Iran Moderate Says Hard-Liners Rigged Election

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.

Source: New York Times

Hmm, it looks like the politics are getting interesting in Iran. I have no way of knowing whether this accusation is true, or just the whining of an election loser, such as what happens in the United States.

I wouldn't be surprised if was indeed a conspiracy though, the Iranian hard-ilne mullahs are scared to death of losing any power to more progressive moderate voices.

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I doubt whoever wins the election will make any difference.

Iran is run by religious radicals, who are not elected.

Iran is a good example of what happens when a nation is run by religious ignorance. People who speak out are tortured, killed and buried in unmarked graves. The government thinks it has some divine right to possess nuclear warheads.

Can you say, "A chicken running around with its head cut off?"
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Originally posted by slank
The government thinks it has some divine right to possess nuclear warheads.

What gives any government the right to possess nuclear warheads, exactly?

There was always going to be irony in George W Bush poking around in foreign election processes labelling fraud when the result is disagreeable. I suggest that if there is going to be widespread fraud then the worst of it will be in the run-off itself.

ma, what? where does anyone mention bush saying anything? people like you need to stop turning everything into a bush bashing thread, really, grow out of it already.

[edit on 19-6-2005 by namehere]

Bush's criticism of the Iran election process has been voiced by him a couple of times in the past 72 hours. I don't mind whether it has been mentioned previously in this thread, now it has been. It's pertinent that Bush would seek to criticize the likely outcome of the election as it is representative of (at least his administration's) official US position.

I think if Rafsanjani gets elected, he will be in a good position to stick it to the hardliners. This is not some guy that came out of nowhere, he actually has an existing powerbase within Iran. He's also called for more transparency in Iran's nuclear program, political reforms, & reaaproachment with the West.

Not that it matters, I believe the US has made the decision to attack already, and no amount of compromise on the Iranan side is likely to prevent this. Not unless the oilfields dry up