Ashraf Ghani: the intellectual president who can now put theory into practice --- Afghanistan’s new leader has transformed himself to win power and now promises to tackle corruption ‘root, stock and branch’ --- To become president of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai changed his wardrobe and modified his name, gave up coffee, embraced a man he once denounced as a “known killer” and even toyed with anger management classes to tame a notorious temper. -- An impressive intellectual who is as comfortable in a village meeting as an international boardroom, he has been a professor and World Bank technocrat, finance minister and top security official, and was once in the running to head the UN. -- He wrote the primer for his new job several years ago, a slim volume called Fixing Failed States, but a reputation as a clean, modernising technocrat won him few votes in 2009, the year he first ran for office. --- Spurred by that defeat into a dramatic transformation, he emerged this year as a ruthless and highly effective politician. Top vote-getter in a fraud-riddled election, he steered through months of fraught negotiations to emerge as president of a unity government formed with his main rival. --- Critics say that that voters who risked their lives to cast ballots have been betrayed by an elite who simply stitched up a deal behind closed doors. Supporters argue that all the sacrifices and concessions will pave the way for vital changes. -- Both claims will be tested from Monday, when Ghani takes power – a rare academic now able to put his theories of government to the test on the grandest of scales. -- “It’s a ticket that is going to win in order to bring out an agenda of transformation,” he told the Guardian during the campaign, when asked about some of his controversial alliances. “Without putting together an electoral ticket that can win, all these ideas remain just that.” - At stake is his country’s future. He will have to beat off a resurgent Taliban and build up a small, frail economy at a time when foreign funding and interest are ebbing fast. -- A fierce critic of the international community, with a sharp tongue, the new president has nevertheless been tentatively welcomed by many of the diplomats who will have to fund his budgets for several years to come as he struggles to right the economy. -- That’s because they see in him a rare hope of shaking up a corrupt, sclerotic government bureaucracy and bringing real change to an entrenched elite. -- He has promised to push through a painful programme of major reforms and commission regular “citizen’s report cards” on government progress, create one million jobs and sign a long-term security deal with the US that will release funds and other support for the police and military. --- Activists are also hopeful that the prominent role his Lebanese-American wife, Rula Ghani, played on the campaign trail is a sign of wider commitment to women’s rights. The outgoing first lady, wife of Hamid Karzai, was an experienced doctor but spent more than a decade in virtual purdah, invisible and unmentioned at home or abroad. -- “During his campaign and even after he was elected, he has said and done all the right things. He has taken the women’s vote seriously,” said Manizha Naderi, activist and director of Women for Afghan Women. -- “As for Rula, she needs to show the nation that women can and should have a public role … I am very optimistic that she will be active.” --- The defeat in 2009 did nothing to damage Ghani’s confidence that he had something unique to offer his country, after years pouring over economic and political theory, studying corruption and governance, reforms and failure, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Newly reminded that in a country where two thirds of the population still live in rural areas, and more than half can’t read, an impressive background in academia and policy-making is not enough to win votes, he began a slow transformation. -- Rivals and analysts underestimated his single-minded determination and prodigious work ethic, and overlooked an unofficial campaign that began years before his name went on the ballot papers for the second time. -- As coordinator of the gradual security handover from Nato to Afghan forces, he travelled around the country, building networks of contacts and support. He began using his tribal name, Ahmadzai, for the first time, and swapped Washington suits for traditional Afghan clothes. -- No detail was too small to fret over. When election strategists brought in to pour over Ghani’s speeches told him to swear off coffee on rally days to strengthen his voice, he gave up one of his very few indulgences immediately. He even told friends he was taking anger management classes to bring his fiery temper under control. - Read More, Emma Graham-Harrison, Guardian, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/26/ashraf-ghani-new-president-tackle-corruption