Karzai declared winner of Afghan election

Hamid Karzai’s chief rivals in Afghanistan’s presidential election conceded defeat today after the US-backed interim leader was declared its first popularly-elected leader.

Yunus Qanooni, who finished second with 16 % compared to Karzai’s 55%, said he would accept the result of the October 9 ballot, despite lingering accusations of fraud.

“For me, Afghanistan’s national interests are the most important,” Qanooni said. “If we didn’t accept the result, the country would go toward a crisis.”

Ethnic Hazara chieftain Mohammed Mohaqeq and ethnic Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum followed suit.

Qanooni, who served as interior minister and education minister in the interim government led by Karzai since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, has insisted Karzai owed his victory to cheating.

An independent panel was called in to probe the fraud allegations after most of Karzai’s 17 challengers threatened not to recognise the results.

A boycott could have undermined Karzai’s chances of extending his authority across a country still riven with factional and ethnic tensions, and soured the atmosphere for parliamentary elections planned for the spring.

However, the panel ruled yesterday that the irregularities couldn’t have changed the result.

Qanooni repeated his charge that the vote was tainted by “well-organised” fraud, but offered his congratulations nonetheless. “I wish Karzai success,” he said.

Plaudits also flowed in from abroad.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: “We congratulate President Hamid Karzai on his election as Afghanistan’s first democratically elected president and we look forward to his inauguration next month.”

Britain, Germany and France also wished Karzai well.

High turnout and the lack of major violence on polling day demonstrates the scale of the transformation that has already taken place in Afghanistan in the three years since the overthrow of the Taliban,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

The election itself was delayed from June because of insecurity and logistical problems. The result was then held up by weeks of mudslinging by Karzai’s challengers who threatened to boycott the outcome.

In its final report released yesterday, the panel confirmed problems with ballot stuffing and with ink used to mark people’s fingers to prevent multiple voting.

But it said there was “no evidence” that the problems were widespread or that they favoured only Karzai.

Karzai was expected to make a victory speech in the Afghan capital later today.

Karzai, who will be inaugurated in early December, has vowed to accelerate the slow rebuilding of a country, shattered by war and drought, with the goal of doubling the income of ordinary Afghans by 2009.

But any attempt to focus on the economy will be complicated by the challenge of confronting warlords and drug traffickers even as a stubborn insurgency grinds on.

The country’s insecurity also has been highlighted by an ongoing hostage crisis involving three foreign election helpers, including Northern Irish woman Annetta Flanigan.

The abductions last week have been claimed by a splinter group of the Taliban, but officials also suspect the involvement of militia leaders resisting Karzai’s growing authority.