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No possibility of scrapping Prez
poll results: Iran
WSN Bureau
Tehran: After
holding the country in its tight grip for 30 years, Iran’s clerical
rulers are in disarray and battling the most serious challenge to
the Islamic regime since the revolution that unseated the Shah in
1979.
Iran’s top
election body on Tuesday ruled out cancelling the disputed
presidential vote, the world voiced increasing alarm at the violent
crackdown on the million-odd opposition demonstrators protesting on
the streets of Tehran.
The
demonstrators had gathered in a Tehran square in defiance of the
Revolutionary Guards, the elite force set up in the wake of the 1979
revolution, which warned of a “decisive and revolutionary” riposte
to protests.
 The
backlash came in the wake of a statement by the powerful Guardians
Council spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai, who told the national
English-language state run television Press TV that the recent
presidential election had witnessed no major fraud or breach and
therefore there was no possibility of an annulment taking place.
Supporters of
Mir Hossein Mousavi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s nearest rival
have been staging almost daily protest rallies, alleging fraud and
widespread irregularities in the June 12 election which returned the
hardline Ahmadinejad to power for another four years.
 World
leaders have called for an immediate halt to state violence against
the protesters, with state media reporting that at least 17 people
killed and many more wounded in the unrest that has convulsed the
nation for 11 days. The unofficial tally of deaths is much more,
sources say.
The streets of
Tehran remained tense on Tuesday, the day after hundreds of riot
police armed with steel clubs and firing tear gas, many riding on
motorbikes, broke up an opposition rally of about 1,000 people.
 On
Monday, the Guardian Council had conceded there had been voting
irregularities in 50 districts, including local vote counts that
exceeded the number of eligible voters. However, it said they were
not enough to affect the overall result and incumbent Ahmadinejad
had indeed won by a landslide.
The council’s
spokesman said most of the irregularities happened before the
election, not during or after voting. Election results showed
Ahmadinejad winning the 12 June election by a landslide, taking 63
percent of the vote, almost double that of Mousavi.
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Iran rises
The sight of a thousands of demonstrators on the streets of
Tehran is bound to stir the hearts of freedom lovers the world
over. That is especially true when the chief butt of popular
anger, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is considered by some as a
Holocaust-denying bully bent on getting his hands on a nuclear
weapon. Yet outsiders tempted to shout their support for the
protesters should tread carefully for fear of achieving the
opposite of what they intend.
No one can see into the back rooms of the clerical establishment
or into the bunkers of the Revolutionary Guard. No one knows the
real results of the vote. No one can predict how long the street
protests will last or how ready the regime is to use force and
the price it would pay in its own people’s blood. Yet something
momentous has happened in a pivotal country in the most
combustible part of the world. Having fatally misread its own
people, Iran’s government must now decide whether to back down
or to crack down. |
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An independent
British analysis of the disputed election results has found
irregularities in the reported turnout, as well as “implausible”
swings in the vote in favour of Ahmadinejad.
Analysts from St
Andrew’s University and the Chatham House think-tank said votes in
favour of Ahmadinejad in a third of the provinces would have
required an “unlikely scenario” of voting patterns.
“Our
investigation shows that the number of districts they announced is
not correct. Based on our preliminary report, 50 districts face the
issue,” the Guardian Council’s Kadkhodai said.
The Fars news
agency reported that Ahmadinejad’s three challengers complained that
between 80 to 170 districts of the total 366 had seen a greater
number of votes cast than there were registered voters.
Mir Hossein
Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezai have jointly cited 646
irregularities in the June 12 election which has triggered a wave of
angry protests in Tehran and other cities across Iran. Officials
said turnout was around 85 percent of the 46.2 million electorate.
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World must respect Iran, says
Venezuela’s Chavez
CARACAS: Taking his characteristic divergent stand on the issue,
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said that the world must
respect Iran and the election “triumph” of its incumbent
president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “We call on the world to respect
Iran because there are attempts to undermine the strength of the
Iranian revolution,” Chavez said in his weekly radio and
television address on Sunday. As usual, the comments ran
contrary to European and US criticism of the Iranian
government’s violent crackdown on opposition protesters and
media censorship of unrest sparked by perceived fraud in June 12
elections that gave Ahmadinejad a new mandate. “Ahmadinejad’s
triumph was a triumph all the way. They are trying to stain
Ahmadinejad’s triumph and through that weaken the government and
the Islamic revolution. I know they will not succeed,” Chavez
said. The firebrand leftist leader said he had called
Ahmadinejad after the elections to express his solidarity. The
Venezuelan foreign ministry issued a statement blasting “the
fierce and unfounded campaign from outside to discredit” the
Iranian president. |
UN chief Ban
Ki-moon also voiced growing concern about the violence and urged an
immediate stop to the arrests, threats and use of force. He appealed
to the government and the opposition to resolve peacefully their
differences through dialogue and legal means.
The White House
bemoaned the lack of “justice” in
Iran,
and said President Barack Obama had been moved by scenes of
demonstrators braving repression, especially women.
Some European
governments have begun urging nationals to avoid travel to Iran,
caught up in the worst crisis since the revolution 30 years ago that
is threatening the very foundations of the Islamic republic.
Iran has singled
out Britain, as well as the United States, as one of the leading
instigators of what it says is foreign “meddling” in the post
election chaos.
The Fars news
agency quoted student leader Esmail Tahmouressi as warning of
another “November 4”, the date when radical students seized the US
embassy after the 1979 revolution, leading to a rupture of ties
between Washington and Tehran that remains to this day.
24
June 2009
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