Afghanistan, explained.
A 4 kilometre time-trial race along a road in Kabul, 11 September 2025 (Wakil Kohsar/AFP via Getty Images)
Afghanistan’s exiled opposition produces manifestos by the dozen but not one credible plan for life after the Taliban.
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Afghanistan’s opposition wants a monarchy – and an OlympicsAfghanistan’s opposition wants a monarchy – and an Olympics
Amid a flurry of manifestos, roadmaps and declarations (Opens in new window) of popular support for the overthrow of the Taliban, one question is rarely asked: how likely is it that the terrorist regime ruling Afghanistan will be replaced any time in the foreseeable future?
At one conference I attended in Vienna, about 90 participants represented 70 exile groups. Another gathering seemed little more than a sing-along held in an exotic destination and paid for by governments and charities. Yet another gave exiled academics an opportunity to present PhD theses written with government grants. Many organise along ethnic lines while professing unity and inclusion.
Five years on, the Taliban regime is beginning to creak and it is clear the group is incapable of governance. It has little popular legitimacy, its leaders are divided, and its incompetence and intransigence have alienated even states such as China and Russia that have cultivated close ties with it.
The United States, NATO members, China, India and others retain clandestine presences in Afghanistan, intelligence sources say. Everyone is watching and waiting.
What is missing is a viable opposition capable of winning confidence inside Afghanistan and abroad – and of turning the Taliban’s vulnerability into a serious prospect for political transformation.
The Taliban’s weakness is unlikely to become defeat – and their reign of horror will drag on.
Instead, much of what is offered amounts to a collection of manuscripts written to attract international funding: repetitive, cosmetic strategies that recycle theories already tried and failed, proposing changes to the form of government without addressing the deeper social and political failures beneath it.
“These are not roadmaps or manifestos. They are project ideas, as if I wrote a proposal for a donor to build a few greenhouses,” said Ahmad Abid Humayun, the head of a 36-year-old Afghan development NGO in Kabul.
There is no lack of effort among the many and disparate exile groups to come up with plans for a post-Taliban future. As time passes and international funding and interest diminish, some have produced national political frameworks, mimicking the language of the international donor fraternity in tick-box papers that cram in everything from gender equality and ethnic diversity to tax and terrorism.
Occasionally, a fanciful proposal pops up to demonstrate how crowded the competition – and how deep the divisions – have become. All spout democracy; few have practised it.
A parade in Herat for the fifth anniversary of the Taliban's takeover in Afghanistan, 15 August 2026 (Mustafa Noori via Getty Images)
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.”
About the author
Lynne O'Donnell
Lynne O’Donnell is an Australian writer and journalist.
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