AFGHANISTAN - Nov 3 - Karzai Declared Winner.

The election board declares Hamid Karzai the winner of the presidential election, capping a hazardous and often chaotic process that saw more than 8mn people brave threats and snow to vote for their leader for the first time. The announcement follows a three-week inquiry into alleged irregularities that prompted Karzai's challengers to question the poll's legitimacy - a claim officials pronounced insubstantial. Karzai, the US-backed incumbent, won 4.4mn votes, or 55.4%, beating Yunus Qanooni, his runner- up, by 39 points. Haji Mohammad Mohaqiq and Abdul Rashid Dostum, both from northern ethnic minorities, followed with 11.6% and 10% respectively. None of the other 14 candidates got more than 1.4%. Zakim Shah, head of the Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB), a UN-Afghan board overseeing the election, said: "His excellency Hamid Karzai...with 55.4%, is the winner of this historic election. We congratulate him and pray to Allah for his resounding success". Despite the declaration, Qanooni's campaign declined to concede, saying it would meet other candidates to determine its position. Karzai's campaign team had no comment. Shah said the celebratory mood was tempered by an unresolved hostage crisis involving three foreign JEMB officials. The kidnappers, who abducted the UN workers from a street in Kabul last week, set a new deadline of midnight Wednesday for demands that include the release of all prisoners from Guantanamo Bay. The JEMB held off from formally declaring a winner, pending an inquiry by an independent three-strong panel into candidates' complaints. Presenting the panel's report, Staffan Darnolf, a Swedish elections expert, said shortcomings in the election were not such that they could have "materially affected the overall result". The report said a muddle over indelible ink aimed at stopping voters from casting more than one ballot was "by far the most controversial and widely publicised issue", but that it was not politically motivated and multiple voting was not a significant problem. It acknowledged attempts at fraud, such as ballot-stuffing, but said: "This was neither widespread nor limited to the supporters of any one political candidate".