Posted on 06/19/2005 6:03:41 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: June 19, 2005
TEHRAN, June 18 - The race for the presidency in Iran was thrown into turmoil on Saturday when the third-place finisher accused conservative hard-liners of rigging the election and cutting him out of the runoff vote next week, which will be between a former president and the conservative mayor of Tehran.
The accusation of voting irregularities came from Mehdi Karroubi, a cleric and former speaker of Parliament known as a conciliator, who said he would continue to press his case publicly unless the country's supreme religious leader ordered an independent investigation.
It was a bold move in a country that does not generally tolerate such forms of public dissent, and it threw an element of confusion and uncertainty into the race just as the authorities were finalizing the election results, planning for the runoff and pointing to the outcome as a validation of this country's religion-based system of government.
The Interior Ministry issued final figures Saturday night, saying the former two-term president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, would face off against the hard-line mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a runoff it said would probably be held next Friday. It was unclear what, if any, effect the accusations of fraud would have on the planned vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Ping!
Just don't ask Jimma Carter to go in and confirm things.
"Dr. Moin said in a statement that military forces in the country joined together with some political organizations to rig the election"
Militarization of the regime has been speculated about more and more over the past year.
I did have to laugh at this............
"When asked by Iranian reporters on Saturday about the difference between the vote tally of the Guardian Council and the Interior Ministry, Mr. Khatami said: "Eventually they should be exactly the same. One or 2 percent is not important."
It's been "military enforced" all along. What's being speculated is that the military actually takes over.
I'm not so sure that the Guardian Council will allow Rafsanjani to win in the second round. Time will tell.
Well, it will certainly tell us a lot about the direction they're heading if they choose Ahmadinejad.
BUMP
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