Karzai confirmed president as fraud team endorses election

Hamid Karzai the interim president of Afghanistan, was officially declared the winner on Wednesday of historic presidential elections held last month. Karzai, who won 55.4 percent of more than eight million ballots cast, secured the required simple majority in the first round of voting, according to the UN-government Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB). After reviewing the report of an international panel on the extent of election fraud, Zakim Shah, the head of the JEMB, said the body certified the elections and recognised Karzai as legitimate president of Afghanistan. “Hamid Karzai secured 4,442,247 votes out of 8,024,538 legal votes. Therefore, as per Article 61 of the constitution, the JEMB announces Karzai as the winner of 9 October 2004 elections and the first elected president of Afghanistan,” Shah said in a statement broadcast on state radio. Of 11.5 million registered voters, 8,128,942 turned out to the polling stations. The turnout consisted of 40 percent female and 60 percent male who voted in 24,035 polling stations throughout the country, as well as in the Afghan refugees camps in neighbouring Pakistan and Iran. The results were announced following the release of a report by the international team that looked at the extent of fraud on election day, as claimed by candidates opposing Karzai. The election - that cost international donors around US $200 million this year - was conducted in a relatively calm and secure environment and there were fewer problems on polling day than anticipated, the UN appointed three-member international panel announced on Wednesday morning. “This was a commendable election, particularly given the very challenging circumstances,” Staffan Darnolf, one of the members of the panel, told IRIN following the release of a 70-page report. Darnolf said there were shortcomings, many of which had been raised by the candidates themselves, “But they could not have materially affected the overall result.” The panel was formed two days after the election to appease 14 of the 18 candidates, who had called for the poll to be annulled due to what they termed massive fraud. Candidates, including Karzai, submitted more than 100 documents to the panel. Many complaints pointed out that supposedly indelible ink, used to mark electors' fingers to prevent multiple voting, washed off easily. The panel found the ink had been misused in many but not most of the polling stations, but concluded this was a technical and administrative failure. “There was no political motive. Most importantly, it did not result in significant numbers of multiple voters,” Darnolf pointed out. According to the report, the panel investigated allegations of bias, intimidation, ballot stuffing and other ballot box irregularities, exclusion of party agents, threats made against voters. “However, there is no evidence that these attempts were widespread, or limited to the supporters of any one candidate,” he said. Karzai's closest challenger, Yunus Qanooni, who got 16.3 percent of the vote, conceded defeat over a week ago. Qanooni told IRIN he recognised Karzai as the legitimate president of Afghanistan and that he was satisfied with the findings of the expert panel report. “For the national interest of the country and will of the people of Afghanistan, I accept the findings of the experts and thanks to the international community for organising this panel,” he said, following the release of the probe team's findings. Mohammad Mohaqeq, a warlord and leader of the Hazara ethnic minority, was third with 11.6 percent, followed by Uzbek military strongman Abdul Rashid Dostam with 10 percent. Tajik intellectual, Abdul Latif Pedram was a distant fifth with 1.4 percent. The only woman to run for election, paediatrician Masooda Jalal, polled sixth with 1.2 percent of the votes but well ahead of 12 other candidates.