Mirwais Yasini میرویس یاسینی (born 1962) is the current First Deputy Speaker of the Lower House of the
Afghan Parliament
The Leadership Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, also translated as the Supreme Council, () (also referred to as the Inner Shura) is the central governing body of the Taliban and Afghanistan. The Taliban uses a consensus decision-maki ...
Taliban
The Taliban (; ps, طالبان, ṭālibān, lit=students or 'seekers'), which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a Deobandi Islamic fundamentalist, militant Islamist, jihadist, and Pasht ...
from 1993 to 2001 as a social and political activist. After the fall of the Taliban regime in 2002, Yasini began his political career as the Director of Foreign Relations and Economic Evaluation for
Afghanistan
Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
's
Ministry of Finance A ministry of finance is a part of the government in most countries that is responsible for matters related to the finance.
Lists of current ministries of finance
Named "Ministry"
* Ministry of Finance (Afghanistan)
* Ministry of Finance and Ec ...
, and as a prominent member of the Emergency
Loya Jirga
A jirga ( ps, جرګه, ''jərga'') is an assembly of leaders that makes decisions by consensus according to Pashtunwali, the Pashtun social code. It is conducted in order to settle disputes among the Pashtuns, but also by members of other ethnic ...
, which met in
Kabul
Kabul (; ps, , ; , ) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province; it is administratively divided into 22 municipal districts. Acco ...
. Since that time he has held several high-level political posts, including such titles as the First Deputy Speaker of the Constitutional Loya Jirga and Director General of the Counter Narcotics Department.
Early life
Mirwais Yasini was born in 1962, in
Kama district
Kama is a district in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, to the east of Jalalabad. Its population, which is 100% Pashtun, was estimated at 180,000 in 2012. The district is within the heartland of the Mohmand tribe of Pashtuns. The district centre ...
, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan. His father, Abdul Sattar Yasini, was a respected Islamic academic and attorney.
He attended primary and high school in Nangarhar, and became fluent in
Pashto
Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani ().
Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...
,
Dari
Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī ...
,
Arabic
Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...
,
English
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* English language
* English people
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After the Communist coup in 1978, Yasini and his family were among the most trusted influential politicians working in Afghanistan by that time, his uncle Shakoor Yasini was a very influential person against the soviet occupation. At that time Mirwais Yasini was a schoolboy and his uncle Shakoor Yasini was a religious scholar, but his uncle took hardly part in the battles during jihad, his famous practice is well known among locals, as he mastered the war and fought the Russian army as they reached the Mashreqi battlefield. His family is well known in Nangarhar Province.
Opposition to the Taliban
For a period of 8 years (1993–2001), Yasini worked in active opposition to the Taliban regime as a social and political activist. As a prominent member of the anti-Taliban movement Yasini built his most enduring political relationships.
The post-Taliban years
After the fall of the Taliban in 2002, Yasini was appointed as the first Director of the
Red Cross
The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and ...
in Nangarhar. Following this, Yasini was the Director of Foreign Relations and Economic Evaluation for the Ministry of Finance. Also in 2002, he was elected a member of the Emergency Loya Jirga, which met in Kabul.
In 2003, Yasini was appointed Director General of the Counter Narcotics Department of the National Security Council of Afghanistan. He was also an elected member of the Constitutional Loya Jirga and was elected as the first deputy speaker with the majority of votes. In 2005, Yasini was appointed Deputy Minister, Ministry of Counter Narcotics in the Government of Afghanistan.
Parliamentary work
In 2005, Yasini was elected to the Lower House of the Afghan Parliament as a representative of Nangarhar Province. He is currently the leader of the largest parliamentary party in the Afghanistan lower house, the Afghanistan Parliamentary Party, and the First Deputy Speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan Parliament.
Presidential bid
In March 2009, Mirwais Yasini announced his formal opposition to the Karzai government, and declared his intent to run in Afghanistan's 2009 Presidential Elections, citing flagging public support for the Karzai presidency due to rampant corruption.''Hamid Karzai Calls For Early Poll'' In a formal statement, Yasini described his vision for the future of Afghanistan: