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QALAT, Afghanistan — The hundreds of men sitting in the mosque were mostly subdued, watching more with interest than passion as Afghan presidential candidate Ashraf Ghani spoke of a corruption-free future.
Afterward, the candidate appeared less intrigued by the reaction than who actually showed up.
“This group was 60 percent Taliban,” Ghani said after the Friday gathering in this town in Zabul province, a center of the Taliban insurgency consuming Afghanistan’s south.
To Ghani, his ability to appear unscathed in Qalat was a sign that his policy-focused platform, with its emphasis on ridding Afghanistan’s government of its endemic corruption, appeals to all segments of society.
The Western-educated 60-year-old, whose resume includes the World Bank and a stint as Afghanistan’s finance minister, is a long-shot for the presidency, running a distant fourth among the three dozen candidates.
Even with guidance from Democratic Party strategist James Carville, polls show him with single-digit support, far behind incumbent Hamid Karzai and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who have more political skills and bigger organizations behind them.
Still, he’s well-known and respected enough that he’s been floated as a potential chief executive for the government, someone who runs the day-to-day affairs under the president. Ghani, a technocrat with a love of policy and respect for detail, won’t rule out such a position but insists he’s focused on winning Thursday’s presidential election.
He believes that he’s at least making an impact on the debate — saying that because of him it is turning toward specifics, such as creating 1 million new jobs or 1 million new homes instead of just abstract promises of more employment and housing.
On his Web site, in speeches and in opinion pieces in newspapers, Ghani has laid out a platform that includes everything from creating model economic zones to starting a women-only university.
He refers to achievements during his tenure as Afghanistan’s finance minister from 2002-2004, such as his promotion of private telecommunications through what he insists was a transparent process, as one of his many qualifications.
More than anything, however, he emphasizes the need to root out corruption in the government sector. It’s the corruption, he says, that has given fertile ground for the Taliban to recruit.
“This government has done nothing but fill the pockets of a few people,” Ghani shouted to a more raucous crowd of about 800 in Bamiyan province during a second campaign stop Friday. “We want to fill the pockets of 30 million Afghans!”
Ghani has even proposed a cease-fire with the Taliban as part of a three- to seven-year peace framework. It’s a proposal he says is realistic under his leadership because “80 percent of the problem is driven by bad governance.”
It will also be the most difficult thing to achieve, he acknowledged.
“The measure of confidence-building that is required for this is going to require immense effort and a leap of faith on both sides,” he said. “I’m not saying, that, you know, I become the president and the next day there’s a cease-fire.”
The slender, bald Ghani is among the many Afghans who left the country during the years of Soviet occupation and civil war — long before it fell into Taliban hands — but came back after the U.S.-led invasion toppled the militant regime in 2001. He spent more than two decades of his life abroad.
He is from the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, the Pashtuns, who also dominate the Taliban’s ranks. If the stop in Bamiyan was any sign, however, he has supporters among other ethnic groups such as Tajiks and Hazaras.
Fluent in several languages, Ghani has earned degrees from the American University in Beirut and Columbia University and has taught at Johns Hopkins University among other institutions.
He spent 11 years working for the World Bank in a variety of capacities including managing large-scale development projects in countries including Russia.
During his time as Afghanistan’s finance minister, he was known for being tough on corruption. He says he left the government because he felt Karzai simply didn’t back his reform strategies, and because the president tolerated too many crooked activities.
He brushes aside criticism that he’s aloof, even abrasive, saying the complaints emerged because he refused to bow down to powerful interests during his time in Afghanistan’s leadership.
His candidacy has attracted attention in the West, and Carville, who helped Bill Clinton win the White House, has signed on as an adviser.
Ghani, who had to give up his U.S. citizenship to run, is careful to paint himself as a nationalist, and one who will be guided by the Islamic framework that dominates life in this ultraconservative country. During his stops Friday, he always carried prayer beads, and at one point prayed on the helicopter ferrying him.
His message appeared to resonate.
“I liked his statements from my heart,” said Abdul Rehman, 30, a shopkeeper in the Kahmard area in Bamiyan. “He wants to serve all the people. In seven years, Karzai did not serve us.”
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