Afghanistan’s opposition wants a monarchy – and an Olympics

The Cambridge Declaration (Opens in new window) has grown from a series of annual conferences held at the university by former members of the collapsed republic who have pulled together politicians, academics, women, diplomats, soldiers, and journalists to draw up a “comprehensive composite roadmap”.

This process is confined largely to what it calls “core principles” – sovereignty, constitutional legitimacy, equality, inclusive governance, human rights and stability. It claims to have support from inside the country, and describes the roadmap as a “living document” that will evolve with the growing participation of a widening base.

The Cambridge effort incorporates the Vienna Process for a Democratic Afghanistan, which launched four years ago with tacit support from Austrian diplomatic and academic elites. It initially aimed to cultivate an opposition from the shreds of the republic, though it was populated with competing, and often incompatible, ambitions. It has not convened since 2024.

The Afghanistan Freedom Front is one of a number of armed opposition groups currently active in Afghanistan. It is led by former army chief, deputy defence minister and provincial governor General Yasin Zia. The AFF has drawn up a manifesto (Opens in new window) that calls for the armed overthrow of the Taliban and its replacement by a decentralised democratic system guaranteeing equal citizenship, women’s rights, an independent judiciary and free elections. It gives no practical account of how the Taliban would be removed or how a transition would be managed.

At the other end of the scale sits the newcomer Musahiban Monarchist Association of Afghanistan, which aims to install a constitutional monarchy. It presents a “34-province development strategy” in which cities are transformed into hubs – of life sciences, aerospace, manufacturing, hospitality and education. Under this plan, Kandahar, currently the seat of the Taliban’s leadership, would become “Afghanistan’s future Summer Olympic City”.

The Taliban’s inability to govern may have brought the movement closer to failure than at any time since their return to power in August 2021. Yet, until a credible successor emerges from the plethora of exiled groups and militias, civil society and women’s rights organisations, the Taliban’s weakness is unlikely to become defeat – and their reign of horror will drag on.

Many exiles appear to assume that the Taliban have cleared the political ground for an entirely new order, if only the international community would provide the money and arms. But Afghanistan’s ethnic and sectarian divisions, entrenched misogyny and history of political violence long preceded and will likely outlast the Taliban.

For Ahmad Abid Humayun, who says he has counted “11 regime changes since 1981”, the problem runs deeper than the quality of these proposals. Afghanistan’s broken institutions, tribalism and dogmatism are symptoms of failures that cannot be remedied by money or superficial changes to the structure of government, he said.

Any credible transformation must come from within and reflect the country’s history and socio-political realities. “We need a real modern society,” he said, “not a modern-looking society.”