Yunus Qanuni

Younus Qānooni یونس قانونی
1st Vice President of Afghanistan
In office 11 March – 29 September 2014
President	Hamid Karzai
Preceded by	Mohammed Fahim
Succeeded by	Abdul Rashid Dostum
Speaker of the House of the People
In office 7 December 2005 – 6 December 2010
Deputy	Mirwais Yasini
Preceded by	Position established
Succeeded by	Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi
Minister of Interior Affairs
In office 13 November 2001 – 24 June 2002
President	Hamid Karzai
Preceded by	Abdur Razzaq Akhundzada
Succeeded by	Taj Mohammed Wardak
Personal details
Born	1957 (age 67–68) Panjshir, Kingdom of Afghanistan
Political party	New Afghanistan Party

Younus Qānooni (Dari: یونس قانونی, born on 10 May 1957 in Panjshir Valley) is an Afghan politician who was Vice President of Afghanistan. An ethnic Tajik, Qanooni is the leader of the Afghanistan e Naween (New Afghanistan) political party and former Speaker of the House of the People (the lower house of parliament or Wolesi Jirga).

Biography

Following the Soviet Intervention of Afghanistan in 1979, Qānooni joined with the mujahideen force led by Ahmad Shāh Massoud based in his native Panjshir Valley. He was involved in the creation of the Afghan Northern Alliance and served as Interior Minister in Burhanuddin Rabbāni's government. After the assassination of Massoud in 2001, a trio consisting of Qānooni, Defence Minister Mohammed Fahim and Foreign Minister Dr Abdullah took de facto control of the Northern Alliance and its financial resources.

Political career

The United States backed the Northern Alliance with air support in Afghanistan in 2001. In 2001, Qānuni served as chief negotiator for the Afghan Northern Alliance delegation to the Bonn conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany.

Immediately after the fall of the Taliban government, Qānuni was interior minister in an interim administration. He was eventually made the education minister in the Afghan Transitional Administration (established in June 2002), and served as a security advisor to interim President Hamid Karzai. Along with Fahim and Abdullah, Qānuni was seen as one of the dominant figures of the Transitional Administration

Elections for a permanent government were scheduled for 2004. When Qānuni's ally Mohammed Fahim was passed over as vice-presidential running mate of Karzai, Qānuni entered the race for the presidency himself. On October 5, 2004, Qānuni's campaign supporter, Abdul Aziz, was assassinated while in Shindand, Afghanistan.

In the election, held October 9, 2004, he placed second to Karzai. On December 23, 2004, the newly inaugurated Karzai announced his administration, and both Qānuni and Fahim were dropped from their Ministerial posts.

Qānuni was elected in the 2005 Afghan Parliamentary elections, placing second in the Kabul province. Since the presidential election he has generally been seen as the spokesman of the formerly powerful Tajik ethnic group, which dominated the Northern Alliance and the Transitional Afghan Administration, but was largely sidelined after the 2004 presidential election. As well as his own party, Qānuni has formed an alliance of several parties called the Jabahai Tafahim Millie.

On December 21, Qānuni was chosen to lead the 249-seat lower house of parliament with 122 votes against 117 for his closest challenger, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf.

External sources

• Biography: Mohammad Yunis Qanuni
• Profile: Yunus Qanuni; BBC; 9/10/2004

See also

• Hasib qoway markaz
• Ahmad massoud