After a long, bitter, and very messy dispute about election fraud, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai has been sworn in as President of Afghanistan.
Ghani is a reform-and-development-minded technocrat who had spent 23 years in the west. In 1978, at the time of the purges of the Saur Revolution, where intellectuals were among the targets, Ghani had stayed in the U.S.
He left Afghanistan in 1977, intending to be away for two years. When pro-Soviet forces came to power, most of the male members of his family were imprisoned and he was stranded in the US.
He stayed at Columbia University and won his Ph.D. there, with a doctoral thesis (Production and domination: Afghanistan, 1747-1901) and was immediately invited to teach at University of California, Berkeley (1983) and then at Johns Hopkins University (1983-1991).
Biography of Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai
He returned to Afghanistan following the 2001 American invasion of the country, and the defeat of the Taliban.
The major question of Ghani's presidency will be whether he can succeed with a reform agenda, given the severely entrenched obstacles to success.
In a power-sharing arrangement negotiated by the United States, Abdullah Abdullah has been named to the newly-created position of Chief Executive Officer.
Abdullah is a long-time spokesman for Jamiat-i Islami, the old Islamist anti-Soviet mujahideen party, and fairly explicitly represented the interests of the mujahideen in his campaign.
Many Afghans consider the old mujahideen commanders to be a divisive, negative, and corrupting force in Afghan politics, who deserve more to be in jail than currently leading the country.
In interviews, most Afghans say that political parties are not active in electoral politics, as current parties represent groups whose historic purpose was to defeat the Soviets and subsequently the Taliban. Afghans note that the activity of these parties, which are mostly regionally and ethnically based, has actually decreased in the past decade. Along these lines, 60% of those surveyed say that politicians who were once commanders in the war should be forbidden from holding office.
Survey on Political Institutions, Elections, and Democracy in Afghanistan, Democracy International
The old mujahideen commanders, by contrast, consider the old mujahideen commanders to be the proper leaders of Afghanistan, for having defeated the Soviet Union.
The power disputes in the power sharing arrangement, between the reform President and the entrenched strongman interests, may prove considerable and highly unstable.
One hurdle is the weak condition of the Afghan state that Ghani inherits from outgoing President Hamid Karzai. By ruling through personal alliances at the cost of state institutions, Karzai stayed in power -- and alive -- for 13 years. But he also boosted power brokers in the provinces who will fight Ghani if he threatens their economic and political interests. And there is a good chance the new president will. "The political class and other parts of society must accept to regard institution-building as the only guarantee for saving us from individualistic thinking and conduct in the running of the state," Ghani wrote in his campaign manifesto.
Ashraf Ghani's Struggle, Foreign Policy
Some of Ashraf Ghani's strongman backers such as
Juma Khan Hamdard, governor of Paktia province, are for Ghani more as a representative of Pashtun nationalism, than for his policies of reform.
A significant political dispute in the power sharing arrangement will about addressing security problems through reconciliation or warfighting approaches, with the Abdullah side having much harsher attitudes.
In his inaugural speech, Ghani said his priority is to bring peace to the country.
"We ask opponents of the government, especially the Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami, to enter political talks," Ghani said after being sworn in. "Any problems that they have, they should tell us. We will find a solution."
Ghani Inaugurated As New Afghan President, Radio Free Europe
Ashraf Ghani's wife Rula will have a public profile. By contrast, Hamid Kazai's wife Zeenat Quraishi, a doctor, has hardly been seen during the Karzai presidency.
Seeking to strike a note of social change, Mr. Ghani announced that his wife, Rula, whom he met while both were students at the American University of Beirut, would have a public role as well — another rarity in a country where women are frequently sequestered.
“My wife worked a lot on behalf of refugees and will continue working for them,” Mr. Ghani said. “Women and youth will have a wide participation in my government.”
Ashraf Ghani Sworn In as Afghan President, New York Times
This will bring conservative opposition. And, likely, historical references to the reformist
Amanullah Khan and his wife
Soraya Tarzi, daughter of Afghan intellectual
Mahmud Tarzi.
