Iran May Recount Some Votes After Protesters Killed (Update2)
Share | Email | Print | A A A
By Ali Sheikholeslami and Henry Meyer
June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Iran’s Guardian Council, which supervises elections, may order a recount of some votes in the disputed presidential ballot after the biggest anti-government demonstrations since the Shah was deposed in 1979.
The council, made up of 12 clerics and lawyers, may authorize a second count in areas where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory was questioned, state television quoted Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the body’s spokesman, as saying in Tehran today. He said all three challengers in the June 12 election had made “vague” complaints and were asked to elaborate. Kadkhodaei didn’t say what proportion of the 39 million votes cast may be reviewed.
Supporters of former premier Mir Hossein Mousavi, who accuse the authorities of vote-rigging, plan a fourth day of demonstrations with a gathering in Tehran’s Valiasr Square, where Ahmadinejad’s supporters also plan to gather. As many as eight people were killed and 25 injured yesterday when security forces fired on protesters, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported, citing state radio.
“If you’re talking about the possibility, the possibility is not far from imagination,” Kadkhodaei said today at a news conference in Tehran, when asked by a reporter whether it was possible that disputed votes may be annulled. “But how accurate are the claims, that must be studied.” The Council ruled out a demand by opposition leaders to set aside the election result, Sky News reported, citing state television.
Social Freedoms
The Iranian rial fell for a second day, declining 0.8 percent to 9,915 against the dollar. The currency’s rate is managed by Bank Markazi, the central bank.
The protests are pitting young Iranians and more educated voters who want social freedoms and better ties with the West against the Islamic republic’s clerical rulers. Ahmadinejad is accused by his opponents of wrecking the economy, which suffers from high unemployment and inflation, and driving Iran into international isolation through his confrontation over the nuclear program.
Mousavi, 67, has called for the election result to be scrapped after the official tally gave him about 34 percent of the vote and the incumbent almost 63 percent.
The results announced by the Interior Ministry are tentative and must be verified by the Guardian Council, Kadkhodaei said. The opposition candidates’ complaints will be discussed in the next 10 days and the results will be announced, he added.
Excessive Violence
Human rights groups have accused state security forces of using excessive violence to quell the protests and said live ammunition was used on demonstrators in several Iranian cities.
Mousavi called today for calm at demonstrations in Tehran. In a statement on his Web site, he said he won’t attend the event in the city planned for later today.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told Mousavi to pursue his complaint through legal channels and asked the Guardian Council to carefully consider the allegations, state television reported.
While such an investigation is little more than a “gesture,” the decision to examine the fairness of the election shows that the Iranian leadership feels it is under pressure, said Professor Anoush Ehteshami, a lecturer at the Centre for Iranian Studies at Durham University in northeastern England.
‘Era of Empires’
Ahmadinejad was today attending a meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia, with the leaders of Russia, China, India and Central Asian nations. At the event, the president said the U.S. and its allies are incapable of solving the global financial crisis, declaring, “The end of the era of empires is near.”
In what may be a sign of tensions within the ruling elite, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani held accountable the Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli for attacks on civilians and university students in Tehran in recent days, the Iranian Labor News Agency reported.
“What’s the meaning of attacking university students at midnight in their dormitory, or attacking Sobhan residential complex at 2:30 a.m. and troubling the residents?” Larijani said at the start of a Parliamentary session today, the news agency reported. “The interior minister is responsible for this and should answer.”
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president who was an adviser to one of the candidates in the election, ex-Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karrubi, was arrested overnight, Karrubi’s office said today. Another prominent activist, Saeed Hajjarian, was also held, according to Karrubi’s office.
‘Main Agents’
Security forces arrested the “main agents” behind post- election unrest and found them armed with guns and explosives, Sky News reported, citing Iran’s state television.
Iranian leaders will probably take decisive action to quell the protests, said Richard Bulliet, an Iran specialist at Columbia University.
“The regime will quell the discontent,” Bulliet, a professor of history at Columbia’s Middle East Institute, said by phone yesterday from New York. “It will be dampened down and the U.S. and foreign governments will have to resign themselves to dealing with the Ahmadinejad regime.”
Ahmadinejad, accused by rival candidates of unnecessarily stoking tensions with the West, may see success at the ballot box as a vindication of his policies. That could be a setback for the Obama administration’s policy of engaging Iran in dialogue, rather than ostracizing it, as a means to ensure the Islamic republic doesn’t acquire nuclear weapons.
‘World is Watching’
President Barack Obama said the “world is watching” the demonstrations. “We do believe the Iranian people and their voices should be heard,” Obama said yesterday in Washington, adding he is “deeply troubled” by the situation in the country.
It is “extremely unlikely that there will be any significant adjustment in the election outcome,” Alastair Newton, a senior political analyst at Nomura International Plc in London wrote in a market commentary yesterday.
Markets in general and the oil market in particular will follow political developments in the region increasingly closely after the election, Newton said. Further United Nations sanctions remain more likely than military intervention if Iran fails to respond substantively to international pressure on its nuclear program.
