified coalition of pan-ethnic and pan-regional political parties committed to opposing a second Karzai presidency. However, its inability to lock down support among non-Tajik groups and identify a credible presidential candidate hurt its chances for winning the 2009 election and implementing its decentralization-focused agenda. In fact, despite lofty talk from UF officials that the party is a national entity, little evidence existed that the coalition was anything more than a small circle of leaders from the majority-Tajik Jamiat-e-Islami party and minor politicians loyal to them. Other factions, parties, and individuals are allies of convenience, associating with the UF when it is to their advantage, but reluctant to publicly commit to the coalition.
Influential northern political leaders, warlords, and mujahideen leaders from the war against Soviet occupation formed the United Front in early 2007, hoping to win a broad consensus for decentralization, elected governors, and constitutional reforms to overhaul the country's parliamentary system. Tajik founders, including former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, Lower House Speaker Yonous Qanooni [Yunus Qanooni], and military leader Mohammad Fahim Khan, initially appeared set to lock up major support beyond their own ethnic group, but were unable to show definitive progress in the coalition's first 18 months toward this goal. A second tier of leaders, including the late king's grandson and Pashtun Mustafa Zahir Shah and First Vice President Ahmad Shah Massoud, both recruited to attract a wider base of popular support, remain outside the UF's decision-making process.
The founding charter of Jabha-e Milli-e Afghanistan (National Front of Afghanistan) was unveiled at a gathering in Kabul November 11, 2011. The party pledges to promote national unity, democracy, the rule of law, and reforms in the country. The party includes former Vice President Ahmad Zia Masud [Chairman of the National Front], Amrullah Saleh, Former Director, Afghan National Security Directorate, and anti-Taliban militia leaders Mohammad Mohaqiq [Leader, People´s Unity Party of Afghanistan] and General Abdul Rashid Dostum [Leader, National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan] as key leaders.
Masud, an ethnic Tajik, is the younger brother of late Ahmad Shah Masud, the noted guerrilla commander who fought the Soviet Army and the Taliban in the 1980s and 1990s. His alliance with ethnic Hazara leader Mohaqiq and Uzbek strongmen Dostum echoed of the Northern Alliance, the coalition of warring militias that united to fight the Taliban after its emergence in the mid-1990s.
One of its major objectives is to change Afghanistan's present presidential system into a parliamentary democracy, where provincial and municipal governments will enjoy greater autonomy from Kabul. The National Front favors a change in the Electoral System from a Single Non Transferable Vote System to a nationally accepted variant of the Proportional Representation system with equal opportunities for independent candidates, the political parties, or tribal representatives. It also supports the election of Governors and empowerment of provincial councils. Such elected Governors and provincial councils should also have authority for such things as creating budgets and generating revenue, overseeing police and healthcare, as well as establishing educational authority.
The objective of replacing the current directly elected presidential system with a parliamentary democracy, in which the prime minister runs the government, is identical to the Coalition for Hope and Change , headed by former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who placed second in the 2009 Presidential election. This group was considered the main opposition bloc. The party is dominated by Northern Alliance fighters who battled against the Taliban during the 1990s.
The new Haq-wa-Edalat [Truth and Justice party] officially launched 04 November 2011, seeking to challenge the Change and Hope party, considered the only effective opposition group in the country. Boasting a self-proclaimed reformist agenda and members from across the country’s ethnic and ideological spectrum, it planned to provide an alternative to the government of President Hamid Karzai, which continues to struggle with widespread corruption.
Members include dissidents from the Karzai government, including former Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar and opposition figure Sima Samar, the chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. It also includes Abbas Noyan, an ethnic Hazara intellectual; former Finance Minister Hamid Faruqi, a Pashtun; Kabir Ranjbar, a leftist deputy who dissolved his Democratic Party to join; a former deputy justice minister of the Taliban, Jalaluddin Shinwari; and Assad Walwalji, an Uzbek intellectual and fierce opponent of warlord and Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum.
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