<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>Protests greet Ahmadinejad victory
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Iran President's main rival cries foul over poll result as his supporters clash with riot police </TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
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Supporters of President Ahmadinejad flashing the victory sign after his landslide win yesterday in the presidential vote. He got nearly twice as many votes as his main rival. -- PHOTO: AFP
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Teheran - Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a landslide victory in Iran's hotly disputed presidential vote, according to official results yesterday that triggered mass opposition protests and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals.
Riot police clashed with protesters in unrest not seen for a decade as thousands of supporters of main challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets shouting 'Down with the dictator' after final results showed Mr Ahmadinejad winning almost 63 per cent of the vote.
Moderate former premier Mousavi cried foul over election irregularities and warned that the vote could lead to 'tyranny', as some of his supporters were beaten by baton-wielding police.
The interior minister said Mr Mousavi had won less than 34 per cent of the vote, giving Mr Ahmadinejad another four-year term in a result that dashed Western hopes of change and set the scene for a possible domestic power struggle.
Iran's all-powerful Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed Mr Ahmadinejad's victory and urged the country to unite behind him after the most heated election campaign since the Islamic Revolution.
The vote outcome appears to have galvanised a grassroots movement for change after 30 years of restrictive clerical rule in a country where 60 per cent of the population was born after the revolution.
The scale of Mr Ahmadinejad's victory - he took nearly twice as many votes as Mr Mousavi with counting almost complete after last Friday's poll - upset widespread expectations that the race would at least go to a second round.
Turnout was a record 85 per cent of Iran's 46.2 million eligible voters. Two other candidates received only a fraction of the vote.
The results flowed quickly after polls closed, defying expectations of a nail-biter showdown and bringing immediate charges of vote-rigging by Mr Mousavi.
'I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade. The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardise the pillars of the Islamic republic and will establish tyranny,' Mr Mousavi said in a statement.
He had been due to hold a news conference, but police at the venue turned journalists away, saying it was cancelled.
His supporters set up barricades of burning tyres, charging that the result was the work of a dictatorship.
The clashes in central Teheran were the most serious disturbances in the capital since student-led protests in 1999, and showed the potential for the showdown over the vote to spill over into further violence and challenges to the Islamic establishment.
Mr Ahmadinejad accused his rivals of undermining the Islamic republic by advocating detente with the West.
Mr Mousavi said the President's 'extremist' foreign policy had humiliated Iranians.
That helped make him the hero of a youth-driven movement seeking greater liberties and a gentler face for Iran abroad.
Ayatollah Khamenei closed the door on any chance that he could use his limitless powers to intervene in the dispute over the election results. He called the result a 'divine assessment'.
Western analysts abroad greeted the results with disbelief, and feared they could further complicate efforts by United States President Barack Obama to reach out to Teheran. Reuters, AP, AFP
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Iran President's main rival cries foul over poll result as his supporters clash with riot police </TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
Supporters of President Ahmadinejad flashing the victory sign after his landslide win yesterday in the presidential vote. He got nearly twice as many votes as his main rival. -- PHOTO: AFP
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->Teheran - Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a landslide victory in Iran's hotly disputed presidential vote, according to official results yesterday that triggered mass opposition protests and furious complaints of cheating from his defeated rivals.
Riot police clashed with protesters in unrest not seen for a decade as thousands of supporters of main challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi took to the streets shouting 'Down with the dictator' after final results showed Mr Ahmadinejad winning almost 63 per cent of the vote.
Moderate former premier Mousavi cried foul over election irregularities and warned that the vote could lead to 'tyranny', as some of his supporters were beaten by baton-wielding police.
The interior minister said Mr Mousavi had won less than 34 per cent of the vote, giving Mr Ahmadinejad another four-year term in a result that dashed Western hopes of change and set the scene for a possible domestic power struggle.
Iran's all-powerful Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed Mr Ahmadinejad's victory and urged the country to unite behind him after the most heated election campaign since the Islamic Revolution.
The vote outcome appears to have galvanised a grassroots movement for change after 30 years of restrictive clerical rule in a country where 60 per cent of the population was born after the revolution.
The scale of Mr Ahmadinejad's victory - he took nearly twice as many votes as Mr Mousavi with counting almost complete after last Friday's poll - upset widespread expectations that the race would at least go to a second round.
Turnout was a record 85 per cent of Iran's 46.2 million eligible voters. Two other candidates received only a fraction of the vote.
The results flowed quickly after polls closed, defying expectations of a nail-biter showdown and bringing immediate charges of vote-rigging by Mr Mousavi.
'I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade. The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardise the pillars of the Islamic republic and will establish tyranny,' Mr Mousavi said in a statement.
He had been due to hold a news conference, but police at the venue turned journalists away, saying it was cancelled.
His supporters set up barricades of burning tyres, charging that the result was the work of a dictatorship.
The clashes in central Teheran were the most serious disturbances in the capital since student-led protests in 1999, and showed the potential for the showdown over the vote to spill over into further violence and challenges to the Islamic establishment.
Mr Ahmadinejad accused his rivals of undermining the Islamic republic by advocating detente with the West.
Mr Mousavi said the President's 'extremist' foreign policy had humiliated Iranians.
That helped make him the hero of a youth-driven movement seeking greater liberties and a gentler face for Iran abroad.
Ayatollah Khamenei closed the door on any chance that he could use his limitless powers to intervene in the dispute over the election results. He called the result a 'divine assessment'.
Western analysts abroad greeted the results with disbelief, and feared they could further complicate efforts by United States President Barack Obama to reach out to Teheran. Reuters, AP, AFP