Afghanistan’s new president Ashraf Ghani faces a huge task – crushing an insurgency, quashing runaway official corruption and bettering the lot of his desperately poor population.
That's not to mention convincing the population to accept his wife, Rula Ghani, who is reportedly a Lebanese-American Christian - not a trivial task in this deeply traditional country where first ladies and queens are potent and sometimes controversial symbols.
Will Afghan Leader Ashraf Ghani Bow to Pressure to Hide His Wife?, NBC
Ashraf Ghani's brother Hashmat had also filed to run for the presidency, but been disqualified for dual citizenship.
In person, Hashmat Ghani Ahmadzai is intimidating yet warm; gruff words and booming laughter can be heard echoing off the walls of his sprawling west Kabul property.
Amid the multi-coloured Pakistani-style "poppy palaces" that have come to dot the Afghan capital, Ghani's 23,000 square foot home stands out not only for its mix of traditional Afghan and California-style architecture, but also for its open door policy.
As Grand Council Chieftain of the Kuchis, his current post is not a political one. But as the leader of two million nomadic people he has faced complex issues of land rights, ethnicity and tradition that he believes have prepared him for the highest political office in the land.
Hashmat Ghani: Quiet storm of the Afghan vote, Al Jazeera
Hashmat Ghani might not get much scrutiny from the media. To the extent that he does, it might bring up historical references to Hamid Karzai, and his complex relations with his brothers.
As an international development guru, Ashraf Ghani literally wrote a manual on fixing failed states. As the Afghan president sworn in on Monday, he will have to try turning that theory into practice.
Mr. Ghani, a former U.S. citizen and onetime World Bank official, took office in the country's first democratic transfer of power. At a ceremony in the heavily guarded presidential palace in Kabul—with foreign ambassadors, visiting dignitaries and Afghanistan's most prominent politicians in attendance—Mr. Ghani pledged to stamp out corruption and called for peace with the Taliban insurgents.
He inherits from the 13-year reign of former President Hamid Karzai a weak state apparatus with empty coffers and a robust Taliban insurgency that managed to strike in the heart of Kabul on Inauguration Day.
But perhaps his biggest challenge will be keeping together his fragile coalition, the product of a U.S.-brokered power-sharing deal with the election's runner-up, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah.
Ghani Sworn In as Afghan President, Wall Street Journal
In his long first speech after being sworn in as the new Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani promised reform, development, an end to poverty, measures against corruption, and a clean-up of the judiciary.
But he knows that he can do nothing without security. In a year when the Taliban are conducting their biggest offensives since they fell from power in 2001, he said Afghan people were tired of war and wanted peace.
Ashraf Ghani sworn in as new Afghan president, BBC
In his inaugural speech, Ghani appealed to the Taliban and other militants to join peace talks and put an end to more than a decade of violence. Thousands of Afghans are killed each year in the insurgency.
"Security is a main demand of our people, and we are tired of this war," Ghani said. "I am calling on the Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami to prepare for political negotiations."
Hezb-i-Islami is an Islamist faction loosely allied with the Taliban.
Ghani also vowed to crack down on rampant corruption and called for cooperation within the coalition government.
"A national unity government is not about sharing power, but about working together," Ghani said in his speech that lasted for nearly an hour.
Afghanistan swears in new leader amid dispute, violence, Reuters
Although the book that Mr. Ghani wrote with Ms. Lockhart, “Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World,” opens with a general look at countries in crisis, it could also be taken as a succinct and specific summary of some of the problems facing Mr. Ghani’s new government.
“Within these countries, vicious networks of criminality, violence and drugs feed on disenfranchised populations and uncontrolled territory,” he wrote, describing how the people of countries from Latin America to Africa and Central Asia are “locked into lives of misery, without a stake in their countries or any certainty about or control over their lives.”
Many Afghans would identify with the book’s thrust. Their country is ravaged by violence, sick with corruption, and seething with frustration. The government is struggling against a Taliban insurgency that has turned much of the country into a government no-go-zone.
Ashraf Ghani Sworn In as Afghan President, New York Times