President Ashraf Ghani, a strong-willed economist often portrayed as an expert on bankrupt states, has in just a few years become the image of a failed Afghanistan despite international aid.
After being elected in 2014 with the promise of rebuilding a new country and ending the corruption that corroded it, Ghani has not fulfilled either of these two promises and this Sunday he left the country, while the Taliban remained entrenched in the outskirts of the capital after a blazing offensive in which they took control of the country.
After leaving, Ghani explained that he feared that “countless patriots would have been martyred and Kabul destroyed” if he stayed.
“The Taliban won […] they are now responsible for the honor, possession and self-preservation of their country, “Ghani said in a message on Facebook.
He did not say where he left, but the Afghan press group Tolo News indicated that he may have gone to Tajikistan.
Ghani, 72, studied at Columbia University in New York before becoming a professor of Political Science and Anthropology in the 1980s, when Afghanistan was under Russian occupation. In 1991, he joined the World Bank.
His return to Afghanistan came just after the fall of the Taliban, following the US invasion in 2001.
In his native country he was the first special adviser to the United Nations before becoming one of the architects of the provisional government.
Between 2002 and 2004, he was President Hamid Karzai’s finance minister, installed a new currency, reformed the tax system, encouraged the diaspora to return, and built relationships with international creditors who financed the government.
He also campaigned against the corruption that was already gangregating the new institutions and acquired a reputation as an inflexible man, often with a very severe character, which persecutes him to this day.
– Secluded in the palace –
He has never let anyone “get too close,” according to Pakistani essayist Ahmed Rashid, who has known him for more than 30 years.
“His fits of anger and arrogance towards his fellow Afghans have made him a hated character,” he adds.
After losing resoundingly in the presidential elections of 2009, when he was fourth, with only 2.94% of the votes, Ghani returns to campaign in 2014 and chooses a very controversial way. On their list is Abdul Rashid Dostom, a great warlord accused of massacring hundreds of Taliban prisoners in 2001.
In the first round he obtained 31.6% of the votes, behind the 45% achieved by his rival Abdullah Abdullah, but he triumphed in the second, obtaining 55% of the votes in votes clouded by irregularities.
His accession to power is made possible thanks to an agreement with his rival, Abdullah, who becomes head of a government of national unity sponsored by the United States.
Before launching into the presidency, Ghani supervised the transfer of powers from the NATO coalition troops to the Afghans.
Its relations with the United States, which appeared to be good, were poisoned when Washington decided to negotiate directly with the Taliban in Doha.
His ally sidelined him in these talks as the Taliban asked for it and Washington later forced him to release 5,000 insurgents, a condition stipulated in negotiations that have ultimately failed.
All peace offers, except for a brief truce in June 2018, were rejected by the insurgents, who called the Ghani government a “puppet” of the United States.
Ghani urged fighting the Taliban “for generations” if negotiations fail in this 40-year-old country.
The president is married to Rula, whom he met while studying at the American University of Beirut, and they have two children.
Recently, he overcame stomach cancer that forces him to follow a severe regimen to the letter.
“I do not foresee leading an isolated life,” he had told AFP before becoming president. But finally he did, becoming more and more isolated in his palace and only relying on a handful of collaborators.
bur-jf / bl / mb / dg