Ashraf Ghani Declares: ‘I Am Still President of Afghanistan’

Deposed Afghan President Mohammed Ashraf Ghani insisted in his first television interview since fleeing the country this week that he remains its legitimate head of state.

“I am the president according to the constitution and until the people of Afghanistan legally elect someone else, I am the president,” Ghani said in an interview with the recently-established Afghan Broadcasting Network (ABN).

Ghani claimed he fled Afghanistan during the Taliban invasion of Kabul on August 15, 2021, because he was afraid he would be killed like Mohammad Najibullah, the last communist president of Afghanistan, who was murdered when the first Taliban regime took Kabul in September 1996. According to Najibullah’s daughter, the Taliban dragged him out of a U.N. compound in Kabul, tortured and mutilated him, and hung his defiled corpse from a traffic pole.

“I was the last person to leave the country, and this was also so that the bitter experience of Dr. Najib regarding an Afghan president would not be repeated,” Ghani said.

Much of Ghani’s interview with ABN was devoted to spreading blame for the fall of Kabul. He accused the U.S. and its “corrupt, incompetent” envoy Zalmay Khalilzad of undermining his government by negotiating with the Taliban, and he accused former Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation Abdullah Abdullah of failing to construct a government that could weather the Taliban assault.

“Dr. Abdullah is responsible for not consolidating the republic, especially in the last seven years and secondly, he was in charge of the Afghanistan Peace Council, which step did he take on paper, which plan did he come up with, or in practice, when he went to Doha on a special plane and then came back on the day of Eid and said that the Taliban is not ready to make any kind of move,” Ghani said.

Ghani fled to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after the Taliban takeover. The Taliban claims Ghani’s UAE hosts have forbidden him from playing any further role in Afghan politics. Abdullah is still in Afghanistan with the Taliban’s permission. He is rumored to be living under some form of supervision or house arrest, although the Taliban allowed him to leave the country to visit with family for the Islamic Eid al-Fitr holiday in May.

Although his interview with ABN was his first televised appearance since the fall of Kabul, Ghani has granted some radio and print interviews, during which he generally held himself blameless for the Taliban takeover and claimed he had to flee Kabul to save his life.

Ghani has some very stern critics in Afghanistan and around the world. Khalilzad blamed Ghani’s sudden departure in August 2021 for disrupting agreements with the Taliban, who expected Ghani to remain in Kabul and manage the transition of power. Many Afghans denounced him as a traitor and coward for fleeing into comfortable exile.  They were further angered by reports that he fled with a large amount of cash. The exact amount is a matter of dispute, but early reports by Russian media named an improbably large sum.

Naseer Ahmad Faiq, Afghanistan’s (non-Taliban) representative to the United Nations, lashed out at Ghani after his ABN interview, snapping that he should be apologizing for his actions instead of spreading blame.

“Ashraf Ghani should have apologized to all Afghan people, especially women, youth, security and defense forces, and the families of the martyrs, but he did not do this. He tried not to blame himself and still emphasized demagogic slogans and words that he neither believed in nor acted on during his rule,” Faiq said on Twitter.