Taliban Officials Are No Longer ‘Acting'

The Diplomat

20 hours ago

The Taliban's Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhunzada has told officials to stop using the words 'acting,' 'interim,' or 'caretaker' in their titles. This might seem like a slight language change, but it sends a clear message. The Taliban leadership is saying: This is the regime, and there is no transition coming. There is no plan for a new phase of politics in Afghanistan with a constitution, a parliament, or elections.
For years, Taliban-linked lobbyists and sympathetic diplomats in the West have urged: 'Be patient; this is temporary.' That story is now exposed for the fiction it has always been.
From the Taliban's point of view, this step is logical. The word 'acting' makes a regime look uncertain and gives the sense that there is space for negotiation and power sharing, that something else may develop later. Removing the word closes the door and leaves no space for hope. And it tells Taliban fighters and officials that the system they were working for is fixed, the chain of command is clear, and that the basic design of the regime will not change. At the same time, it tells society that they should not wait for a political opening and should accept the rules as they now exist.
There is a second, more strategic layer. If anything has truly changed between Taliban 1.0 and Taliban 2.0, it's this: they are smarter. Along with sharpening themselves in the use of technology, they have also learned how to leverage language as a tool of legitimacy. 'Islamic,' 'emirate,' 'Shariah': these words shape the frame in which they want to be seen. The title 'acting' undercut that frame and kept alive the possibility that something more negotiated and more representative might come into being. By removing it, the Taliban move the rhetorical framing of their regime from 'temporary caretaker' to 'permanent authority,' even if the legal foundations are thin and the institutional architecture is unfinished. The Taliban's leadership is saying to its supporters that their victory is complete and permanent, and to their critics and opposition that it is final. And they are saying the world must deal with them as they are, not as the world wishes they would become.
This change also exposes the hollow promises that many advocates of engagement with the Taliban repeated for four years. Taliban lobbyists and apologists argued that if the regime was given time, they would moderate; if conversation continued, the Taliban would open up; and that above all, Afghans and the international community should be patient. For the Taliban, however, the word 'interim' was not a roadmap to a future, inclusive government; it was a holding pattern that helped the Taliban regime settle in. Those who believed the Taliban's fiction that 'this is only temporary' must now ask themselves why a temporary structure is being painted as final without the normal tools of demonstrating legitimacy, such as a basic law, an elected chamber, and a pathway to public consent for a government.
The second claim came from part of the unarmed opposition, mainly based in Turkiye, which consisted mostly of former government officials, who waited for a national dialogue because 'interim' sounded like a bridge toward power-sharing, to their own return.
The shift, dropping the facade of 'acting' officialdom, lands hard on women and non-Pashtun ethnic groups. For women, it confirms that all the barriers they face are central to the Taliban's policy and that these policies are here to stay. This further confirms the current order that many Afghans describe as a regime of gender apartheid, because the separation, control, and exclusion of women are not side effects: they are fundamental design features of the Taliban government.
For non-Pashtun ethnic groups such as Tajiks and Hazaras, who have been completely pushed out of the country's political life, as well as for religious minorities, the move deepens the sense that Afghanistan is being governed as if it were a single ethnic polity. The current Cabinet, security leadership, and provincial appointments overwhelmingly reflect only Pashtuns in a country as diverse as Afghanistan, where no single ethnicity represents an absolute majority. When one group monopolizes the tools of the state, the cost is social trust. That cost has already shown up in quiet compliance turning into quiet resistance, and quiet resistance has now become open refusal. There are armed movements, mostly based in northern Afghanistan and dominated by Tajiks, resisting the Taliban. By removing 'acting' without expanding representation, the Taliban have told these ethnic groups that the current balance of power will not change.
For the general population of Afghanistan, the deeper meaning is psychological. Since the Taliban's return to power, they carried 'acting' titles with their positions within the regime, which led many inside Afghanistan to quietly form a sense that this order, which has kept them in a very tough situation, may not be permanent. Families told their children to hold on; activists protected a space in their minds where a civic future might still be negotiated.
One might ask why announce such a change now, after four years? As part of that sharpening of communication skills, the Taliban know the importance of symbolism. Last year, they celebrated the third anniversary of their regime by showing off in military parades using weapons the U.S. left at Bagram. This year, the Taliban dropped 'acting,' a bureaucratic tweak that is nevertheless a political statement. It was aimed at those outside Taliban circles who still hope for a negotiated reset, signaling that negotiations will not change the structure of power. That narrows the space for foreign governments to claim that they are engaging to encourage an inclusive government and protect human rights. With this move, the Taliban delivered an answer: the transition has already happened.
Despite doing all this, the Taliban know their move makes no changes in the international dimension. Many governments and institutions still describe them as 'de facto authorities' to avoid the legal and political implications of recognition. The Taliban's internal style change will not change that external label. However, it will test the coherence of foreign policies that rested on the idea of 'engagement.'
If the Taliban say there will be no change in their regime structure and behaviors, then any country that wishes to engage – and believes that engagement will inspire change – needs to rethink their approaches. Engagement should be based on concrete outcomes for the Afghanistan public, especially women and ethnic groups struggling to participate in their own society, not on the hope that 'more meetings' will create inclusion.
Where does this leave Afghanistan? Two scenarios are possible. First, coercive stability: the system hardens, and society adapts to Taliban tyranny under pressure, with the hope of just surviving. This is the Taliban's desired outcome. Second, societal pushback: ethnic groups, democratic forces, women's networks, clerics, and local leaders converge around practical lines of refusal that make ruling costly for a group that forcibly came into power.
Whichever path unfolds, what the world needs to remember is that names on paper do not create legitimacy. Legitimacy is rooted in the consent of the governed; it comes from the people and the Afghan people have had their voices systematically suppressed by those currently in power. The people of Afghanistan need allies who speak plainly and support the women of Afghanistan and the general public without feeding their repression.