Share | Email | Print | A A A
By Ali Sheikholeslami and Henry Meyer
June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Iran’s Guardian Council, which supervises elections, may order a recount of some votes in the disputed presidential ballot after the biggest anti-government demonstrations since the Shah was deposed in 1979.
The council, made up of 12 clerics and lawyers, may authorize a second count in areas where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory was questioned, state television quoted Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the body’s spokesman, as saying in Tehran today. He said all three challengers in the June 12 election had made “vague” complaints and were asked to elaborate. Kadkhodaei didn’t say what proportion of the 39 million votes cast may be reviewed.
Supporters of former premier Mir Hossein Mousavi, who accuse the authorities of vote-rigging, plan a fourth day of demonstrations with a gathering in Tehran’s Valiasr Square, where Ahmadinejad’s supporters also plan to gather. As many as eight people were killed and 25 injured yesterday when security forces fired on protesters, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported, citing state radio.
“If you’re talking about the possibility, the possibility is not far from imagination,” Kadkhodaei said today at a news conference in Tehran, when asked by a reporter whether it was possible that disputed votes may be annulled. “But how accurate are the claims, that must be studied.” The Council ruled out a demand by opposition leaders to set aside the election result, Sky News reported, citing state television.
Social Freedoms
The Iranian rial fell for a second day, declining 0.8 percent to 9,915 against the dollar. The currency’s rate is managed by Bank Markazi, the central bank.
The protests are pitting young Iranians and more educated voters who want social freedoms and better ties with the West against the Islamic republic’s clerical rulers. Ahmadinejad is accused by his opponents of wrecking the economy, which suffers from high unemployment and inflation, and driving Iran into international isolation through his confrontation over the nuclear program.
Mousavi, 67, has called for the election result to be scrapped after the official tally gave him about 34 percent of the vote and the incumbent almost 63 percent.
The results announced by the Interior Ministry are tentative and must be verified by the Guardian Council, Kadkhodaei said. The opposition candidates’ complaints will be discussed in the next 10 days and the results will be announced, he added.
Excessive Violence
Human rights groups have accused state security forces of using excessive violence to quell the protests and said live ammunition was used on demonstrators in several Iranian cities.
Mousavi called today for calm at demonstrations in Tehran. In a statement on his Web site, he said he won’t attend the event in the city planned for later today.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has told Mousavi to pursue his complaint through legal channels and asked the Guardian Council to carefully consider the allegations, state television reported.
While such an investigation is little more than a “gesture,” the decision to examine the fairness of the election shows that the Iranian leadership feels it is under pressure, said Professor Anoush Ehteshami, a lecturer at the Centre for Iranian Studies at Durham University in northeastern England.
‘Era of Empires’
Ahmadinejad was today attending a meeting in Yekaterinburg, Russia, with the leaders of Russia, China, India and Central Asian nations. At the event, the president said the U.S. and its allies are incapable of solving the global financial crisis, declaring, “The end of the era of empires is near.”
In what may be a sign of tensions within the ruling elite, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani held accountable the Interior Minister Sadegh Mahsouli for attacks on civilians and university students in Tehran in recent days, the Iranian Labor News Agency reported.
“What’s the meaning of attacking university students at midnight in their dormitory, or attacking Sobhan residential complex at 2:30 a.m. and troubling the residents?” Larijani said at the start of a Parliamentary session today, the news agency reported. “The interior minister is responsible for this and should answer.”
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former vice president who was an adviser to one of the candidates in the election, ex-Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karrubi, was arrested overnight, Karrubi’s office said today. Another prominent activist, Saeed Hajjarian, was also held, according to Karrubi’s office.
‘Main Agents’
Security forces arrested the “main agents” behind post- election unrest and found them armed with guns and explosives, Sky News reported, citing Iran’s state television.
Iranian leaders will probably take decisive action to quell the protests, said Richard Bulliet, an Iran specialist at Columbia University.
“The regime will quell the discontent,” Bulliet, a professor of history at Columbia’s Middle East Institute, said by phone yesterday from New York. “It will be dampened down and the U.S. and foreign governments will have to resign themselves to dealing with the Ahmadinejad regime.”
Ahmadinejad, accused by rival candidates of unnecessarily stoking tensions with the West, may see success at the ballot box as a vindication of his policies. That could be a setback for the Obama administration’s policy of engaging Iran in dialogue, rather than ostracizing it, as a means to ensure the Islamic republic doesn’t acquire nuclear weapons.
‘World is Watching’
President Barack Obama said the “world is watching” the demonstrations. “We do believe the Iranian people and their voices should be heard,” Obama said yesterday in Washington, adding he is “deeply troubled” by the situation in the country.
It is “extremely unlikely that there will be any significant adjustment in the election outcome,” Alastair Newton, a senior political analyst at Nomura International Plc in London wrote in a market commentary yesterday.
Markets in general and the oil market in particular will follow political developments in the region increasingly closely after the election, Newton said. Further United Nations sanctions remain more likely than military intervention if Iran fails to respond substantively to international pressure on its nuclear program.
