Karzai Wins Outright

Despite what appear to be pro-forma complaints of irregularities by the losing candidates, Afghanistan's first election ever has been a stunning success.

Hamid Karzai clinched a majority of the votes cast in Afghanistan's first presidential election, near-complete results showed Sunday.
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By Sunday evening, Karzai had received 4,240,041 votes, more than half of the estimated 8,129,935 valid votes cast in the Oct. 9 ballot, the joint U.N.-Afghan electoral board said.
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Victory would make him Afghanistan's first popularly chosen leader
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U.N. spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva said the panel met with election observers, some of whom have already said they saw nothing on polling day to invalidate the result...
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"The efforts of terrorists will be fruitless because the Afghan people are determined to continue on the path of reconstruction, democracy and stability," he [Karzai] said in a statement.

His real work now will be to keep progress in line with expectations.