KABUL, Nov 2 (AFP) - Hamid Karzai moved closer Tuesday to being officially declared Afghanistan's first popularly elected president when an independent panel declared that its investigation into election fraud would not affect the poll's result.
Karzai, interim president for the past three years, won 55.4 percent of the more than eight million ballots cast in the historic October 9 election to secure the required simple majority in the first round of voting.
But the UN-Afghan electoral commission known as the Joint Electoral Manegement Body (JEMB) has been awaiting the outcome of an investigation into complaints by all 18 presidential candidates before officially declaring Karzai the winner.
JEMB spokesman Sultan Baheen said Tuesday the panel of three international experts had found that any irregularities would not affect the result.
"The panel investigation does not affect the overall result of the election," Baheen told AFP, but said the JEMB still had to examine the panel's report before announcing whether it considered the election valid.
"We should review and discuss and decide in no more than two days," he said.
Baheen said the panel had found some problems but not of such magnitude as to affect the result.
The panel was made up of Briton David Mathieson, former Canadian diplomat Craig Jenness and Staffan Darnolf from Sweden.
It was formed two days after the election to appease 14 of the 18 candidates, who had called for the poll to be annulled due to what they termed massive fraud.
All the candidates, including Karzai, submitted more than 100 documents to the panel. Many complaints pointed out that supposedly indelible ink, used to stain electors' fingers to prevent multiple voting, washed off easily.
Despite the fraud claims Karzai's closest challenger Yunus Qanooni, who got 16.3 percent, conceded defeat over a week ago.
Mohammad Mohaqeq, a warlord and leader of the Hazara ethnic minority, was third with 11.6 percent, followed by Uzbek military strongman Abdul Rashid Dostam on 10.0 percent.
French-speaking Tajik intellectual Abdul Latif Pedram was a distant fifth with 1.4 percent. The only woman to run for election, paediatrician Masooda Jalal, polled sixth with 1.2 percent of the votes, beating 12 candidates.
Once his victory is certified, Karzai will become the country's first elected leader after rule by colonial powers, monarchs, communists, Soviet occupiers, warlords and the fundamentalist Taliban.
Karzai has led two interim administrations since US-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda network.
His inauguration as elected president will take place 30 days after the formal announcement of his victory and he will serve for five years.
11/02/2004 13:32 GMT - AFP