MOSCOW, November 2 (RIA Novosti) - Hamid Karzai was declared the winner of Afghanistan's presidential election on Monday when officials scrapped the second round of voting following the withdrawal of his opponent.
Abdullah Abdullah was Karzai's only challenger in the November 7 runoff, but the former Afghan foreign minister announced on Sunday that he would not take part in the second round due to the president's refusal to dismiss the nation's top election official and take other action to prevent fraud.
The runoff was scheduled after Karzai, who was officially given 54.6% of the first-round vote, bowed to international pressure and accepted the findings of the UN-backed Electoral Complaints Commission, which said the election was tainted by wide-scale fraud and no candidate had received over 50% of the vote, the threshold for automatic victory.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is currently on a visit to Afghanistan and has scheduled meetings with Karzai and Abdullah.
