In a move that has arguably been overdue for weeks, Afghan president Hamid Karzai finally submitted his cabinet line-up on Saturday (19 December) for 23 out of the total of 25 ministries for approval of parliament. Delayed largely because Karzai had to walk a thin red line in keeping to his inauguration-speech promise to draw up a "clean and honest" cabinet, massive pressure by the international community for him to clamp down against endemic corruption in Afghanistan, and the need to cater to and reward numerous warlords and strongmen that supported his election bid, his final line-up reflected these pressures in that it apparently sought to satisfy all those involved. Many in the international community have hesitantly welcomed his line-up, including Canada and NATO, partly because the key ministries important for the dissemination of international aid and those critical for addressing the country's key problems were filled with Western-educated technocrats, but inevitably also because of the apparent need to portray Karzai as a credible partner—a crucial precondition for the new U.S. strategy to be workable in practice. However, while giving rise to cautious optimism, this balancing act expectedly failed to garner outright praise from the international community; and inside Afghanistan the new cabinet line-up for many lawmakers and citizens only confirmed that indeed not much has changed from Karzai's previous tenure. Following this early criticism, Karzai went about to defend his nominees for ministerial posts by saying yesterday (20 December) that the new ministers, as well as those from the last cabinet, will be accountable for anything relating to corruption.

The announcement of Karzai's cabinet line-up, if somewhat flawed and still pending approval by parliament, ends months of political uncertainty. In this sense, the retaining of the status quo can be viewed in moderately positive terms, justifying the upgrading of IHS Global Insight's Political risk score by one notch (0.25) to 4.25. Given that the cabinet is to still undergo a stringent approval process by parliament, there is room for a further improvement of the political score by a further notch if accepted, which would bring the political risk score back to pre-election levels. At the security front no upgrades are presently warranted, given the widespread perception that the Taliban insurgency will get worse in the short term before modest advances may be made in the medium term, with the score of 4.75 representing the extreme security risks that investors face in most parts of the country.

The Cabinet Line-Up: A Mixed Picture

Around half of the cabinet line-up is made up of old faces, although generally these are set to please the international community as key ministries have been staffed with well-respected technocrats that in most cases were educated in the West. Among those retaining their cabinet posts are Western favourites such as Interior Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Defence Minister Mohammad Rahim Wardak, Agriculture Minister Mohammad Asif Rahimi who ran the highly successful National Solidarity Programme, and Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal. The international community will also be pleased that two former cabinet members with a history of corruption departed from the scene, namely former Minister of Mines Ibrahim Adel and former Minister of Hajj and Islamic Affairs Sediq Chakari. Further good news includes that notorious warlords such as Abdul Rashid Dostum and Mohammad Mohaqiq did not receive any portfolios.

However, while Dostum and Mohaqiq did not receive any high-profile cabinet posts, it is widely expected that they will yet be awarded with other influential government posts, possibly at the provincial level. Given that two ministers are yet to be named, it remains to be seen who will receive these portfolios. With regard to the foreign ministry post that will become vacant in January 2010 it is likely that another internationally respected figure will assume responsibilities, but this is less clear in the case of the development ministry for which former warlord Gul Agha Shairzai is widely tipped to negotiate for. It has also been criticised that there is only one woman in the current cabinet line-up, namely Husn Banu Ghazanfar as the Minister of Women Affairs. Furthermore, it is notable that no supporters of former presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah, who received more than 30 per cent of all votes in the 20 August election, have been included in the cabinet line-up.

There are furthermore concerns that many of the new faces, while largely adequately educated and qualified, will not enjoy the necessary freedom to carry out their duties due to interference of particular interest groups, including warlords.

Outlook and Implications

Little Substantive Change

The announcement of the cabinet line-up has lifted much of the political uncertainty that has clouded the post-election political landscape in Afghanistan, and this now warrants the upgrade of IHS Global Insight's political risk score to 4.25 from 4.50. However, despite renewed lip service and the apparent cautious optimism on the part of many among the international community, there is little reason to believe that things will be fundamentally different this time around. Over the past years, a similar cabinet line-up failed to make any progress, and indeed apart from advances in a few areas like education and health, the overall picture is that the government has failed to address the worsening security situation, rampant corruption, huge unemployment figures and a flourishing drug industry, to name but a few. The ousting of just two ministers involved in corruption scandals is likely to not make all the difference that is required to effectively tackle a country's problems that has been at war for more than three decades and is grappling to create a singular identity in a society that is defined by a myriad ethnic, tribal, linguistic and religious entities, many of which have in the past displayed no desire to belong to an Afghan state. The Taliban continue to portray and fight the central government as a "puppet" of Western interests, and the appointment of yet more Western-educated individuals is set to exacerbate this impression among the Taliban. The fact that the Abdullah camp, which received a considerable percentage of votes in the 20 August presidential election is not at all represented in the cabinet furthermore points to a lack of Tajik representation and could provide a rallying point for significant political pressure on Karzai that could show clearly in the national assembly election that is lined up for sometime in 2010. Furthermore, similar to Karzai's cabinet line-up, the new U.S. strategy is a compromise solution, seeking to balance growing domestic criticism and war-weariness and the inability to withdraw from Afghanistan without having moved the country to a point in which it can tackle the Taliban insurgency on its own. It indeed shows few new components to the previously announced Af-Pak strategy that was perceived to be so in need of revision, apart from a "flexible" exit strategy that may mean little in practice and temporarily beefed-up troop numbers that are not at all guaranteed to achieve the objective of "turning the tide" against the Taliban. Overall, then, little has changed, and this keeping of the status quo is very much in line with what IHS Global Insight in previous analyses mapped out as the most likely scenario for Afghanistan's post-election landscape. It now very much depends on whether and how the new Afghan government and international forces will be able and willing to work effectively together to address the country's problems, and 2010 will be a decisive year for this.

Global Insight (Reino Unido)