KABUL -- Newly reaffirmed Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai promised to halt the flow of an unmitigated stream of capital from huge Afghanistani corporations to Afghanistan's powerful political parties.
   
    "Unvarnished political donations represent a stain in our democratic dynasty," said Karzai in a press conference Tuesday. "We must not let 'special interest groups' take control where it is not merited."
   
   

Can Karzai stem the flow of cash to Afghanistan's well-organized political parties?

Afghanistan's government has experienced a huge swell in cash donations after it became a government and people were able to have money and donate it to others. Last year candidates accepted untold hundreds of millions of dollars in soft money donations, and increase of an infinite percent since the year before.
   
    "Soft money" is so called because it does not fall under any current regulations. The donations pay for "issue ads" on Afghan State Television, Radio, and shouted from the top of hills, so long as the announcements do no name a particular candidate.
   
    Karzai did confirm he was in favor of raising the traditional "hard money" limit for individuals from 2 eggs and a bail of wheat to $2-3 US dollars.
   
    The practice is heavily employed by large Afghan corporations. The recent elections for the transitional government received a "flash flood" of donations from an Afghanistani software company, only to be inundated yet again by an wealthy Afghan investment bank.
   
    However, oppponents of the reforms say unlimited financial political donations is an expression of free speech, and so should be protected with the same protections as any other form of political speech.
   
    "When our forefathers wrote this nation's constitution three weeks ago, they knew that it what was true three weeks ago would be true for later generations today: free speech is imperitave for the long-term survival of a nation," said Loya Jirga council member Abdullah Mohammed Omar al-Washeed.