Election officials declared Afghan President Hamid Karzai the winner of a new five-year term Monday, canceling a runoff election scheduled for Saturday just one day after Karzai’s sole challenger quit the race. The decision ended weeks of political drift since a first presidential poll in August was found invalid because of massive fraud.
In the capital, a sense of relief was instant and palpable. Kabul residents honked horns and exchanged celebratory text messages as the news spread. American, European and U.N. officials rushed to congratulate Karzai and pledged to work closely …

Somalia’s moderate Islamist leader Sheikh Sharif Ahmed won the presidency on Saturday and vowed to end conflict in the Horn of Africa nation, make peace with neighbours and rule with honesty and justice.
Legislators applauded, and Ahmed smiled and raised his arms aloft, after winning the election around 4 a.m. local time (0100) in a run-off vote during an all-night parliament session.
Analysts say Ahmed has a real chance of reuniting Somalis, given his Islamist roots and the backing of parliament. But reconciling the country’s 10 million people and stopping 18 …

New Zealanders chose a multimillionaire former foreign currency trader Saturday to lead them through the global financial meltdown, handing long-serving left-wing Prime Minister Helen Clark a crushing election defeat.
John Key’s conservative National Party easily won power in New Zelaland, known internationally for its pristine environment and as the backdrop to the “Lord of the Rings” movies.
“Today, New Zealand has spoken, in their hundreds of thousands, and they have voted for change,” Key told supporters at a victory celebration in Auckland.

Lusaka – Acting president Rupiah Banda was announced the winner of Zambia’s presidential by-election Sunday, snatching victory from the jaws of opposition leader Michael Sata amid accusations from the opposition of vote-rigging.
Banda, 71-year-old candidate of the ruling Movement for Multi-Party Democracy, took 40.09 per cent of the vote to Sata’s 38.13 per cent in Thursday’s election, Electoral Commission of Zambia chairwoman Florence Mumba announced.

In Maldives, a political activist who spent years in prison has won the country’s first democratic presidential election. Mohamed Nasheed has defeated President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, who led the country for three decades, but was widely criticized for ruling like a dictator. Anjana Pasricha has a report from New Delhi.
Thousands of jubilant supporters of Mohamed Nasheed danced and cheered in the streets in Male, Wednesday, after the Election Commission pronounced him the victor of the runoff election.

German Agriculture Minister Horst Seehofer has been appointed premier of the state of Bavaria.
He was appointed by the regional parliament in Munich by an overwhelming majority.
The 59 year-old Seehofer has handed in his resignation as agriculture minister in the federal government to Chancellor Angela Merkel in order to take up his new post.

Lithuania’s Homeland Union, which won parliamentary elections, signed an agreement with three other parties to begin talks aimed at forging a new government program.
Former Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius’s Homeland Union, which won 44 seats in elections that ended with a runoff vote yesterday, is seeking to form a Cabinet with the Liberal Movement, the Liberal and Center Union and the Nation’s Resurrection Party. A coalition would give the four parties control of 79 of Parliament’s 141 seats.

SAO PAULO, Brazil – Brazil’s ruling party lost its chance to retake control of South America’s biggest city on Sunday, while an ex-guerrilla who once kidnapped a U.S. ambassador failed in his bid to become mayor of Rio de Janeiro.
Incumbent Sao Paulo Mayor Gilberto Kassab of the conservative Democrat Party easily won re-election in a second round of voting, beating Marta Suplicy of the Workers Party by 21 percentage points.

Election officials in Azerbaijan say a complete vote count confirms incumbent Ilham Aliyev’s landslide victory in last week’s presidential vote.