KABUL, 28 October 2004 — Election officials fanned out across Afghanistan yesterday to inspect several dozen suspicious ballot boxes that are delaying the end of the presidential vote count and the declaration of Hamid Karzai as the violence-weary nation’s first popularly chosen leader.
“Different teams are going around the country to the main counting centers to review the situation,” vice chairman of the joint UN-Afghan electoral commission Ray Kennedy said in the southern city of Kandahar.
Karzai’s landslide ballot victory was assured, however, as the count ticked over to 99.6 percent late yesterday. Karzai had 55.4 percent of votes and a 39.1 percentage point lead on his closest rival, Yunus Qanooni.
Once his victory is certified Karzai will become the rugged central Asian state’s first elected leader, after rule by colonial powers, monarchs, communists, Soviet occupiers, a mujahideen coalition that ousted the Soviet troops and finally the Islamist Taleban.
More than eight million Afghans defied threats of violence by fighters from the ousted Taleban and voted on Oct. 9, many expressing hope that their first ever vote would end the cycle of violence of the past quarter-century.
“Now we are going to have one leader and one leadership and we’re really happy with this procedure,” Akhumazada, 38, a resident of Kandahar, the main southern city, said.
The election commission will recommend today whether the isolated ballots, numbering less than 100,000, should be released for counting. “So if we decide to count them there will be counting (Thursday) also,” Kennedy said.
Some of the boxes had been “blatantly ballot-stuffed”, election operations chief David Avery said, and will “just never be counted.”
Karzai expects the final results to be announced on Sunday, he told visiting Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Margherita Boniver.
“Once the results are in and I am the winner, then I will celebrate,” Karzai’s press adviser, Khaleeq Ahmad, quoted him as telling Boniver during talks Tuesday.
Karzai’s inauguration and the formation of his Cabinet will be another month off.
A UN-appointed panel probing complaints by Karzai’s rivals was expected to submit their findings today.
The election commission has also held its own probe and needs to assess the outcomes of both inquiries before certifying the ballot.
The landmark vote has dramatically mirrored Afghanistan’s ethnic and regional faultlines, with Karzai sweeping the Pashtun heartlands of the southeast and parts of the west.
Qanooni, a Panjshiri Tajik, and Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam dominated the north where their Tajik and Uzbek supporters are in the majority.
Warlord of the Hazara ethnic minority Mohammad Mohaqeq cleaned up in the Hazara-dominated central provinces of Bamiyan and Daikondi.
The only woman to run for election, pediatrician Masooda Jalal, polled sixth, beating 12 candidates. Karzai, 46, heads the ethnic Pashtun Popalzai clan, which has long been influential in southern Afghanistan and is linked to its former monarchy. His father was a legislator.
Karzai himself was deputy foreign minister between the collapse of the communist-backed regime in 1992 and the Taliban’s takeover in 1996.
As US-led forces launched a military offensive three years ago to drive out the Taleban, Karzai led a rebellion against the hard-line student militia in Uruzgan province and narrowly escaped capture.
Karzai will rule for five years, with two vice presidents: strongman Karim Khalili and Ahmad Zia Masood, the brother of late resistance hero Ahmad Shah Masood. Both are from minority ethnic groups.
He will head a strong presidential system of government with a bicameral parliament and will also be military commander-in-chief.
