Guardian Council, No Faud found in Iran's election

GThe Globe And Mail: Iran's Guardian Council rules no fraud

Iran's top electoral body, the Guardian Council, found “no major fraud” in the disputed June 12 election and ruled out annulling the results, Iran's state TV Tuesday quoted a spokesman for the council as saying.

So there's the official reply to claims of fraud. This perty much ensures that there will be no recount or annulment as this comes from a very powerful body in the Iranian government.

This comes just 24 hours after the same body admitted to irregularities.
Earth Times article

Tehran - Iran's powerful Guardian Council said Sunday there were some irregularities in the June 12 presidential election, which has been widely disputed and triggered bloody street protests. The Guardian Council admitted that the number of votes collected in 50 cities was more than the number of eligible voters, the council's spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei told the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) channel.

Now, I suggest we all be cautious as to how we view this information.

I'm sure plenty of people are going to jump all over the use of the term "irregularities" and especially the phrase "found no major irregularities". I'm sure there's going to be a lot of focus on this particular choice of wording.

I'd like to point out that there are irregularities in every election. A spoiled ballot is an irregularity, for example.

I'm also sure that many are going to cry foul over the fact that the Guardian Counsel is a government agency appointed by the Ayatollah, who apparently supports Ahmadinejad.

Others will point out that they were the ones who initially made the irregularities public, but seem to have suddenly about-faced.

I suggest that these are important questions, but we need to stop with the knee-jerk, emotional reactionism and do our best to piece together what might actually be going on... or at lest to become better informed.