Wahid Omar

Who is Wahid Omar?

Wahid Omar, also spelled as Waheed Omar, is a politician in Afghanistan who served as the spokesperson of President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai. He is a currently a member of "Afghanistan 1400," a political movement of Afghanistan's new generation. He was previously the communications director for Karzai's reelection campaign in 2009. During the electoral campaign and the aftermath of the election he was often seen as Karzai's one-man frontline. Both President Karzai's supporters as well as his opponents recognized Waheed Omer's eloquence, civil debate skills, his equal fluency in Pashto and Persian, and his media-management skills as one of President Karzai's strongest weapons.

Prior to his stint as campaign spokesperson, Omar was the founding director of the Government Media and Information Center, formed in 2009 to oversee communications between the government, Afghan citizens, and the international community.

Waheed Omar was born and raised in Kabul. His early schooling took place in Kabul and Peshawar, Pakistan. He later attended the University of York in the United Kingdom where he received a Master of Arts degree in Political Science. At York, Omar focused on Post-Conflict Reconstruction and Development. His MA thesis was on South Africa's post-apartheid transitional justice mechanisms and how some of those lessons could be applied to post-war Afghanistan.