Hamid Karzai (Pashto: حامد کرزی - Ḥāmid Karzay; born 24 December 1957) is the 12th President of Afghanistan, taking office on December 7, 2004. He became a dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban government in late 2001. During the Bonn Conference in Germany, on December 5, 2001, Karzai was selected by prominent Afghan political figures to serve a six months term as Chairman of the Transitional Administration. He was then chosen for a two years term as the Interim President during the 2002 Loya Jirga in Kabul, Afghanistan. After the 2004 presidential election, Karzai won and became President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. He then won the 2009 presidential election after his opponent withdrew from the run-off race.

Hamid Karzai, an ethnic Pashtun of the Popalzai tribe, was born in the village of Karz, which is located on the edge of Kandahar City in southern Afghanistan. His grandfather, Khair Mohammad Khan, had served in the 1919 Afghanistan’s war of independence and as the Deputy Speaker of the Senate. Karzai's family were strong supporters of the former Afghan King, Zahir Shah. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, served as the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament during the 1960s. Hamid Karzai attended Mahmood Hotaki Elementary School in Kandahar and Sayed Jamaluddin Afghan School in Kabul. He graduated from Habibia High School in 1976.

From 1979 to 1983, Karzai took a postgraduate course in political science at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India. After obtaining his Master’s degree in India he returned to work as a fund-raiser by supporting anti-Soviet Mujahideen in Afghanistan during the Soviet intervention for the rest of the 1980s. When Najibullah's Soviet-backed government fell in 1992, Karzai served as Deputy Foreign Minister in the government of Burhanuddin Rabbani.