Election officials declared Afghan President Hamid Karzai the winner of a new five-year term Monday, canceling a runoff election scheduled for Saturday just one day after Karzai’s sole challenger quit the race. The decision ended weeks of political drift since a first presidential poll in August was found invalid because of massive fraud.
In the capital, a sense of relief was instant and palpable. Kabul residents honked horns and exchanged celebratory text messages as the news spread. American, European and U.N. officials rushed to congratulate Karzai and pledged to work closely with his new administration.
President Hamid Karzai’s challenger plans to call for a boycott of next weekend’s runoff election in an attempt to force the vote’s postponement until spring, his campaign manager said — a move that would dim U.S. hopes for a stable Afghan government for months.
Karzai rejected Abdullah Abdullah’s conditions for next Saturday’s vote, including removing top election officials whom the challenger accused of involvement in cheating in the first-round balloting in August.
Abdullah has called a press conference for 10 a.m. Sunday to announce his final decision after Afghans and Westerners close to the challenger said he would withdraw. His campaign manager Satar Murad said the candidate might still change his mind, but that "as of now" he planned to call for a boycott.
What will be the test of legitimacy for Afghanistan’s elections?
No-one is using the age-old electoral mantra "free and fair".
It is hard to find anyone who expects Afghanistan’s third major poll since 2001 to be fully free or fully fair.
These are the first elections since 2001 run primarily by Afghans – albeit with international support.
There’s been an unprecedented level of political debate and lively campaigning in this first truly contested poll.
But one embittered election expert described it as a "squandered opportunity".
U.S. Sen. Jim Webb obtained the release Saturday of American John Yettaw, who had been sentenced to seven years of hard labor in Myanmar for visiting detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.
Webb will accompany Yettaw to Bangkok, Thailand, Sunday on a military aircraft, his office said.
Webb also met for about 40 minutes Saturday with Suu Kyi, a witness said. It was not known what they discussed.
Tegucigalpa, Honduras – The month-old mediation effort by Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to resolve Honduras’s political crisis is foundering under the near-universal opposition of Honduras’s top leaders to permitting deposed President Manuel Zelaya to return to power.
Political, business, church, and media leaders say they can’t trust Mr. Zelaya to keep the commitments that would limit his authority under the Arias plan because, they say, Zelaya repeatedly violated the Constitution in the days that led up to his June 28 ouster over a proposed public vote that they think was aimed at extending his stay in office.
Khirbet Silm, south Lebanon – Israel and its arch foe Hezbollah are waging an increasingly heated war of words, fanning concerns about another bruising encounter between the two enemies who fought a devastating but inconclusive conflict in 2006.
The governing centre-right party of Albania’s Prime Minister has claimed victory in elections held last weekend.
With most results in, the Democrat party headed by PM Sali Berisha was narrowly ahead of its Socialist rivals, but possibly short of a majority.
However, the Socialists accused their rivals of manipulating the vote in order to win the election.
Election observers said the vote showed a marked improvement on previous polls, though there were still some concerns.
Mr Berisha said the results were a "vote of confidence" for his party and pledged that he would focus on moving Albania towards European Union membership.
