Abdullah Abdullah
Abdullah Abdullah is an Afghan politician who led the High Council for National Reconciliation from May 2020 until August 2021, when the Afghan government was overthrown by the Taliban. The council had been established to facilitate peace talks between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Taliban insurgents. Abdullah served as the Chief Executive of Afghanistan from September 2014 to March 2020, and as Minister of Foreign Affairs from December 2001 to April 2005. Prior to that, he was a senior member of the Northern Alliance, working as an adviser to Ahmad Shah Massoud. He worked as an ophthalmologist and medical doctor in the 1980s.
Abdullah ran against President Hamid Karzai in the 2009 Afghan presidential election, coming second with 30.5% of the total votes. In 2010, he created the Coalition for Change and Hope which became the National Coalition of Afghanistan in 2011 and is one of the leading democratic opposition movements in Afghanistan. He ran again in the 2014 presidential election and went to the second round with 45% the total vote. His closest rival, Ashraf Ghani, had secured 35% of the total vote. Due to signs of fraud, the results of the second round were heavily contested and led to a deadlock. Despite the controversy regarding the results of the second round of elections, the final certified result by the Independent election commission of Afghanistan shows that Ashraf Ghani received 55.3% of the votes while Abdullah Abdullah secured 44.7% of the vote. After months of talks and US mediation, the two candidates established a national unity government in which Abdullah served as the Chief Executive of Afghanistan.
Following the collapse of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on 17 August 2021, leader of the Taliban-affiliated Hezb-e-Islami party Gulbuddin Hekmatyar met with Abdullah and Karzai in Doha, seeking to form a government. Reports emerged on 25 August that a 12-member council will be formed to govern the de facto newly reinstated Afghanistan. Reportedly 7 members were already agreed upon: Abdullah himself, Karzai, Hekmatyar, Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Yaqoob, Khalil-ur-Rehman Haqqani, and Haneef Atmar. However, it was later announced that Abdullah Abdullah and Karzai had failed to secure roles in the new government.
Early life
Abdullah was born in the second district of Kārte Parwān in Kabul, Afghanistan. He is the son of a Pashtun father, Ghulam Mahyyoddin Zmaryalay, from the Kandahar area, and a Tajik mother from Panjshir. His early years were split between living in Panjshir Province, Kandahar and Kabul, where his father was serving as an administrator in the land survey, and subsequently the audit section of the Prime Minister's office. His father was a senator during the final years of King Zahir Shah's rule. Abdullah has seven sisters and two brothers. His nephew was journalist Muhammad Fahim Dashti, who served as the spokesman for the National Resistance Front during the Republican insurgency in Afghanistan.Until he became a government minister, Abdullah had only a first name; demands from Western newspaper editors for a family name led him to adopt the full name "Abdullah Abdullah". Abdullah is married, and has three daughters and a son.
Education and medical career
Abdullah graduated from Naderia High School in 1976. He studied ophthalmology at Kabul University's Department of Medicine, where he received an MBBS in 1983. After graduating, he worked for several months as a resident ophthalmologist at the National Organisation for Ophthalmic Rehabilitation hospital in Kabul. Then he moved to Pakistan, where he worked in the Syed Jamaluddin Afghan Eye Hospital for Afghan Refugees in Peshawar for more than a year.Early political career
In 1985, Abdullah returned to Afghanistan to join the resistance against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and made his way to Panjshir. In September, he became the head of the Health Department for the Panjshir Resistance Front, coordinating treatments and health care for the resistance fighters and the civilian population. He became a close associate and adviser to mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud.After the fall of the communist government in 1992, the Peshawar Accord established the Islamic State of Afghanistan with a provisional government led by Burhanuddin Rabbani. Abdullah was appointed chief of staff and spokesperson of the Ministry of Defense.
