With Vote Ruled Valid, Karzai’s the Official Winner

Interim President Hamid Karzai was officially declared the winner Wednesday of last month’s Afghan presidential election after a U.N. team ruled that voting irregularities were not sufficient to overturn the result.

Karzai won 55.4% of the ballots in the Oct. 9 election, Afghanistan’s first direct vote for president. His closest rival, former Education Minister Younis Qanooni, was in second place with 16.3% of ballots cast, said Zakim Shah, chairman of the Joint Electoral Management Body, the U.N.-Afghan group that organized the election.

Two warlords, Hazara leader Mohammed Mohaqiq and Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum, received 11.7% and 10% of the vote, respectively.

Karzai would have faced a runoff election if he had won less than 50% of the vote.

A three-member U.N. panel of foreign election experts found evidence of fraud, including ballot-box stuffing. But investigators said the irregularities were not widespread enough to affect the election result.

“After two decades of war and darkness, we are moving toward brightness and peace,” Shah said.

The election chief offered a prayer for those killed during the run-up to the election, including U.N. staff members who helped organize the vote. Three U.N. election workers were kidnapped in Kabul, the capital, last week, and on Wednesday their captors were still threatening to execute them.

More than 70% of eligible voters cast ballots in the election, despite threats of attack by militants. For the most part, the feared violence did not materialize on election day.

Karzai must now choose a Cabinet. He has repeatedly said he does not want a coalition government, such as the one he formed as interim leader that included warlords in an effort to stabilize the country.

But Qanooni, Mohaqiq and Dostum, all leaders of the Northern Alliance that helped U.S. forces defeat the Taliban regime in 2001, are likely to claim a right to share power because of their strong electoral showing among their ethnic bases.

Karzai and his Cabinet are to be sworn in next month.