Karzai, 46, has tallied 4,273,444 of an estimated
8.1 million votes cast, according to preliminary results published on the
election commission website Monday, with 95.1 percent of votes counted.
With 55.2 percent of the vote, the charismatic Pashtun tribal chief who has
led Afghanistan's interim administrations since the Taliban was ousted in late
2001, has the simple majority needed to avoid a second-round runoff.
Karzai, who will serve a five-year term, has been silent on his victory. He
chooses to wait until the election commission formally announces the results
sometime this week.
But his campaign spokesman Hamid Elmi said on Sunday Karzai had won a simple
majority after his vote tally passed four million.
"We have a simple majority. This is exactly what we want," Elmi said.
Karzai's chief rival Yunus Qanooni, who has 16.4 percent of the vote
according to the latest tally, also acknowledged Karzai's victory on Sunday.
"We consider Karzai the winner," said Qanooni's spokesman Sayed Hamid Noori.
But Afghans were in limbo a day after Karzai silently clinched outright
victory, with a formal announcement not possible until the final 400,000 or so
votes have been counted and an international fraud probe has concluded.
"God knows who is the winner. But I hope it's Mr. Karzai," said Kabul high
school student Fawad Ahmad.
The vote count slowed Monday as ballots trickled in from eight remaining
provinces. Counting has already finished in 26 of the 34 provinces.
The international panel investigating 100 formal complaints began meeting
candidates' representatives at 2:30 pm (1000 GMT) at United Nations offices to
brief them on the probe.
After talks with the panel, the 14 opposition candidates who threatened to
boycott the ballot will hold their own meeting to discuss their response to its
findings.
"If the results of the investigation are independent and acceptable, our
position is as before: we will accept the results. Otherwise the candidates will
meet again and decide on a new stand," Noori told AFP Monday.
Among the complaints being investigated are the apparent failure of indelible
ink that was supposed to stain voters' fingers to prevent multiple votes.
The panel originally ordered 90 ballot boxes to be quarantined for
investigation. All but 12 of them have been released, an electoral official told
AFP.
Another 240 boxes quarantined by electoral staff because of apparent
irregularities were still awaiting assessment.
Two high-profile warlords were in third and fourth place.
Mohammad Mohaqeq, of the ethnic Hazara minority, was third with 11.7 percent,
followed by Uzbek military strongman Abdul Rashid Dostam with 10.3 percent.
The elections are a crucial step in uniting Afghanistan's disparate ethnic
and tribal groups under an elected leader for the first time after decades of
occupation, communist rule, civil war, warlords and the Taliban.
Karzai now must battle a rampant opium and heroin trade, warlordism, poverty,
illiteracy, and a shattered economy that is propped up by drug money and aid
dollars.
He must also expand an undersized army and police force and persuade 40,000
militiamen to give up their weapons.
Afghans earn an average of 300 dollars per year, according to a recent World
Bank survey. Around 86 percent of its estimated 28 million people cannot read or
write.
Analysts said Karzai will have an uphill battle trying to end the power of
warlords.
One of his two vice presidents, Karim Khalili, is a warlord from the Hazara
minority. The other, Ahmed Zia Masood, is the brother of revered anti-Taliban
commander Ahmad Shah Masood.
