Afghanistan: Ashraf Ghani Races to Make His Mark on Presidency in Afghanistan --- KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s new president, Ashraf Ghani, is a man in a hurry to break from his predecessor’s governing style. Best not make him late. -- He drove the point home this month when he started a meeting without the prominent and widely respected interior minister, Umar Daudzai. Mr. Daudzai showed up a few minutes later and was promptly barred from entry, according to three officials who were familiar with the incident. (Through a spokesman, Mr. Daudzai denied the account.) -- Mr. Ghani will also be running a leaner palace. The lavish dinners that were a hallmark of President Hamid Karzai’s meetings — and are a cherished tradition among many Afghan officials, for that matter — have been slashed. Mr. Ghani wants to impart the message that palace meetings are for business, not pleasure. -- Just a few weeks into his tenure, Mr. Ghani has already delivered on some big issues, including signing a long-term troop deal with the United States. But he is also signaling the direction of his presidency with a host of smaller stylistic changes, most of them unpublicized but detailed in interviews with Afghan and American officials. --- In a country known for perilous divisions, building broad coalitions is often a precondition for progress. Mr. Ghani’s predecessor, Mr. Karzai, was a master at using a courtly style to keep rivals working together, keenly aware that in Afghanistan, guests expect to be fed and tradition trumps expedience. He made time for the politics. -- Mr. Ghani, on the other hand, is all about efficiency and building institutions. And his desire to move fast is coupled with a quick temper. There is a concern among some here that his temperament, Western style and didactic approach, sharpened in a career at the World Bank and in academia, could rub the Afghan official class the wrong way. -- Consider this: Forgoing the huge convoys favored by Mr. Karzai, Mr. Ghani takes only a few cars when he travels in Kabul. That will probably be a public-relations success with residents, as Mr. Karzai’s convoys snarled traffic for hours. -- It also allows Mr. Ghani to make surprise inspections, as he did when he dropped by a police station on a recent day to check attendance, or on another stop when he chastised a group of police officers goofing off at their checkpoint. -- Similarly, after visiting the Kabul military hospital to meet wounded soldiers, Mr. Ghani was told there were doctors on duty around the clock. When he went back later that night to check and found no one around, people were promptly fired. -- The political class of Kabul favors car analogies when describing Mr. Ghani’s style. Just about everyone agrees that he is pushing the pedal to the floor, but no one is sure what is around the bend. -- “This guy is speeding ahead on a very bumpy road,” said a senior Afghan ministry official, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of angering the president. “Only the car is not ready for that speed, especially when you don’t have anyone sitting next to you to tell you to be careful.” -- “Right now, he is focusing 95 percent of his time on institutions and 5 percent of his time on politics,” said a former Afghan official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid appearing to criticize the president. “There needs to be more of a balance.” -- Mr. Ghani’s supporters say that such fears are misguided and that his efforts to signal a change in approach on women’s rights, for instance, exemplified by his wife’s higher-profile role in public life, are meant to be an example of forward-thinking leadership. -- “He is very cognizant of past failures in Afghanistan — of presidents, kings and other leaders,” said Daoud Sultanzoy, an adviser to Mr. Ghani. “He will not do anything that the public is not ready for, but he will also lead and will not allow dark forces to derail progress in this country.” -- Read More, NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/22/world/asia/afghanistan-ashraf-ghani.html?