Karzai declared winner by default

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.

It is unclear how this win by default will affect Karzai’s ability to govern.

“You don’t gain legitimacy by having a big majority because your opponent quit,” said one Western election official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Political analyst Ahmad Saeedi was much more categorical.

“The constitution says that the president will be announced after the votes are counted,” he said. “But there has not been a legal vote here. This is not in line with the law, and I am sure it will deepen the crisis in the country.”

The constitution and the election law were remarkably unhelpful in trying to piece together the legal ramifications of the events of the past two days. Election experts freely admitted that there was simply no provision for the withdrawal of a candidate after a vote had been called.

Article 61 of the constitution merely states that “the President is elected by receiving more than 50 percent of the votes cast through free, general, secret, and direct voting.”

Karzai failed to clear the 50-percent-plus-one threshold in the first round, after his ballot count was adjusted for fraud; instead, he received 100 percent of the vote in a purely notional runoff.
But there seems to be little appetite for quibbling. A source inside the Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), the body which uncovered the fraud in the first round of voting, said the ECC was not going to voice any protest against Karzai’s victory.

The international community rushed to congratulate Karzai on his win. Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain was the first to pledge his support, getting on the phone within minutes of the IEC’s announcement, according to Karzai’s press office. The United States and the United Nations both sent messages promising cooperation in the future.

“We congratulate President Karzai on his victory in this historic election and look forward to working with him, his new Administration, the Afghan people and our partners in the international community to support Afghanistan’s progress towards institutional reforms, security and prosperity,” read a press release issued by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.

But the mood is much less rosy among Afghans. Many are exhausted and disheartened by the election spectacle, and harbor few illusions that the process will yield a legitimate government.

“Karzai will not have the power he would have had if he had come to power through the people’s votes,” said Mohammad Aref, a high school teacher in Balkh province. Mohammad Belal, a shopkeeper in Mazar-e-Sharif, blamed all of the fuss on the international community, a common complaint in Afghanistan.

“I voted in the first round to have an elected president, but what happened to my vote?” he asked. “Foreign countries interfered and caused all these problems. Now those who committed all the fraud and deceit get away with it, and everything is resolved by foreign countries.”

Abaceen Nasimi contributed to this report.