Afghan cabinet delays stoke worry, frustration

KABUL — Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is famously impatient with delays and dallying. He runs meetings with clockwork precision, rebukes latecomers and once reportedly even locked the door on a deputy minister who showed up 10 minutes after the appointed hour.

So why, frustrated and worried Afghans are asking, has Ghani yet to form a cabinet after nearly three months in office, breaking his own deadlines three times and failing to make a single permanent appointment except that of his national security adviser?

This question matters for reasons far greater than the frenzy of speculation over who will get which post that is consuming Kabul’s political, intellectual and media circles.

One reason is the staggering array of problems confronting Afghanistan, including terrorism, corruption, poverty and joblessness. As Western forces finalize their withdrawal and international donors consider future aid commitments, the creeping sense of paralysis and stalemate in the new government is worrying many observers.

“We have people living in frozen tents and bomb blasts going off, while everyone argues over what is mine and what is yours,” analyst  Farooq Bashar said. “People want to see a strong and unified government, but everything is on hold. There is no investment, and all the key positions are being held by caretakers. This cannot go on much longer. The Taliban is waiting on the corner.”

Mahmad Omar, 27, a butcher, expressed disillusionment with the government and said his business in central Kabul has plummeted because customers are too afraid to shop.

“We thought everything would change for the better when the new president came, but the opposite happened,” he said. “Now they tell us everything will change when the cabinet comes, but it has taken much too long. It is a terrible failure when the leaders are in conflict with themselves.”

Another reason for public concern is that the lack of visible progress on high-level appointments suggests that the national unity government, a power-sharing arrangement between Ghani and top rival Abdullah Abdullah brokered by the United States after a disputed election, is not working.

The forced marriage was uneasy from the start, with Abdullah demanding prime ministerial powers as chief executive and Ghani insisting on presidential primacy. It is also a foreign-engineered setup outside the Afghan constitution that is scheduled to last only two years, making it internally fragile and vulnerable to outside attack.  Read More at Washingtonpost