How to fail a government shamelessly! Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai’s recipe
History is full of governments that were run successfully with the people really content and satisfied of their status in the society. On the other hand, there are countless examples of failed governments with unqualified leaders.
Afghanistan is one of the most famous countries with different governments with success and failure. But if you want to know how a government can collapse shamelessly without caring about its people, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai is the one you should go to!
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, the polarizing president
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, an ethnic Pashtun from the eastern province of Logar who was a finance minister before, rose to power in 2014 when he won a presidential election marred by widespread allegations of fraud and vote rigging.
Ghani who is also described as a classic Afghan populist, is also accused of ethnic favoritism.
Torek Farhadi, a former government adviser who worked with Ghani, described the president as an “insecure” leader who was unwilling to compromise or cede power.
Ashraf Ghani won the 2019 presidential election which was turnout later as a fraud. Foreign powers and domestic power brokers had pleaded for him to postpone the vote in favor of peace talks with the Taliban. But he refused.
In 2018, the United States had opened direct negotiations with the Taliban in Qatar without the presence of the Afghan government. Eighteen months later, the two sides signed a bilateral deal that paved the way for foreign troops to withdraw from Afghanistan.
Something that was in favor of western powers and the Taliban, but who cared for Afghan people?
Ashraf Ghani stole the peace from Afghanistan people?
The first major factor for the fall of the republic in Afghanistan was the administrative corruption.
Although the United States spent about $145 billion to rebuild Afghanistan, it could not find a proper and well-considered solution to fight corruption in this country.
On the other hand, the same amount of struggle and effort to reduce or stop corruption was not effective, because the main condition for fighting corruption was the cooperation of elites and heads of departments in Afghanistan.
But the point was that most of the heads of political elites of this country, were the main factors in the spread of corruption.
It cannot be denied that when the is visible corruption in a government, the first person in charge is responsible for that. Who was this person in Afghanistan? Definitely Ashraf Ghani!
Who shares this disaster with Ashraf Ghani
Although Ghani deserves to be blamed, but we should not put all the blame on him. His weaknesses caused any action by others.
Another important factor in the downfall of the republic was keeping Afghanistan away from the peace talks between the United States and the Taliban.
The American government had started negotiations with the Taliban since 2015, but the Afghan government was only informed of the results of these negotiations.
The Afghan government could not even resist the US-Taliban agreement to release five thousand prisoners of this group and was forced to release them.
It is even said that the Doha peace agreement, in addition to the revealed cases, also had hidden clauses that no one was aware of.
Ashraf Ghani was strongly critical of the exclusion of the Afghan government from the peace talks and repeatedly considered the decision of the U.S to be the reason for the weakening of his government.
But this is to President Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai: You were in charge of the government. You are to blame for not being decisive and powerful enough to make your government part of a very crucial agreement.
The day Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai ran away
On August 15, 2021, amid the chaos on the streets and the airport in Kabul, key government and political leaders were locked in tense negotiations with the Taliban over a peaceful transfer of power.
But President Ashraf Ghani was nowhere to be seen. His ministers were frantically trying to contact him but could not reach his office.
Hours earlier, the embattled Afghan leader had secretly slipped out of the sprawling presidential palace in central Kabul and boarded a plane to an unknown country and away from the turmoil in his country.
Ghani, who had pledged just days earlier that he would not leave the country, had unceremoniously fled on August 15 during the country’s hour of need.
Some analysts say if Ashraf Ghani had stayed, something worse could have happened. Who knows! He might have been killed or a blood shed of civilians could have happened!
But it cannot be denied that this is the president who must devise a practical plan to dispel conspiracies. Ashraf Ghani was powerful in theorizing but ineffective in practice and unable in crisis management.
Blame others when you are not qualified
Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai gave explanations about the last day of the fall of Kabul. Hours after his escape, Ghani wrote on Facebook that he left the country to prevent a “flood of bloodshed.”
Some reports said he flew first to Tajikistan or Uzbekistan-though both countries denied it-before leaving for an unknown third country. It is said that now he is base in Dubai.
In an interview with PBS, he stated that he was committed to the defense of the Afghan people and said: “Following the collapse of the army, I was not in a position that sacrificing the president could preserve the system, so I left Afghanistan!”
Ghani continued: In the last minutes of being in the Kabul Palace, the National Security Adviser informed me that the Taliban had reached the Palace and there was not much time to make a decision, so the decision was made to leave.
Final words
Monopolizing power in Afghanistan never allowed the country to win against corruption. People distanced themselves from the government due to the spreading corruption and there came a time when everyone was satisfied with the fall of the republican government.
Ashraf Ghani, the U.S or everyone else who was responsible for the current situation, put Afghan civilians in trouble.
Ashraf Ghani believes that the root of the corruption goes back to the George Bush administration’s relationship with Afghanistan’s warlords, when the then US administration signed contracts with these people and arms sales companies, but whatever, this is Afghanistan’s situation now.
Look what you did to our country …
Mohsen Shahrafiee, Political analyst
