Yunus
Qanuni (يونس قانوني, also
transliterated Qanooni and Qanouni) (born 1957) is an Afghan politician.
An ethnic Tajik from the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan, Qunani is an
Islamic religious conservative who been working to organize a new political
party to appeal to those Afghanis not part of the majority Pashtun ethnic
group. He calls his party Mehez-e-Milli (Afghan National Party).
As a member of the Afghan Northern Alliance, he strongly supported the
United States invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, but opposed Pakistani
involvement, as Pakistan favored a reformed Taliban government rather than a
new government based upon the Afghan Northern Alliance. He is closely
associated with the political faction of the late Ahmad Shah Masood,
assassinated in 2001.
In 2001, Qanuni 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, Qanuni 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
Elections for a permanent government were scheduled for 2004. When
Qanuni's ally Mohammed Fahim was
passed over as vice-presidential running mate of Karzai, Qanuni entered the
race for the presidency himself.
During a campaign rally in Kabul, Qanuni accused Karzai's supporters of
jailing his campaign supporters in northern Baghlan and Konduz provinces. On
October 5, 2004, Qanuni'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 Qanuni and Fahim were dropped from their posts.
Qanuni was easily 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, Qanuni has formed an alliance of several
parties called the Jabahai Tafahim Millie or National Understanding Front.
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The End. Dec 10 2005