KABUL (AFP) - Incumbent leader Hamid Karzai is the winner of Afghanistan`s first presidential election, the spokesman for the election commission told AFP.
"Karzai is the winner," said Sultan Baheen of the Joint Electoral Management Body, three and a half weeks after the landmark October 9 ballot.
The results of Afghanistan`s first ever presidential election will be formally certified in a public ceremony in Kabul at 3:00pm (1030 GMT), Baheen said.
Baheen named Karzai the victor shortly after the release of an expert panel`s report on alleged irregularities on voting day.
The UN-appointed panel found that "shortcomings" on election day, including the failure and mix-up of indelible ink meant to stain voters` fingers to prevent multiple voting, did not impact the ballot`s outcome.
"There were shortcomings ... but they could not have materially affected the overall result," the panel`s report concluded, according to a copy sighted by AFP earlier Wednesday.
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.
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.
11/03/2004 - 10:52 GMT - AFP