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President Hamid Karzai

President Hamid Karzai

Hamid KarzaiH.E. Hamid Karzai (Persian and Pashto: Hamid Karzai) (b. December 24, 1957) is the current President of Afghanistan, since December 7, 2004. He became the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime. From December 2001, Hamid Karzai had been the Chairman of the Transitional Administration and then the Interim President from 2002 until he won the first democratic 2004 Presidential election.

Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun of the Popalzai clan of the Durrani tribe, was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He comes from a family that were supporters of the former King of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah. He has six brothers and one sister.

When the Taliban emerged in the 1990s, Karzai was initially among their supporters. However, as with many other early Taliban supporters, he broke with the Taliban, citing distrust of their links to Pakistan. After the Taliban drove Rabbani out of Kabul in 1996, Karzai refused to serve as their U.N. ambassador. Karzai lived in exile in Quetta, Pakistan where he worked to reinstate Zahir Shah. His father was assassinated, presumably by Taliban agents, on July 14, 1999, and Karzai swore revenge against the Taliban by working to help overthrow them. In December 2001, political leaders gathered in Bonn, Germany, to agree on new leadership structures. Under the December 5 Bonn Agreement they formed an interim Transitional Administration and named Karzai Chairman of a 29-member governing committee. He was sworn-in as leader on December 22. The Loya Jirga of June 19, 2002 appointed Karzai Interim holder of the new position as President of the Afghan Transitional Administration. Karzai was a candidate in the October 9, 2004 presidential elections. He won 21 of the 34 provinces, defeating his 22 opponents and became the first democratically elected leader of Afghanistan. Karzai was officially sworn in as President of Afghanistan on December 7, 2004 at a formal ceremony in Kabul.

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