Mousavi renews call to annul election result

Latest update: 20/06/2009

- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - Iran - Iranian elections - Mirhossein Mousavi

According to one of his allies, Iran's defeated presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi told his supporters on Saturday that he would continue his path and was ready for martyrdom. The candidate renewed his call to cancel the election result.

By News Wires (text)

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AFP - Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi renewed on Saturday his call to cancel the result of last week's disputed election, his campaign website said.

In a letter to electoral watchdog, the Guardians Council, Mousavi said: "All these counts of irregularities plus many others that were mentioned in previous letters ... are reasons to cancel the election nationwide."

The letter was released on his campaign website, Ghalam News.

Mousavi cited several "irregularities" that were committed in the election, the letter said.

Some of them were "sealing of ballot boxes before the voting in most polling stations, shortage of ballot papers and limited voting time," the letter said.

His latest protest comes a day after Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ruled out fraud in the poll which saw incumbent hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emerging victorious.

Siding with Ahmadinejad in his first public appearance since the vote, Khamenei said: "The people have chosen whom they wanted."

Khamenei said there could be no doubting Ahmadinejad's re-election. "The legal mechanisms in our country do not allow cheating. How can one cheat with a margin of 11 million votes?" he asked.

Mousavi has repeatedly demanded a re-run of the poll, denouncing the election as a "shameful fraud."

Comments (3)

Information cut off

by Anonyme (not verified) - 21/06/2009 - 07:20

Every media is cut off here in Iran; nearly all of satellite TV channels are stopped, there is only some entertainment channels left. Including your TV and some other european channels such as Euronews have stopped working. They are now blocking TV with any language, I think they want even to prevent the images on those TV seen. Recently websites of most news channels have blocked, we had already some Farsi news sites like BBC Persian and VOA but now they have even blocked CNN, NBC, I think they have missed France24. Internet is extremely slow and most of times doesn't work.
Now I find that we are still living in mid-eval times, the outside world cannot offer any help to us, even though internet and satellite TV are western technologies, now Mullas have managed to dismantle all of them. Why the world doesn't attack their TV broadcasting by the same methods they are attacking world media? We, the people inside Iran are defenseless, what has happened to you?

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The Iranian Elections and a way to solve the impasse

by Anonyme (not verified) - 21/06/2009 - 04:08

Iran is going through the same period as Spain and other European countries did during the Inquisition. Religion must keep out of the realm of politics, because the two are not compatiable.
That is the biggest flaw in Islamic countries, where there is no defining line between religion and politics. What Mustafa Kemal Attaturk of Turkey did to the Imams when forming the republic was the best solution.

Outlaw all religious invo;vement in the politics of a country and presto you have created aqn ideal society. Politicians should not meddle in religious affairs any more than the Ayatullahs should meddle in politics. In the governance of a country, let not religious zealots become leaders, because that country will surely become an inferno.