Sultan Ali Keshtmand

Sultan Ali Keshtmand
سلطان‌علی کشتمند
Chairman of the Council of Ministers of Afghanistan
In office 21 February 1989 – 8 May 1990
President	Mohammad Najibullah
Preceded by	Mohammad Hasan Sharq
Succeeded by	Fazal Haq Khaliqyar
In office 11 June 1981 – 26 May 1988
President	Babrak Karmal Haji Mohammad Chamkani
Preceded by	Babrak Karmal
Succeeded by	Mohammad Hasan Sharq
Minister of Planning
In office 28 December 1979 – April 1982
Preceded by	Muhammad Siddiq Alemyar
In office 30 April – 23 August 1978
Preceded by	Ali Ahmad Khurram
Succeeded by	Muhammad Siddiq Alemyar
People's Representative for Kabul at the 12th Parliament of Afghanistan
In office 1964–1968
Personal details
Born	(1935-05-22)22 May 1935 Kabul, Kingdom of Afghanistan
Died	13 March 2026(2026-03-13) (aged 90) London, England
Resting place	Putney Vale Cemetery
Party	People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan
Spouse	Karima Keshtmand ​ (m. 1966)​
Children	4
Alma mater	Kabul University

Sultan Ali Keshtmand (Dari: سلطان‌علی کشتمند; 22 May 1935 – 13 March 2026), sometimes transliterated as Kishtmand or Kashtmand, was an Afghan politician, belonging to the Parcham faction of the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). He served twice as the Chairman of the Council of Ministers during the 1980s, from 1981-1988 and from 1989-1990 in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

Early life

Keshtmand was born in the spring of 1935 in Kabul, in the Kingdom of Afghanistan to a farming peasant family. He was a prominent member of the Hazara ethnic group. His father was from the 'Daifuladi' tribe of the Hazara, with Keshtmand claiming that his ancestral home is Ajristan, which is a part of Malistan district of Ghazni. Due to his farming background, he chose the pseudonym "Keshtmand" (Dari: کشت‌مند), which means "farmer" or "cultivator of land" in Dari, with it subsequently becoming his family name.

He would go on to study economics at Kabul University, where his interest in politics began. Keshtmand was a founding member of the PDPA, becoming one of seven members in the party's Central Committee, later becoming a leading figure in the Parcham faction following the 1967 party split.

Early political career

Immediately after the Saur Revolution, in which the PDPA came to power, Keshtmand became the Minister of Planning in the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.

Keshtmand was subsequently removed from that post in August 1978 for an alleged plot against President Nur Mohammad Taraki, the leader of the rival Khalq faction of the PDPA. The Politburo arrested Keshtmand, alongside the Public Works Minister Muhammad Rafi'i, for their alleged role in the supposed anti-Khalq conspiracy. He and many of the other inmates were subjected to severe torture whilst in prison. He was originally sentenced to death, but this decision was revoked and he was instead sentenced to 15 years in prison.

In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, bringing Babrak Karmal and the Parcham faction to power. Keshtmand was subsequently released from jail, and re-joined the party's Politburo.

Chair of the Council of Ministers (1981–1990)

Friction among the PDPA rose in 1980 when Karmal removed Assadullah Sarwari from his position as First Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers, replacing him with Sultan Ali Keshtmand. Keshtmand, a Parchami, soon became one of the more significant figures within the government. In June 1981, Karmal resigned as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, whilst retaining all other offices, and was succeeded by Keshtmand.

As Premier of Afghanistan, Keshtmand met with other foreign leaders, including Indira Gandhi of India in March 1983 and Prince Souphanouvong of Laos.

The rise in the government deficit was of great concern, and the tax collections were inadequate because of the level of increased state spending, as Keshtmand noted in April 1983. The war in the country, however, prevented the government from improving the tax collection system.

In late April 1986, Keshtmand paid a three-day state visit to the Soviet Union, as part of the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the 1921 Soviet-Afghan Treaty of Friendship and Vladimir Lenin's 116th birthday, being received by Soviet Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov. During the visit, the two nations signed a five-year economic and technical agreement, alongside reaffirming their alliance and aligning diplomatic views in a joint communique, condemning the American bombing of Libya as a "bandit attack" and advocating for the self-determination of the Palestinian people.

During Karmal's fall from power, Keshtmand remained in his post, continuing on as Premier under Mohammad Najibullah's government.

In September 1987, the PDPA government sponsored a large assembly of Hazaras from various parts of the country and offered them autonomy, as part of the wider attempt to limit the Tehran Eight's influence on the Hazara population during their rebellion. In his speech to the group, Keshtmand, a fellow Hazara, said that the government would set up several new provinces in Hazarajat that would be administered by the local inhabitants, thereby granting them autonomy.

A radio station belonging to the mujahideen reported internal clashes by Parcham members in Kabul, caused because of a split between supporters of Najibullah and Keshtmand. Mohammad Hassan Sharq, who was a non-partisan independent, was selected by Najibullah to replace Keshtmand as the new Chair of the Council of Ministers in 1988.

Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Najibullah declared a three-day state of emergency and replaced Sharq with Keshtmand once more in February 1989 during his cabinet reshuffle. However, during Najibullah's liberalization attempts of the government to distance itself from its communist past, he once again removed Keshtmand from his position due to his apparent hardline communist views, replacing him with Fazal Haq Khaliqyar in May 1990.

Keshtmand served as Chair of the Council of Ministers from 1981-1988 and 1989 -1990, and as one of the vice presidents (a largely ceremonial role) from May 1990 until April 1991, when he was dismissed shortly before the fall of the government. His time in office was characterised by his management of the wartime economy, preventing widespread famine and food shortages during the wars through strategic reserves of petroleum, food, and military resources throughout urban and provincial warehouses.

Personal life and death

Keshtmand has a younger brother, Asadullah (born 1949), who currently lives in London. Asadullah, like his brother, was a member of the PDPA, joining in 1967. He studied Agriculture in France, becoming an "active member" of the French Communist Party in Toulouse during this time. He would later become a politician alongside his brother within the PDPA government, remaining as a prominent diplomat until the government's fall.

He married his wife, Karima (born September 1946), in 1966, having four children in total. She would become a politician alongside her husband in various important roles in the PDPA government.

Keshtmand and his family fled Afghanistan in 1992, where he survived an attempt on his life which left him blind in one eye. He then moved to Russia and then to the United Kingdom, undergoing surgery in both nations, before receiving political asylum from British Prime Minister John Major.

He subsequently became an activist and defender of the rights of Hazaras and other minorities, claiming that the Pashtun majority in Afghanistan had had too much power in all of Afghanistan's regimes, past and present. After the Saur Revolution, which toppled Daoud Khan's first Afghan Republic, he reportedly said, "Brothers, today the five long centuries of Pashtun political domination has come to an end." He would also remain a figure in Afghan politics, reflecting on the PDPA era of Afghanistan in his book 'Political Notes and Historical Events' alongside writing articles on contemporary Afghan politics.

Keshtmand died in Battersea, London, on 13 March 2026 at the age of 90. The Australian Greens released a statement following his death, expressing condolences to his family and the wider Hazara community, of which he was a prominent leader.

External links

• Sultan Ali Keshtmand at IMDb