Iran hardliners hail confirmation of Ahmadinejad win
Agence France-Presse | 06/30/2009 8:41 PM
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TEHRAN - Iran’s hardliners hailed on Tuesday the confirmation of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election win despite massive opposition protests over what many branded a rigged poll.
The country's powerful electoral watchdog confirmed on Monday the initial result of the disputed June 12 vote which gave Ahmadinejad a landslide victory over his nearest rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, after conducting a recount of 10 percent of the ballot boxes.
"Those who asked for the annulment of 10th presidential election are anti-revolutionary and against the regime," hardline cleric Ahmad Khatami told the official news agency IRNA, in an apparent reference to opposition groups led by Mousavi.
"If anyone said there was fraud in the election, he has lied and committed a sin," said the cleric, who on Friday called for the execution of rioters involved in the post-election unrest which has left at least 17 people dead.
Iran’s hardline media too trumpeted the ruling on the disputed poll, which triggered the worst crisis since the 1979 revolution and rattled the pillars of the Islamic regime.
"The validity of the 10th presidential election was confirmed," proclaimed a front-page headline in the hardline Kayan newspaper, but the reformist media largely played down the decision.
The Guardians Council, a 12-member unelected body of clerics and jurists, said on Monday it had confirmed the results after a "thorough and comprehensive investigation" into the election.
"The majority of the objections were not deemed infringements or fraud and were only minor irregularities that occur in any election," Guardians Council chief Ayatollah Ahmad Janati said.
"Thus we confirm the result of the 10th presidential election."
But Mousavi's camp was defiant, reiterating its demand for the scrapping of the vote he has denounced as a "shameful fraud".
The United States also warned that the confirmation of Ahmadinejad’s victory would not placate the opposition, and Italy warned of possible further sanctions against Iran.
Mousavi boycotted the partial recount after lodging complaints of widespread irregularities, along with two other defeated candidates, former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and ex-Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezai.
Opposition demonstrators took to the streets in vast numbers in the wake of the election in scenes of public anger not witnessed since the revolution, with unprecedented criticism of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
But in the last few days, demonstrations have been only sporadic in the face of a swift and sometimes brutal response by the authorities to stop any unauthorised public gatherings.
At least 17 people have been killed and many more wounded in the clashes, according to state media, while many hundreds of protestors, political activitists and journalists have been arrested.
Foreign media are banned from the streets under tight new restrictions imposed in the aftermath of the election.
According to the official results declared a day after the June 12 poll, Ahmadinejad won 63 percent of the vote against just 34 percent for Mousavi, a gap of 11 million votes.
Ahmadinejad's victory and the ensuing crackdown on opposition protests triggered a global outcry and saw relations between Tehran and London deteriorate with Iran accusing Britain of stoking the unrest.
Iran is holding four locally recruited British embassy staff after releasing five others detained for their alleged role in the post-election riots.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown slammed the arrests as "unacceptable" and demanded the immediate release of the four, while US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton described Iran's treatment of the staff as "deplorable."
She also said the limited recount was unlikely to satisfy the opposition.
"Obviously, they have a huge credibility gap with their own people as to the election process, and I don't think that's going to disappear by any finding of a limited review of a relatively small number of ballots," she said.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi warned of more penalties against Iran, which is already under three sets of UN sanctions over its refusal to halt sensitive nuclear work.
Berlusconi, who will chair the G8 summit from July 8 to 10, said: "Iran will be the first topic that we will deal with."
"According to the telephone conversations I have had with other leaders, I think we will go in the direction you indicated, namely sanctions."
The Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights said on Sunday that more than 2,000 people are in custody in Iran and hundreds more missing.
Rights group Amnesty said it was concerned that several opposition leaders may face torture, possibly to force televised 'confessions' as a prelude to unfair trials in which they could face the death penalty.
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