Do we like them?

Do we like Ashraf Ghani?

Our score: 5 out of 10. A good record on women's rights sits next to a governing style SIGAR criticised and a disputed exit from Kabul, so he lands in the middle.

Ashraf Ghani ran Afghanistan until the Taliban walked back into Kabul in August 2021, and that exit is what most people remember. He later said he left to prevent the destruction of Kabul and that he had only minutes to decide. He also blamed the 2020 US-Taliban deal and its release of 5,000 prisoners for the collapse, per the AP.

The money story is the messiest part. An Afghan ambassador alleged Ghani fled with $169 million, which Ghani called “completely and categorically false”. A US watchdog's interim report said cash did leave the palace but did not exceed $1 million, probably nearer $500,000, and that it lacked evidence for the bigger claims. So the huge number is unproven, but the helicopter and the cash are not a clean story.

The watchdog's wider verdict on his government is harder to shrug off. SIGAR said Ghani governed through a “highly selective, narrow circle of loyalists” and that endemic corruption helped bring the state down. It also said the US never solved the corruption problem, so the blame is shared, but the style of rule was his.

On the harm check, nothing nasty turned up. In office he named four women as cabinet ministers, put women on the High Peace Council, ordered a review of more than 400 women jailed on “moral crimes” charges, and backed a Supreme Court ruling that stopped women being jailed for leaving home without a male relative's permission. After the Taliban returned he called the ban on girls' schooling and women's work a cruel example of gender apartheid. We found nothing either way on LGBTQ+ issues, which is a real gap.

The recent bit: in late May 2026 he broke a months-long silence with a message saying legitimacy is not won through force alone. He said he had been prevented from speaking, but not by whom. Reports of a move to Lebanon are unconfirmed, and any theory about who silenced him is speculation.

The good stuff is real. The 2016 reporting shows him pushing women into senior jobs and the courts, and in his 2022 comments he argued that a girl who becomes literate will change five generations. On the flip side, he apologised for the way the government collapsed, saying he was sorry he could not make it end differently, and an apology is only that.