Hamid Karzai

Hamid Karzai (born December 24, 1957, Kandahār, Afghanistan) is an Afghan politician who was the first elected president of Afghanistan (2004–14).

Karzai was the son of the chief of the Popalzai Pashtuns, and both his father and grandfather served in the government of Mohammad Zahir Shah. Under the Soviet-imposed regime in the 1980s, the Karzai family left Afghanistan and settled in Pakistan. Karzai attended Himachal Pradesh University in India, earning a master’s degree (1982) in political science.

Early political career

During the Afghan War (1978–92) he worked with the mujahideen, who sought to overthrow the Soviet-backed government, and often traveled to the United States to seek support for the cause. When the communist government of Najibullah fell in April 1992, the mujahideen established a coalition government, with Karzai serving as deputy foreign minister. In 1994 he resigned, however, tired of the infighting within the government. The growing strife escalated until the mujahideen turned on one another, and in the ensuing turmoil the Taliban, an ultraconservative political and religious faction, came to power.

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Although initially supportive of the Taliban and the order that it introduced to the country, Karzai came to oppose the regime and again went into exile in Pakistan. In July 1999 his father was assassinated, an act that he blamed on the Taliban, and leadership of the Popalzai passed to Karzai. Shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001, the United States led a military campaign to topple the Taliban and to capture terrorists that were based in the country (see Afghanistan War [2001–14]). Karzai returned to Afghanistan to rally support for the U.S.-led mission, and by mid-November the Taliban regime had collapsed. To avert a destructive power struggle, representatives from various Afghan groups, aided by the international community, named Karzai chair of an interim administration; he was sworn into office in late December 2001. In June 2002 a Loya Jirga, a traditional Afghan assembly, chose Karzai as president of a transitional government.

Karzai faced numerous challenges, including controlling the country’s powerful traditional leaders and preventing the Taliban from recovering power. He also sought to rebuild the war-torn country. Violence continued to plague Afghanistan, and Karzai was the target of several assassination attempts. In January 2004 a new constitution was approved that called for a directly elected president. Later that year Karzai won the presidential election and was sworn into office.

Presidency

As Karzai entered office, he enjoyed strong support from Western allies, but he faced enormous challenges. Continued violence and instability and an inability to effectively build up Afghan institutions and provide basic services took its toll on his popularity at home and abroad, as did allegations of government corruption. The country was also plagued by an increase in drug trafficking—the country’s opium poppy harvest reached record levels in 2007—as well as by the resurgence of the Taliban, which mounted attacks with increasing frequency. As a result, pointed criticism, even from the United States, began to emerge.

Karzai’s term as president was due to expire in May 2009, and at that time he was constitutionally obligated to step down. Because of logistical and security reasons, however, the approaching presidential election—in which Karzai would be a candidate—was postponed from May to August of that year. Karzai asserted that, for reasons of security, he should remain in office until the election took place. Critics were concerned that maintaining his position would give Karzai an undue electoral advantage, and they urged him to step down as mandated by the constitution and turn power over to an interim government. In March 2009 the Supreme Court ruled that Karzai could legally retain his position until the election in August. Discontent with Karzai’s leadership produced a number of presidential hopefuls, though Karzai was deftly able to neutralize or secure the backing of most of those who might have challenged him.

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The presidential election was held on August 20, 2009, and was followed by weeks of political turmoil. In September a preliminary count awarded Karzai almost 55 percent of the vote, thus indicating that he had won an outright victory over his closest challenger, former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah. With more than 2,000 complaints of fraud and intimidation, however, the United Nations-backed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) ordered an audit of suspect polling stations and began an investigation into fraud allegations. In mid-October the ECC ruled that the fraudulent activity was pervasive enough to invalidate votes from more than 200 polling stations, which included almost one-third of Karzai’s votes. As a result, Karzai’s proportion of the vote slipped to 49.7 percent, low enough to warrant a second round of elections. Although Karzai initially resisted the call for a runoff, on October 20 he conceded to a second round of polling between himself and Abdullah, which was scheduled for November 7. Shortly thereafter, however, Abdullah withdrew from the race, a decision he cited as being in the country’s best interest. The runoff election was canceled, and Karzai was inaugurated as president for a second term.

Amid a U.S. troop surge in 2010 that saw the number of foreign troops swell to nearly 150,000, Karzai took to criticizing the United States in increasingly bitter terms, accusing U.S. troops in Afghanistan of causing unnecessary Afghan civilian casualties during their operations and U.S. diplomats of failing to pressure Pakistan to stop the flow of Taliban militants into Afghanistan. The deterioration in his relations with the U.S. culminated in a standoff in 2013–14 during which Karzai refused to sign an agreement authorizing U.S. troops to remain in the country beyond their scheduled withdrawal at the end of 2014, despite significant support for the agreement in Afghanistan. The agreement was signed by Karzai’s successor, Ashraf Ghani, just days after he took office in September 2014.

Post-presidency

In the years following his presidency, Karzai remained critical of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and of the Afghan central government for its cooperation with U.S. forces. Meanwhile, he supported the pursuit of a peaceful arrangement to end conflict with the Taliban, albeit from outside the government as a private citizen. When the withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2021 enabled the Taliban to retake control of the country, Ghani fled the country, and Karzai (along with Abdullah, who had served as the central government’s chief negotiator under Ghani) took a leading role in negotiations with the Taliban on the future of Afghanistan.