Dr Abullah
Dr. Abdullah (born 1961), an Afghanistani politician, was the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan. Like many Afghanistani, he uses only one name, though he is sometimes referred as "Abdullah Abdullah".[1]Abdullah was born in Panjshir, studied ophthalmology at Kabul University’s Department of Medicine and obtained his M.D in 1983. He worked as an Ophthalmologist in Kabul until 1985, after which he worked with Afghanistan refugees in Pakistan, where he came into contact with the anti-Soviet resistance. Abdullah then joined the Panjshir Resistance Front, and in 1986 became an advisor to Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was also engaged in anti-Soviet activities.
Abdullah was the foreign minister of the United Front government from 1998 onwards. Following the assassination of Massoud in 2001, he became one of the three dominant figures in the Northern Alliance and later the Transitional Afghan Government along with Mohammed Fahim and Yunus Qanuni. In 2001 he was selected as Foreign Minister for the Interim Administration of Afghanistan; a post which he lost in a cabinet reshuffle on March 22, 2006.[2]
He is generally considered to be, along with former Ministers Mohammed Fahim and Yunus Qanuni, a leader of the Tajik faction, although his mother is actually an ethnic Pashtun. Unlike many other former Northern Alliance officials, he was not removed from his ministerial post immediately after the 2004 Presidential Election
2009 Afghan presidential campaign
On May 6, 2009, Abdullah registered as an Independent candidate for the 2009 Afghanistan 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 (a surgeon from Kabul who is a practicing Shia) 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 September 16, 2009, showing that Abdullah was in second position with 27.8% pf the total votes cast. President Karzai did not achieve the 50.01% vote majority required to avoid a runoff election only after a large number of questionable ballots were disallowed by the Independent Afghanistan Electoral Commission, and came under intense international political and diplomatic pressure from U.S. President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and many other international leaders. Because of this ongoing pressure, President Karzai also agreed to participate in a head to head runoff election between himself and Abdullah (as they had the two largest numbers of total votes cast for them in the first election), which was scheduled nationwide for November 7, 2009. On November 1, 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" election process. His departure from the election race led the Afghanistan Electoral Commission to declare President Karzai the winner (essentially winning by default). The Commission then announced that the runoff election scheduled for November 7, 2009 was to be canceled, as the need for it was now moot. Some political observers have commented on the obvious point that by departing from the runoff election, Abdullah was undermining, either intentionally or otherwise, the credibility and ultimate legitimacy of President Karzai's mandate for his new five-year term in the Presidency.
Source BBC
A Father Tajik- Mother Pashtun and doctor by profession, Abdullah became involved in refugee work in Pakistan and later gravitated towards Tajik resistance hero Ahmed Shah Masood, becoming a senior adviser and close associate in the 1980s.
Serving as foreign minister in the short-lived government headed by the Northern Alliance, Dr Abdullah continued as "foreign minister in exile" throughout the years of rule of the Taleban, who most countries refused to recognise.
There is some confusion over whether his name should have two elements or one, the latter being the style for many Afghanistani names.
Some reports suggest the second "Abdullah" emerged as a result of a misunderstanding at a news conference.
Power base
While the embattled Northern Alliance troops struggled to maintain their base north of Kabul, Dr Abdullah also spent a considerable amount of time abroad lobbying foreign governments for political and material help.
Fluent in both English and French, he served as spokesman for Gen Masood abroad, emerging as the best known face of Afghanistan.
Dr Abdullah, now 45, continued in that role under the Hamid Karzai government following the fall of the Taleban.
In the aftermath of the assassination of Gen Masood, Dr Abdullah became one of the three pivotal Northern Alliance figures along with Gen Fahim and Mr Qanuni.
The government formed after the ousting of the Taliban in 2001 was dominated by the Northern Alliance - something that President Karzai has sought to change.
Karzai supporters see this trend as redressing an imbalance, but critics say he has unfairly marginalised the alliance, which fought the Taleban until the bitter end.
Dr Abdullah lacks his own power base within the Northern Alliance, which might explain why he lasted so long in the Karzai government - but could also be the reason for his eventual replacement as foreign minister.
