Afghanistan's historic presidential election closed on Saturday without any of the feared large-scale violence, but the vote was thrown into turmoil when most candidates said a flawed process made the poll invalid.
All 15 of President Hamid Karzai's rivals said they were withdrawing from the election because systems to prevent illegal multiple voting had gone awry. The move effectively left Karzai, the favorite to win anyway, as the only candidate in the fray.
Election officials refused to halt the process, which appeared to have been embraced enthusiastically by most voters across the rugged Islamic nation despite fears of violence by Taliban militants.
[...]
U.S.-backed Karzai also said the vote could not be negated.
[Typical al-Reuters! "US-backed Karzai"...Karzai was chosen at an international conference in Germany, but now he's "America's man," huh?--Jen]
"It's too late in the day for a boycott," he told a news conference. "Millions have voted in the rain, the snow and the dust storm and we should respect their decision.
"Just because 15 people have said 'No', we can't deny the votes of millions."
[...]
The impoverished nation was voting to choose its first elected president and perhaps end a quarter-century of war.
[...]
But the mood in most places appeared irrepressibly upbeat over Afghanistan's transition to some kind of democracy.
"This is one of the happiest days of my life," said Sayed Aminullah as he cast his vote at Eid Gah Mosque in the capital.
"I don't care about the result. All I care is that we are having an election. This is a sign that things are improving for Afghanistan."
In Kandahar city, former headquarters of the Taliban, large crowds of men pushed to get into a polling center near the blue-tiled Kherqi Sharif mosque, but only a trickle of women, all in burqa veils, were seen entering a school opposite to vote.
"We came here to vote for peace and stability and freedom for women," said Raihana, a 37-year-old mother of eight who lived in exile in Iran for 14 years to flee war.
There were only scattered reports of election-related violence despite the Taliban's threats.
[...]
The opposition have long felt the international community was biased toward the incumbent.
[This holds true for any incumbent, from Karzai to Bush to John Howard of Australia.]
Afghan affairs expert and author Ahmed Rashid said: "There were irregularities, no doubt about it, but the opposition boycott was probably pre-planned and they jumped aboard the ink issue when it emerged.
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