Karzai declared winner by default

The Afghan president gains a second 5-year term but there are questions about the legitimacy of his win.

Jean MacKenzieNovember 2, 2009 12:26Updated May 30, 2010 12:12

An Afghan man dances as he celebrates Hamid Karzai's victory over Abdullah Abdullah in the Afghanistan presidential election, in Herat November 2, 2009. Afghan election officials declared Karzai president for another five-year term on Monday after scrapping a planned election run-off following the withdrawal of his only rival, Abdullah Abdullah. (Morteza Nikoubazl/Reuters)

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s protracted election nightmare seems to be finally drawing to an end. On Monday evening, in a nationally televised press conference, Hamid Karzai was declared the winner of the 2009 presidential ballot by the Independent Election Commission (IEC).

“To prevent unnecessary circumstances which we saw in the past … and to save money from the huge expenses of the election, and in accordance with the interests of the Afghan people … the IEC has decided … that Hamid Karzai, as the only candidate for the second round of elections, be declared the elected president of Afghanistan,” said IEC head Azizullah Lodin.

The announcement effectively scraps the runoff election scheduled for Nov. 7.

The second round of voting had been an extremely iffy proposition since Sunday, when Karzai’s rival, Abdullah Abdullah, withdrew from the race. Citing Karzai’s refusal to undertake any significant measures to prevent fraud in the second round, Abdullah pulled out, thereby throwing the entire election process into a tailspin.

Abdullah’s main conditions for taking part in the elections included the sacking of IEC head Lodin, who, according to Abdullah, was a Karzai crony complicit in the massive vote-rigging that all but scuppered the first round of the elections. But instead of losing his job, Lodin beamed for the cameras as he announced Karzai the winner.

“We pray for his success,” he said in closing.

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki Moon had flown to Kabul on Monday to try and help resolve the crisis. He reportedly put pressure on the IEC to announce its decision on the runoff quickly, and held a press conference to pledge support to whatever government finally emerges from the months-long stalemate in Afghanistan.

It may not be the most gratifying victory of Karzai’s career: He has spent the past two months fighting off charges that his supporters massively and systemically falsified the first round of the elections, which were held on Aug. 20. The IEC initially declared Karzai the winner on Sept. 16, only to have to retract that announcement when it became clear that his 55 percent tally contained close to 1 million fake votes.

The runoff, which Karzai fiercely resisted, was supposed to erase the stigma of the first round, and give the president some much-needed legitimacy. It was all but forced on him by the international community, headed by U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who hailed Karzai as a statesman when he finally agreed to bow to his country’s constitution and participate in a second round of elections.