VZCZCXRO7175
RR RUEHDBU RUEHPW
DE RUEHBUL #0812/01 0920608
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 020608Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY KABUL
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8083
INFO RUCNAFG/AFGHANISTAN COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 000812 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR SRAP, SCA/FO, SCA/A, EUR/RPM 
STATE PASS TO AID FOR ASIA/SCAA 
USFOR-A FOR POLAD 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PGOV AF
 
SUBJECT: Afghanistan's Sub-National Governance Director Looks into 
the Future 
 
¶1. Summary:  During the Ambassador's March 30 farewell call on 
Jelani Popal, Director of the Independent Directorate of Local 
Governance (IDLG), Popal both predicted President Karzai's 
re-election and also laid out changes he believes the President will 
need to make in a next, final period in office if he is to leave a 
positive, lasting legacy.  He also speculated on the future of the 
IDLG itself, preferring to see it take on a broader mandate 
coordinating overall government policy formulation and building up 
human capacity at both the central and sub-national levels. 
Finally, he raised a bit of doubt about his own future at the IDLG, 
at least in the short term, noting that he has suggested to the 
President that he be moved to another position during the election 
campaign out of concern that international suspicions of his 
perceived pro-Karzai bias are damaging support for the IDLG's work. 
End Summary. 
 
Post-Election:  Need for a Better Team 
--------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. While not going so far as to predict the President will be a 
shoe-in, Popal did suggest that the sizeable support the President 
enjoys in the country makes it quite likely he will win re-election. 
 This is all the more likely, he noted, because of the lack of 
organized political parties to help assemble support across a 
spectrum for candidates.  He recalled warning Ashraf Ghani about 
just this problem.  So far, Afghan politicians have been too 
"selfish," Popal argued, to support creation of real political 
parties based on ideas, because they see such parties posing a 
danger to their highly personalized followings. 
 
¶3. According to the IDLG Director, if the President, once 
re-elected, hopes to leave a positive legacy to the nation at the 
end of his next term, he will have to make some major changes. 
First and foremost, there must be personnel changes at senior 
levels.  Papal pointed to Ministers Wardak and Atmar, along with 
National Directorate of Security (NDS) chief Saleh, as equipping the 
President with a solid security team - particularly since Atmar's 
take-over at Interior.  The same, however, cannot be said for both 
the economic/development and governance portfolios.  He suggested 
the President will need to find a bare minimum of two individuals he 
completely trusts to take the lead in each of these two critical 
subject areas.  With such persons in place, Karzai must then step 
away from his constant micro-managing. 
 
The Future of the IDLG 
---------------------- 
 
¶4. Before laying out two scenarios for the IDLG's future, Popal 
briefly looked back on his agency's accomplishments to date, 
labeling himself "generally happy" with the IDLG's record.  He 
prefaced his remarks, however, by noting the many obstacles with 
which the IDLG has had to contend in trying to carry out its mission 
of linking the people to the government in Kabul.  The old informal 
links that once existed are simply gone, and Popal's attempt to 
jump-start the recreation of those links via the Afghanistan Social 
Outreach Program (ASOP) - through creation of temporary 
district-level shuras - has been largely still-born so far because 
of widespread suspicion among the International Community of the 
IDLG's motivation.  He cited obstructionism in Parliament too as an 
impediment to progress.  He noted that he wastes a huge amount of 
his time meeting with dozens of MPs a day to hear out their pleas 
for installing this or that constituent, associate or family member 
in one sub-national governance job or another.  Lack of resources 
has stalled the IDLG's work as well.  With a budget of less than USD 
30 million to cover about 100,000 employees, Popal bemoaned the fact 
that he has had to spend so much of his time requesting funding from 
donors for the financing of IDLG programs. 
 
 
¶5.  On the plus side of the ledger, the IDLG chief cited four 
accomplishments.  First, he believes his agency has succeeded in 
raising awareness of the importance of sub-national governance and 
in gaining recognition from major stakeholders of the need for 
addressing current shortcomings.  Second, the IDLG has managed to 
craft several significant policy initiatives [Note: sometimes with 
the assistance of outside partners, such as UNDP].  Third, Popal 
pointed to the imminent three-day conference for the remaining batch 
of district administrators to provide them some basic, centrally 
guided orientation, training and evaluation.  Through these 
conferences, the IDLG has mapped out the state of sub-national 
governance resources (or lack thereof) in all of the country's 364 
official districts, assessed the qualifications of the 
administrators and determined which officials need to be replaced 
(about 100).  Finally, Popal insisted he has been working "day and 
night" to create needed capacity in the IDLG itself to allow it to 
function as a professional organization.  [Note: the IDLG has about 
360 employees in Kabul, about 70 of whom it judges to be of 
 
KABUL 00000812  002 OF 003 
 
 
professional quality, with a dozen of these in senior management 
positions.] 
 
