Civil society activists have criticized Presidential candidates for not weighing in on the debate surrounding the Kabul-Washington security pact. As the accord is expected to be a major factor in the coming years, the lack of clarity and input from those who wish to succeed Hamid Karzai has frustrated many Afghans.
Afghan tribal elites concluded a four-day Loya Jirga on Sunday, endorsing the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the U.S., which would allow a residual U.S. troop presence to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014 and ensure continued financial aid to the Afghan forces.
A unanimous majority of the 2,500-member Jirga called on President Hamid Karzai to sign the document by the end of this year. But the Afghan President has said he would not finalize the agreement until after the April elections, and has set a number of ambitious preconditions for the U.S. to meet before he does.
Aziz Rafee, the head of Civil Society Association, said on Monday that if the BSA goes bad, the next five years for whoever wins the vote in April would be rife with obstacles and failures.
Rafee called on the candidates to speak out about their stances on the BSA, and the debate that has ensued since the Jirga cast its vote.
"Despite the ongoing uncertainty and fear that exists about post-2014 Afghanistan, the Presidential candidates didn't say anything about the signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement," he said on Monday.
The 11 Presidential hopefuls were all invited to participate in the Loya Jirga, though they were barred from promoting their campaigns at the event.
Civil society groups previously urged the candidates to formulate platforms and be more public about their policy plans if they are elected. In the past, it has been said Afghan elections lacked substantive discourse and instead were merely popularity contests grounded in ethnicity and celebrity.
"We are very concerned about the absence of programs and strategies amongst the Presidential candidates; the world is waiting to see the programs of these candidates," civil society advocate Hamid Zazai said.
TOLOnews spoke to a number of Kabul residents who expressed similar sentiment, and called on candidates to voice up on the issue of the BSA>
"So far, we haven't witnessed any reaction from these candidates with regard to the signing of the Bilateral Security Agreement," acknowledged a Kabul resident named Yama.
"the people want to know what opinions these candidates have about the BSA, but the election candidates have remained silent and have said nothing about the agreement," another resident named Shir Shah said.
However, those claims are not entirely true, as candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Abdul Rahim Wardak have voiced their support for the pact publicly. Perhaps they simply need to do so more prominently, and go into greater detail.
Though they would have to do so carefully, as the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has warned that it would pursue legal action against any candidates who begin campaigning before the official campaign period starts in February.