A day after the surprise drop-out of challenger Abdullah Abdullah from the Afghanistan elections, current President Hamid Karzai was announced President on October 2, 2009. Abdullah and Karzai were to go head to head in the second round elections on October 7, but Abdullah announced he would not participate because it would be “at least as fraudulent as the badly tainted first round in August”. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/11/02/MNIK1ADQ5T.DTL The drop-out of Abdullah immediately caused the Afghan election officials to cancel the run-off, and declared Karzai winner based on the first round. The official statement by the commission's chief Azizullah Ludin: "The Independent Election Commission declares the esteemed Hamid Karzai as the president ... because he was the winner of the first round and the only candidate in the second round." http://alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SP253910.htm

The first round of the Afghanistan elections were held on August 20, 2009, after a long debate on the actual date. The Karzai dominated IEC initially proposed elections to be held in 2010, together with parliamentary elections. Opposition accused Karzai of stalling and trying illegally prolong his presidential term.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7916607.stmhttp://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/03/02/karzai_leave/
Main candidates on the first round were Dr. Abdullah Abdullah for United National Front, Hamid Karzai and Ramazan Bashardost, both Independent. http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/08/karzai-jockeys-to-stay-in-power/http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/afghan-opposition-picks-candidate-20090416-a8j5.htmlhttp://www.kabulpress.org/my/spip.php?article3456

• The days before the elections and the election day itself were marred by violence, as the Taliban had rejected the elections, calling it a "program of the crusaders".http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6802683.ece
• Immediately after the elections, reports of fraud, intimidation and ballot stuffing emerged. http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5i3xqZSi2U_mgENDm3TK0-yqI7I_g
• During August and early September, partial results were regularly announced, resulting in uncertified final results to be announced on September 16, 2009. According to these results, Karzai won with 54.6% of cast votes, resulting in a majority win, which would eliminate the need for a second round. Runner-up Dr. Abdullah Abdullah received only 27.8% of all cast votes.http://www.iec.org.af/results/leadingCandidate.html
• The International voting committee (EEC) estimated that at least 10% of all votes were fraudulent. The ECC took until October 19, to investigate all fraud reports.http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/09/16/afghan-election016.html

On October 19, 2009 an international commission investigating irregularities during the Afghanistan Elections reported that current president Karzai did not reach a majority during the first round, held on August 20, 2009. This announcement was later adopted by the IEC, the Afghanistan Independent Election Commission, requiring a second elections round. http://features.csmonitor.com/globalnews/2009/10/19/afghanistan-election-karzai-stripped-of-majority-win/
Karzai and his team rejected the review results as a political decision, but later accepted the second round. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8314302.stm

On October 20, 2009, Hamid Karzai announced the second round elections will be held on November 7, 2009 between himself and Abdullah Abdullah.http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/10/20/afghanistan.election.fraud/index.html