Afghanistan's first and (thus far) only president after the American invasion and occupation from 2001, Hamid Karzai will soon be stepping down and relinquishing power to the winner of the upcoming elections. At the beginning of his 13-year reign, Afghanistan had been the battleground for a brief war between the USA and the Taliban, who controlled Afghanistan at the time. Even though the conventional war was short, the long, drawn out insurgency that followed would cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides. Hamid Karzai was the man who represented the new face of Afghanistan as the first political leader in the post-Taliban regime. He later went on to win Afghanistan's first election of the 21st century in 2004. He's been described as both an American puppet and a Taliban sympathizer, albeit at different times. His political reign over Afghanistan has been rife with allegations of voter fraud, bribery, and outright stealing from the national coffers. Karzai and his family have become very wealthy during his 2 terms as president, a fact that hasn't gone unnoticed by the Afghani public. Karzai's half brother, Ashmed Wali Karzai, was accused of profiting and facilitating Afghanistan's burgeoning opium trade with the President's blessing (he was assassinated in 2011). Only time will tell if Afghanistan's next leader will carry on Karzai's legacy of corruption.