If I Were a Parliamentarian

If I Were a Parliamentarian

Dr. G. Rauf Roashan

If I were an Afghan parliamentarian, I would look forward with a great deal of excitement to December 19, 2005 when the Afghan Parliament would meet for the first time after many years of unrest and upheavals in my country.

Whether an elected member of the Wolusi Jirga or either elected or appointed member of the Mishrano Jirga, I would feel, with a great deal of honor and excitement, the weight of the great responsibility that is put on my shoulders by my nation and by the history of my country.

I would be keen to meet with and discuss this responsibility both with my colleagues at the parliament and my constituencies. I would take pride in the fact that it has been through a democratic process that I have become a parliamentarian. The process that has brought me here may not have been flawless, but it has been a starting point for democratic governance in my country. And no matter how much euphoric I am over the fact that I have been declared a winner, I would be keen only to embrace democracy further but also to try and learn the nits and grits of it. I would have come to participate in the orientation sessions and seminars that have been organized for the parliamentarians and would have picked up a lot of information on the parliamentary procedures that are new to me. I would reassess my powers as a parliamentarian, my relations with the other two branches of the government, and the expectations not only of my own constituencies but also of other districts and provinces of my country.

Furthermore, I would be prepared to participate in the opening processes of the first sitting of the Afghan parliament; would listen carefully to the head of the state who leads the executive in my country and who would in his inaugural speech renew his pledges to me and to the rest of the nation to uphold the constitution and to lead the country in the right path for recovery after more than one full quarter of a century of devastation that had struck Afghanistan.

I would keep my eyes open and enumerate the problems of my country. I would be keen to find together with colleagues in the parliament solutions to my country’s security issues. I would be more aware of the presence of foreign troops in my country and the reasons and the proclaimed need for their presence. I would reassess the damages incurred to Afghanistan by the foreign terrorists; foreign interests, extremists and extremists’ propagators, and some of our selfish neighbors and together with my colleagues debate the new path to democracy and personal freedoms in my ancient land. I would be sure to use the mechanisms available to me as a parliamentarian to check but not to paralyze the executive branch. I would prove to the nation that I would be a pusher for progress and prosperity and not a hindrance to development. I would not become a rubber stamp for any authority and nor would I shun great ideas for advancement of my nation. I would leave my mark in Afghan history as a parliamentarian that knew how to do his work and who did it to the best of his knowledge and ability.

I would try to become aware of what people expect of me. Many say that up to 90 percent of my colleagues do not know much about the workings of the parliament. I would find out about my powers, the powers of the parliament and would especially learn more about my and my colleague’s ability to take decisions on matters of national sovereignty, alter the constitution, approve the budget, reject government appointments and even put the president on trial. I would pledge to my conscience that I would not abuse these powers. I would also note that there would be moves to attract me to a variety of groupings within the house. I would be very careful in making my choices of groupings based on either recent history of the country, or ethnic and linguistic or geographical divisions. For me Afghanistan would be one, but a colorful unit and I would put my allegiances equally with all Afghans. People say, I might serve first and foremost myself, then my province and lastly my country. I would try to prove them wrong by putting the good of the nation in front of my personal gains and that I will be a servant of the needs of the nation as a whole of which my constituency would be only one unit.

I would welcome more than a quarter of the parliament membership that is made up of Afghan women. I would learn to work with them as equals for the prosperity of the nation and would promote among my nation the fact that gender should not be an issue when it comes to serving of the needs of the people. I would be very interested to listen to and scrutinize the input by Afghan women, an input that has been long in coming within the recent Afghan history.

I would try to examine the great tasks that are ahead of me in this challenging era in the history of my country. I would prioritize the actions that need to be taken by the parliament in Afghanistan that must include my country’s security, my nations need to fighting corruption and drugs, a time table for the economic self reliance of the country and expediting the process of reconstruction and rehabilitation so that tangible results are obtained and that those results are obvious at the level of all constituencies in Afghanistan.

But one of my most memorable experiences would begin with my listening to the inaugural speech by my country’s President. He would have worked on his speech for many days. His speech, one of the most important of his life, would have covered his dedication to the country, his determination to serve the nation and his efforts to lead the country to independence from want. His plans for the country’s freedom from poverty, disease and ignorance would interest me. But it would interest me more to hear from him that he, like myself is desirous of seeing foreign troops replaced by Afghan national army and foreign military bases closed in my country. I would expect him to tell me that he, like myself, is his own man and will work with me, with all of us in the parliament to make the day a reality when we will not need foreign military on our soil, not even for our security. I would like to hear him say, I am here to work with you shoulder to shoulder to carry the great burden of the formidable task of revival of Afghanistan, our beloved land. 12/15/05

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