Karzai declared elected president

Hamid Karzai has been declared president of Afghanistan, after election officials scrapped a planned second round of voting. The announcement comes a day after Mr Karzai's sole challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, pulled out of the race. Abdullah, who had demanded the removal of key poll officials, said the vote would not have been fair. The first round had been marred by fraud. The US responded by saying Karzai was Afghanistan's "legitimate leader". On Monday a spokesman for the Independent Election Commission (IEC), Azizullah Lodin, declared that President Karzai, "the only candidate for the second round", had been "elected president of Afghanistan". He said the second round on Nov. 7 was being scrapped to save money, for security reasons and to prevent further setbacks that could damage Afghanistan politically and economically.