Ashraf Ghani, who left Afghanistan on Sunday following the Taliban’s fast advance by the nation and into Kabul, was twice elected Afghan president, in addition to being one of many nation’s best-known lecturers.
President Ghani left the nation hours after the Taliban entered the capital, authorities officers mentioned. It was not but clear the place he was headed, or how energy can be transferred.
First elected president in 2014, Ghani took over from Hamid Karzai, who led Afghanistan after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, and oversaw the conclusion of the U.S. fight mission, the near-complete withdrawal of overseas forces from the nation, in addition to a fractious peace course of with the rebel Taliban.
He made the trouble to finish a long time of warfare his high precedence, regardless of persevering with assaults on his authorities and safety forces by the Taliban, and started peace talks with the insurgents within the Qatari capital of Doha in 2020.
However, Ghani, recognized for his fast mood alongside his deep pondering, was by no means accepted by the Taliban and peace talks made little headway.
Foreign governments have been pissed off by the sluggish progress of talks, and calls grew for an interim authorities to interchange his administration.
During his presidency, he managed to nominate a brand new technology of younger, educated Afghans into management positions at a time the nation’s energy corridors have been occupied by a handful of elite figures and patronage networks.
He promised to combat rampant corruption, repair a crippled financial system and remodel the nation right into a regional commerce hub between Central and South Asia – however was unable to ship on most of those guarantees.
Long Road
A U.S.-trained anthropologist, Ghani holds a doctorate from New York City’s Columbia University and was named one of many “World’s Top 100 Global Thinkers” by Foreign Policy journal in 2010.
His street to the presidency was hard-fought.
He spent nearly 1 / 4 of century outdoors Afghanistan throughout the tumultuous a long time of Soviet rule, civil warfare and the Taliban years in energy.
During that interval, he labored as an educational within the United States and later with the World Bank and the United Nations throughout East and South Asia.
Within months of the occasions of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, he resigned from his worldwide posts and returned to Kabul to develop into a senior advisor to newly-appointed President Karzai.
He served as Afghan finance minister in 2002, however fell out with Karzai, and, in 2004, was appointed chancellor of Kabul University, the place he was seen as an efficient reformer in addition to forming a Washington-based thinktank that labored on insurance policies to empower among the world’s most impoverished folks.
In 2009, Ghani, who belongs to Afghanistan’s majority Pashtun ethnicity like Karzai, ran for president however got here in fourth, securing about 4% of the nationwide vote.
He continued to work in necessary roles in Afghanistan, together with as Afghanistan’s “transition czar”, chairing a physique overseeing safety transition from NATO to Afghans.
With Karzai barred by the Afghan structure from standing for a 3rd time, Ghani mounted a profitable second marketing campaign in 2014. He was re-elected in 2019.
His relationship with Washington and different Western capitals was uneasy.
He was a vocal critic of what he termed wasted worldwide assist in Afghanistan and infrequently didn’t see eye to eye with the West’s Afghan technique, significantly as they seemed to fast-track a sluggish and painful peace course of with the Taliban.
In an interview with the BBC, Ghani mentioned: “the future will be determined by the people of Afghanistan, not by somebody sitting behind the desk, dreaming”.
