Karzai Wins Majority in Afghanistan’s First Democratic Election

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The New York Sun

KABUL, Afghanistan – Hamid Karzai clinched a majority of the votes cast in Afghanistan’s first presidential election, near-complete results showed yesterday, leaving him all but certain of becoming his war-wrecked nation’s first democratically elected leader.


His chief rival, the former education minister, Yunus Qanooni, announced he was willing to accept the election result, but only if irregularities in the vote were acknowledged by a panel of foreign investigators.


“For the national interest and so the country does not go into crisis, we will respect the result of the election,” said Mr. Qanooni’s spokesman, Syed Hamid Noori. “But we also want the fraud to be made clear.”


By last night, Mr. Karzai had received 4,240,041 votes, more than half of the estimated 8,129,935 valid votes cast in the October 9 ballot, the joint U.N.-Afghan electoral board said. That means that even if all the remaining estimated votes went to other candidates, Mr. Karzai would still have more than the 50% necessary to avoid a runoff.


With 7,666,529 valid votes – or 94.3% of the total – counted, Mr. Karzai had received 55.3%, 39 percentage points ahead of Mr. Qanooni.


Mr. Karzai’s campaign spokesman said yesterday’s figures confirmed optimism that the interim leader would triumph when the final results are released in the next few days.


“I’m going to see his excellency this evening to see when to start the celebrations,” Hamed Elmi said. “We were up against 17 candidates, but the people were behind us. We will sleep soundly tonight.”


Mr. Karzai has served as the country’s interim leader since shortly after American forces drove out the former ruling Taliban regime in late 2001 for harboring Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda terrorist training camps.


Victory would make him Afghanistan’s first popularly chosen leader after a quarter century of war and give him a five-year term in which he has pledged to raise its citizens’ pitiful living standards.


It could also provide a foreign policy boost to Afghanistan’s main sponsor, President Bush, in his own bid for reelection on November 2.


Afghans are frustrated at the slow pace of their country’s recovery.


Mr. Karzai is trusted as a bridge to foreign backers and has rounded up strong support in the cities and among fellow Pashtuns, the country’s largest ethnic group.


But his rivals have scored big among ethnic minorities in the north and center of the country, a legacy of the ethnic and factional divides produced by years of infighting.


Yesterday, they were still looking to a panel of three foreign experts to vindicate their charges that Mr. Karzai profited from irregularities during campaigning and the vote.


Ethnic Hazara chieftain Mohammed Mohaqeq, who is currently running third at 11.8%, refused to concede.


“It’s too early to judge the result now,” he said.


The camp of another main rival, ethnic Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, currently fourth with 10.3%, said days ago that it accepted that Mr. Karzai was likely to win. But yesterday, Mr. Dostum’s running mate Chafiga Habibi alleged continuing evidence of irregularities.


“We are waiting for the result of the investigation,” she said. She added that candidates would meet with the expert panel today to decide together whether they would accept the election results.


Sultan Baheen, a spokesman for the electoral board, said it will not announce the official result until the count and the investigations are complete.


The New York Sun

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