[Tolo News] Dr. Ashraf Ghani...former chancellor of Kabul University. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002, Ahmadzai was a scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery until the Karzais stole all the money. ..
Ahmadzai, a Presidential candidate and former Minister of Finance, spoke to TOLOnews in an exclusive interview and identified some of things he thinks are most important for good governance in Afghanistan and how they would inform his service if elected President.
Two of the things Dr. Ghani stressed most in the interview were equality under rule of law and the separation of powers with checks-and-balances between the three branches of the Afghan government.
Until he takes power...
"The legislative power, the executive and the judiciary should have their own responsibilities and the President should exemplify the rule of law," said Dr. Ghani. "The best day of my life as president would be the day when the Supreme Court tells me 'one of your commands is illegal' and I would immediately obey the law."
Under the trilateral form of government in Afghanistan, where authority is divided between the three branches, overstretch and abuse of Presidential power has been a hot-topic under the administration of President Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
Back during the Presidential election in 2009, Dr. Ghani accused Karzai of having public officials in provinces around the country campaign for him.
More recently, members of the National Assembly called Karzai's decision to hold a Loya Jirga to decide the fate of the Kabul-Washington Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) unconstitutional.
In response to recent talk about potentially altering the structure of the Afghan government to make power more dispersed amongst the provinces instead of centralized in Kabul, Dr. Ghani said now was not the time to focus on that, but ultimately it would be the decision of the Afghan people.
"I am not interested in a federal system at this stage, and this decision is up to the Afghan people," said Dr. Ghani. "The Loya Jirga is mentioned in the Constitution, and it should be held to differentiate the forms and advantages of the political system."