¶6. As for the way ahead, the IDLG director mapped out two possible 
approaches.  On the one hand, he believes his agency could maintain 
its current role focused on overseeing the work of governors and 
district administrators; but he would advocate shifting the power of 
appointment from the Palace to the IDLG itself.  What he would 
really prefer, however, would be to see the IDLG's focus broadened 
to allow it also to function as an "administrative affairs 
department" for the President.  This would involve helping to 
coordinate national policy formulation, mapping out legislative 
strategy and taking the steps necessary to ensure sufficient 
capacity exists at both the national and sub-national levels to 
permit those charged with governance responsibilities to carry out 
national policies effectively.  With such capacity in place, he 
would advocate transferring to governors the principal 
responsibility for hiring district administrators, with the IDLG 
limiting itself to a supervisory role and intervening directly in 
such appointments only by exception rather than as a rule. 
 
¶7. Popal did not indicate how likely he believes it is that either 
of these changes will be introduced.  He was clear, however, that he 
views the current system for managing the mechanics of governance as 
"very flawed."  He noted that neither the Independent Administrative 
Reform and Civil Service Commission nor the Senior Appointments 
Panel - both intended to help professionalize government service - 
are properly shielding the system from outside influence. 
 
Popal's Own Future 
------------------------- 
 
¶8. Popal was frank, and to all appearances, regretful in 
acknowledging how much of a lightning rod for criticism he has 
become, especially among international donors.  He finds this a bit 
ironic, given the open arms with which the International Community 
welcomed the creation of the IDLG in mid-2007 and his appointment as 
its director.  He said he realizes he has become very closely 
associated in people's minds with the President; and consequently 
potential funders are reluctant to support the IDLG's programs for 
fear that he will manipulate those programs to benefit the 
reelection chances of the President.  He insists, however, that he 
did not take the job to serve any personal interest but instead to 
help bring about change.  He cited the ASOP program as a case in 
point - his best effort to re-link the people and the government, an 
objective everyone agrees is of enormous importance, has barely 
managed to get off the ground because of fears the program will be 
politicized.  To address this hamstringing of the IDLG, Popal says 
he has suggested to the President that he be shifted to a different 
position, at least for the duration of the Presidential election 
campaign.  He indicated he has also considered trying to get 
international observers installed within the IDLG to provide greater 
transparency and reassurance.  In the next breath, however, he 
admitted such observers would have to work without the knowledge of 
the President, whose hackles would almost certainly be raised by 
such international oversight. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶9. Popal appears to find himself between a rock and a hard place. 
He has been permitted to organize the Independent Directorate of 
Local Governance into the seed of an effective organization and 
develop potentially significant and constructive policy initiatives 
because he is close to the President and has his trust.  But in an 
election year, it is just this proximity that has ended up tainting 
Popal in the eyes not only of some international stakeholders but 
also most of the political opposition as well.  We see little 
prospect of his proposals for stepping aside or installing observers 
in the IDLG being implemented, though it is not beyond the realm of 
the possible that the President might find it expedient to sacrifice 
him at least temporarily in some kind of a level-the-playing-field 
bargain with his opposition.  It is against this background that the 
Ambassador explicitly warned Popal to "stay away from the elections" 
or risk alienating International Community support for the IDLG for 
the foreseeable future.  The most likely scenario currently appears 
to be for Popal to hunker down until after the elections and, if 
Karzai is returned to office, at that point seek to reenergize the 
IDLG and its sub-national governance agenda.  But rather than see 
inaction on the governance front for the next six months, it should 
be possible to find a way to support a number of the IDLG's nascent 
initiatives, such as the Afghanistan Social Outreach Program and the 
governors' operational fund, which will allow progress to be made 
while minimizing opportunities for the misuse of funds for partisan 
ends. 
 
 
 
KABUL 00000812  003 OF 003 
 
 
WOOD