Sher Malang
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I should have created this thread before but with lack of time I have these days I couldn't managed to do this.
Afghanistan is going into a process of peaceful political power transition after centuries in the coming days (5th April), many of the presidential candidates have big support from Afghans some of them have lived among Afghans or worked in the current government.
I will only short list here some leading candidates with their short biographies. (a total of 11 candidates put their bid for elections out of which 3 candidates have joined the the others and 8 proceeded for the elections individually)
Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai
Ghani was born in 1949 in the Logar Province of Afghanistan. An ethnic Pashtun from an influential Ahmadzai tribe, he completed his primary and secondary education in Habibia High School in Kabul. He travelled to Lebanon to attend the American University in Beirut, earning his first degree in 1973. There he met his future wife, Rula a Christian. He returned to Afghanistan in 1977 to teach Afghan studies and anthropology at Kabul University before winning a government scholarship in 1977 to study for a Master's degree in anthropology at Columbia University in the United States.
Ashraf Ghani, while Ahmadzai is the name of his tribe. Ahmadzai previously served as Finance Minister and as a chancellor of Kabul University.
He is the co-founder of the Institute for State Effectiveness, an organization set up in 2005 to improve the ability of states to serve their citizens. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002, Ahmadzai was a leading scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery after the collapse of the Taliban government.
Ghani is a member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, an independent initiative hosted by the United Nations Development Programme. In 2010, Foreign Policy Magazine placed him in its annual list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2013, Prospect magazine placed him second in their world thinkers poll.
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah
Abdullah Abdullah is a politician in Afghanistan and a doctor of medicine. He was an adviser and a close friend of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader. After the fall of the Taliban regime, Dr. Abdullah served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 until 2005.
Abdullah was born on or about 5 September 1960 in the second district of Karte Parwan in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to Abdullah, both of his parents were born in Kabul. He is reportedly of mixed Pashtun and Tajik ethnicity. He has seven sisters and one brother.
Abdullah's father, Ghullam Muhayuddin Khan, was appointed as a senator by King Zahir Shah. Khan served in Kandahar and was a high-ranking government official who had risen through the ranks. Abdullah's early years were split between living in Panjshir and Kabul, where his father was serving as an administrator in the land survey, and subsequently the inspection section of the Prime Minister's office.
Until he became a government minister, Abdullah only had a first name; demands from Western newspaper editors for a family name led him to adopt the full name Abdullah Abdullah.
Dr. Zalmai Rasul
Rassoul was born in or about 1942 in Kabul, Afghanistan. He attended Lycée Esteqlal where he graduated as the valedictorian. Subsequently, he traveled to France to study on a scholarship at the Paris Medical School and received his M.D. in 1973. An ethnic Pashtun, belonging to Barakzai (Mohammadzai) tribe (of the Zirak branch of the Durrani Confederacy), he is fluent in Pashto, Dari, French, English, and Italian and has a working knowledge of Arabic.
He has over 30 publications in European and American medical journals and is a member of the American Society of Nephrology.
Zalmai Rassoul is an Afghan politician who served as Foreign Minister of Afghanistan from January 2010 to October 2013. He previously served as National Security Advisor beginning in June 2002. He has accompanied Afghan President Hamid Karzai on all official visits since the establishment of the Interim Administration in 2001. He resigned as Foreign Minister on 5 October 2013 to stand as a candidate in the 2014 presidential election.
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf
Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf born 1946, Paghman Valley, Afghanistan) is an Afghan Islamist politician. He took part in the war against the PDPA government in the 1980s, leading the Mujahedin faction Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan.
Sayyaf is an ethnic Pashtun. Sayya is an Arabic name that means "the person who is skilled with the sword". He is fluent in Arabic and holds a degree in religion from Kabul University and a masters from the illustrious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. He has been described as "a big, beefy man with fair skin and a thick gray beard." Sayyaf is reported to be approximately six foot, three inches in height and weigh 250 pounds. "He usually wears a white skullcap or a large turban, and a traditional Afghan shalwar kameez, a tunic with loose pants."
Sayyaf was a member of the Afghan-based Ikhwan al-Muslimin, founded in 1969 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Dr. Burhanuddin Rabbani and having strong links to the original and much larger Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Ustad (Professor) Abdul was a professor at a small Islamic university called The Shariat in Kabul until 1973, when he plotted with Burhanuddin Rabbani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to overthrow President Daoud Khan. The coup failed and he was forced to flee to Pakistan but was arrested when he returned.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed
During the war, he received patronage from Arab sources and mobilized Arab volunteers for the Mujahedin forces. Sayyaf is said to have been the one who first invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan, after bin Laden's 1996 expulsion from Sudan by the otherwise sympathetic Sudanese régime under Saudi, Egyptian, and American pressure.
As of 2007, Sayyaf is an influential member of parliament and has called for an amnesty for former mujahideen
Sayyaf is an announced candidate for the president of Afghanistan in the 2014 election; he was the only major candidate not to appear in the first debate.
Afghanistan is going into a process of peaceful political power transition after centuries in the coming days (5th April), many of the presidential candidates have big support from Afghans some of them have lived among Afghans or worked in the current government.
