Afghanistan's Karzai faces critical test

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai will have to prove his legitimacy by reaching out to his opponents, reforming a government many view as corrupt and incompetent and quelling a revived Taliban insurgency.

Afghan election officials declared Karzai president for another five-year term on Monday after scrapping a planned election run-off following the withdrawal of his only rival, Abdullah Abdullah, who complained about the credibility of the election process.

Eight years after Washington picked him to lead an interim government following the overthrow of the Taliban, Karzai's relationship with his Western backers has grown increasingly strained, with widespread fraud in the first round of voting further souring ties.

As a Pashtun -- Afghanistan's largest ethnic group -- the 51-year-old Karzai has strong grassroots support in the south and east and had been widely expected to win a second round.

But after his flawed win Karzai is under immense pressure to negotiate with Abdullah -- who has emerged as a national figurehead in the post-election drama -- to reach some sort of deal on the shape of the next government.

He will most likely need to give up some cabinet positions to Abdullah's camp in order to make it more representative. Abdullah's support base is mainly among Tajiks in the north.

To make matters worse the weakened president faces a resurgent Taliban, who have taken advantage of the post-election turmoil to launch increasingly bold attacks.

Karzai himself has survived at least three assassination attempts, the most recent in April 2008 while attending a military parade close to the presidential palace.

Balding with a trim salt-and-pepper beard, Karzai is a chief of the Popalzai tribal group of the Pashtuns, the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan, and hails from a royalist family with a tradition of public service.

Born in Kandahar on December 24, 1957, the fourth of seven sons, Karzai went to school in Kabul before going to India to study for a masters degree in political science.

Politics became his passion, and he did not marry until his 40s, when he wed an Afghan doctor active in helping refugees in Pakistan. They have a daughter.

Karzai and his relatives, like millions of Afghans, fled to Pakistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion. In exile, he helped fund and arm anti-Soviet fighters.

He served as deputy foreign minister from 1992 to 1994, after the fall of the Soviet-backed government, but quit as the government collapsed in internecine strife that reduced whole districts of Kabul to rubble.

At first supporting the Taliban, Karzai later worked from Pakistan to overthrow the austere Islamists. He returned to Afghanistan in late 2001 when he was appointed president of the country's interim government in a U.N.-sponsored deal in Germany.

Endemic government corruption, slow development, his alliance with former militia leaders and civilian casualties caused by foreign forces have eroded his public support. Karzai says talks with moderate insurgents are his top priority.

(Reporting by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Paul Tait and Alex Richardson)