Afghan president elected

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Hamid Karzai was officially declared Afghanistan's first-ever popularly elected president Wednesday after a weeks-long fraud probe found no reason to overturn his landslide victory.\nWhile the U.S.-backed leader made an immediate call for unity, his closest rivals refused to concede, undermining hopes for political stability in a country racked by ethnic mistrust.\nThe U.N.-sponsored electoral board, confirming the results of the Oct. 9 vote, said Karzai had won a five-year term with 55.4 percent, 39 percentage points more than his nearest rival. It was the first national ballot since the fall of the Taliban three years ago.\n"His excellency Hamid Karzai is the winner," board chairman Zakim Shah said at a ceremony broadcast live on Afghan state television. "We are announcing the first elected president of Afghanistan."\nIn Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: "We congratulate President Hamid Karzai on his election as Afghanistan's first democratically elected president and we look forward to his inauguration next month."\nBritain, Germany and France also wished Karzai well.\nHigh turnout and the lack of major violence on polling day "demonstrates the scale of the transformation that has already taken place in Afghanistan in the three years since the overthrow of the Taliban," British Prime Minister Tony Blair said.\nNATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, who bulked up the alliance's Afghan security force during the poll, said he looked forward to working with Karzai "in helping Afghanistan build a better, safer future."\nThe election itself was delayed from June because of insecurity and logistical problems. The result was then held up by weeks of mudslinging by Karzai's challengers who threatened to boycott the outcome.\nIn its final report released Wednesday, the panel confirmed problems with ballot stuffing and with ink used to mark people's fingers to prevent multiple voting.\nBut it said there was "no evidence" that the problems were widespread or that they favored only Karzai.\n"There were shortcomings," Staffan Darnolf, a Swedish election expert on the panel, said at a news conference. "But they could not have materially affected the overall result."\nA spokesman for Karzai, who was in the United Arab Emirates for the funeral of its late president, said his camp was "very glad to finally have the result we wanted" and he appealed to rivals to put a bruising campaign behind them.\n"We are starting a new life, a new Afghanistan and we hope everyone with cooperate with its reconstruction," Hamed Elmi said.\nKarzai was expected to make a victory speech in the Afghan capital on Thursday.\nHowever, his nearest rival, former Education Minister Yunus Qanooni, refused to concede defeat, raising the risk of political instability in a country slowly emerging from a quarter-century of war.\nQanooni's running mate Syed Hussein Alemi Balkhi said the report was "unacceptable" though he stopped short of saying they would reject the result.\nQanooni won 16.3 percent of the vote, ahead of Hazara chieftain Mohammed Mohaqeq with 11.7 percent.\nMohaqeq, who has vowed "never" to recognize Karzai's victory, declined to comment on Wednesday.\nKarzai, who will be inaugurated in early November, has vowed to accelerate the slow rebuilding of a country shattered by war and drought with the goal of doubling the income of ordinary Afghans by 2009.\nBut any attempt to focus on the economy will be complicated by the challenge of confronting warlords and drug traffickers even as a stubborn insurgency grinds on.\nThe country's insecurity also has been highlighted by an ongoing hostage crisis involving three foreign election helpers.\nThe abductions last week have been claimed by a splinter group of the Taliban, but officials also suspect the involvement of militia leaders resisting Karzai's growing authority.\nKarzai won more than 90 percent in some regions dominated by his fellow Pashtuns in the south and east of the country and was the top candidate in every major city.\nStill, he lost out across a swathe of the north and center, where people opted for candidates from their own minority groups, underlining the ethnic divides left by years of fighting.