I will only short list here some leading candidates with their short biographies. (a total of 11 candidates put their bid for elections out of which 3 candidates have joined the the others and 8 proceeded for the elections individually)
Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai
Ghani was born in 1949 in the Logar Province of Afghanistan. An ethnic Pashtun from an influential Ahmadzai tribe, he completed his primary and secondary education in Habibia High School in Kabul. He travelled to Lebanon to attend the American University in Beirut, earning his first degree in 1973. There he met his future wife, Rula a Christian. He returned to Afghanistan in 1977 to teach Afghan studies and anthropology at Kabul University before winning a government scholarship in 1977 to study for a Master's degree in anthropology at Columbia University in the United States.
Ashraf Ghani, while Ahmadzai is the name of his tribe. Ahmadzai previously served as Finance Minister and as a chancellor of Kabul University.
He is the co-founder of the Institute for State Effectiveness, an organization set up in 2005 to improve the ability of states to serve their citizens. Before returning to Afghanistan in 2002, Ahmadzai was a leading scholar of political science and anthropology. He worked at the World Bank working on international development assistance. As Finance Minister of Afghanistan between July 2002 and December 2004, he led Afghanistan's attempted economic recovery after the collapse of the Taliban government.
Ghani is a member of the Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor, an independent initiative hosted by the United Nations Development Programme. In 2010, Foreign Policy Magazine placed him in its annual list of the Top 100 Global Thinkers. In 2013, Prospect magazine placed him second in their world thinkers poll.
Dr. Abdullah Abdullah
Abdullah Abdullah is a politician in Afghanistan and a doctor of medicine. He was an adviser and a close friend of Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Northern Alliance leader. After the fall of the Taliban regime, Dr. Abdullah served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 until 2005.
Abdullah was born on or about 5 September 1960 in the second district of Karte Parwan in Kabul, Afghanistan. According to Abdullah, both of his parents were born in Kabul. He is reportedly of mixed Pashtun and Tajik ethnicity. He has seven sisters and one brother.
Abdullah's father, Ghullam Muhayuddin Khan, was appointed as a senator by King Zahir Shah. Khan served in Kandahar and was a high-ranking government official who had risen through the ranks. Abdullah's early years were split between living in Panjshir and Kabul, where his father was serving as an administrator in the land survey, and subsequently the inspection section of the Prime Minister's office.
Until he became a government minister, Abdullah only had a first name; demands from Western newspaper editors for a family name led him to adopt the full name Abdullah Abdullah.
Dr. Zalmai Rasul
Rassoul was born in or about 1942 in Kabul, Afghanistan. He attended Lycée Esteqlal where he graduated as the valedictorian. Subsequently, he traveled to France to study on a scholarship at the Paris Medical School and received his M.D. in 1973. An ethnic Pashtun, belonging to Barakzai (Mohammadzai) tribe (of the Zirak branch of the Durrani Confederacy), he is fluent in Pashto, Dari, French, English, and Italian and has a working knowledge of Arabic.
He has over 30 publications in European and American medical journals and is a member of the American Society of Nephrology.
Zalmai Rassoul is an Afghan politician who served as Foreign Minister of Afghanistan from January 2010 to October 2013. He previously served as National Security Advisor beginning in June 2002. He has accompanied Afghan President Hamid Karzai on all official visits since the establishment of the Interim Administration in 2001. He resigned as Foreign Minister on 5 October 2013 to stand as a candidate in the 2014 presidential election.
Abdul Rasul Sayyaf
Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf born 1946, Paghman Valley, Afghanistan) is an Afghan Islamist politician. He took part in the war against the PDPA government in the 1980s, leading the Mujahedin faction Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan.
Sayyaf is an ethnic Pashtun. Sayya is an Arabic name that means "the person who is skilled with the sword". He is fluent in Arabic and holds a degree in religion from Kabul University and a masters from the illustrious Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt. He has been described as "a big, beefy man with fair skin and a thick gray beard." Sayyaf is reported to be approximately six foot, three inches in height and weigh 250 pounds. "He usually wears a white skullcap or a large turban, and a traditional Afghan shalwar kameez, a tunic with loose pants."
Sayyaf was a member of the Afghan-based Ikhwan al-Muslimin, founded in 1969 by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Dr. Burhanuddin Rabbani and having strong links to the original and much larger Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Ustad (Professor) Abdul was a professor at a small Islamic university called The Shariat in Kabul until 1973, when he plotted with Burhanuddin Rabbani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar to overthrow President Daoud Khan. The coup failed and he was forced to flee to Pakistan but was arrested when he returned.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed
During the war, he received patronage from Arab sources and mobilized Arab volunteers for the Mujahedin forces. Sayyaf is said to have been the one who first invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan, after bin Laden's 1996 expulsion from Sudan by the otherwise sympathetic Sudanese régime under Saudi, Egyptian, and American pressure.
As of 2007, Sayyaf is an influential member of parliament and has called for an amnesty for former mujahideen
Sayyaf is an announced candidate for the president of Afghanistan in the 2014 election; he was the only major candidate not to appear in the first debate.
tomorrow is the last day for voter card distribution I will try to get one.
