Today’s Afghanistan is very different not only from the Afghanistan of the sixties but also from the early years of the 21st century. Following the 1964 Constitution, Afghanistan was recognized as a democratic monarchy. Under the 1964 Constitution, the state was provided with three branches of government that in turn were balanced against each other on the basis of the principle of check and balance. However, that system was doomed to fail because the main elements that could have completed the democratic process were missing from the Constitution.