08/15/2021 5:11 PM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 08/15/2021 5:40 PM
President Ashraf Ghani
, a strong-willed economist often portrayed as an expert on failing states, has in just a few years become the image of a failed Afghanistan despite international aid.
Ghani admitted that
"the Taliban won"
after insurgents entered the capital, Kabul, at the end of a blazing offensive.
Ghani, who did not specify where he went, acknowledged that "the Taliban won" in a message on Facebook.
"
Now they are responsible for the honor
, possession and self-preservation of their country."
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 - said his former vice president Abdullah Abdullahi - while the Taliban seized the capital after a flamboyant offensive in which they took control of the country.
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.
AFP
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 Karzaï'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 that haunts him to this day.
Bad character
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 who is accused of having massacred 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.
Look also
Crisis in Afghanistan: insurgent groups entered the country's capital
Before launching into the presidency,
Ghani supervised
the transfer of powers from the NATO coalition troops to the Afghans.
With the USA
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.
A Taliban patrol in Mazar-e-Sharif.
Photo EFE
All peace offers, except for a brief truce in June 2018,
were rejected
by the insurgents, who call the Ghani government a "puppet" of the United States.
Ghani
urged fighting the Taliban "for generations" if
negotiations fail in this country that has been at war for 40 years.
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 eventually he did and he became more and more isolated in his palace and trusted only a handful of collaborators.
Source: AFP
PB
Look also
The Taliban triumph in Afghanistan: the absence of a plan and years of miscalculations by the United States
Who are the Taliban and why they already control all of Afghanistan