On 27 September 1996, the Taliban seized power in Kabul and 90% of the country, with military training support by Pakistan, and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Following the Taliban takeover of Kabul, the Northern Alliance, also called the United Islamic Front, was created under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud. The Northern Alliance was supported by Russia, Iran and India. Abdullah became the United Front's Minister of Foreign Affairs. Islamic State of Afghanistan elements of the United Front, including the Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud and the Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, remained Afghanistan's internationally recognized government. The Taliban government was recognized by only three countries – Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and the United Arab Emirates.
In early 2001, Abdullah traveled with Ahmad Shah Massoud to Brussels, where Massoud addressed the European Parliament asking the international community to provide humanitarian help to the people of Afghanistan. Abdullah translated when Massoud stated that the Taliban and al-Qaeda had introduced "a very wrong perception of Islam" and that without the support of Pakistan and Bin Laden, the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for up to a year.
Modern Afghanistan
Foreign ministry
In October 2001 the Taliban regime was overthrown by Operation Enduring Freedom including American and United Front forces. As a result of the International Conference on Afghanistan in Bonn in 2001, Abdullah was appointed Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Interim Administration in December 2001.In November 2001, a diplomatic crisis unfolded when the British government, without any forewarning or seeking permission from the Northern Alliance, flew members of the British Special Boat Service to Bagram. Abdullah was "apoplectic" as he considered the uninvited arrival to be a violation of sovereignty, and complained bitterly to the head of the Central Intelligence Agency field office, threatening to resign if the British did not withdraw. British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw tried to reassure the Northern Alliance that the deployment was not a vanguard of a British peacekeeping army, but Northern Alliance leaders did not believe them; with the threat of the Northern Alliance opening fire on incoming Royal Air Force troop transports, the deployment was put on hold.
Following the 2004 Afghan presidential election, Abdullah was one of the few people who kept their position from the Transitional Government and was re-appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs for another year. In 2005 he resigned his position.
2009 presidential election
On 6 May 2009, Abdullah registered as an Independent candidate for the 2009 Afghan presidential election, running against incumbent president Hamid Karzai. Abdullah selected as his running mates Humayun Shah Asefi as his First Vice President and Dr. Cheragh Ali Cheragh as Second Vice President. Afghanistan has an executive structure featuring two vice presidents, a First VP and a Second VP, to help ensure a stable government by attempting to provide ethnic and religious balance to senior government leadership positions. Unofficial and non-certified electoral results were announced during the day on 16 September 2009, showing that Abdullah was in second position with 27.8% of the total votes cast. President Karzai did not achieve the 50.01% vote majority required to avoid a runoff election. A large number of fraudulent ballots, mostly belonging to Karzai's camp, were disallowed by the Independent Afghan Electoral Commission. Karzai came under intense international political and diplomatic pressure from international leaders because of allegations of large-scale fraud. Hamid Karzai eventually agreed to participate in a designated head-to-head runoff election which was scheduled nationwide for 7 November 2009.On 1 November 2009, Abdullah announced that he had decided to withdraw from the runoff election, citing his lack of faith in the President Karzai government's ability to hold a "fair and transparent" second election process. Subsequently, Hamid Karzai was declared the winner by the Afghan Electoral Commission.
National Coalition of Afghanistan
After the 2009 Afghan Presidential Elections, Abdullah created the Coalition for Change and Hope. The NCA presented the leading democratic opposition movement against the government of Hamid Karzai.In the 18 September 2010 parliamentary election, the Coalition for Change and Hope won more than 90 seats out of 249 seats, becoming the main opposition party. As a result, it is assumed that the new Parliament will introduce some checks and balances on the Presidential power.
Regarding the Taliban insurgency and Karzai's strategy of negotiations Dr. Abdullah stated:
In December 2011, the National Coalition of Afghanistan, supported by dozens of Afghan political parties and led by Abdullah, was formed to challenge the government of President Hamid Karzai. Major figures associated with the coalition include Yunus Qanuni, Homayoon Shah-asefi, Ahmad Wali Massoud and several current Members of Parliament.