According to Iran’s state media, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has agreed to extend the deadline for the Guardian Council to investigate complaints about last Friday’s presidential election by an additional five days. The legal deadline to complete the investigation was Wednesday before the extension.
The Guardian Council had reportedly asked for the extension, citing the enormous number of ambiguities and complaints regarding the vote. Earlier this week the Guardian Council confirmed that 50 cities had turnouts of above 100% of registered voters, pointing to millions of fraudulent votes.
The request for a delay to the deadline may suggest that the council is mulling additional remedies for the election. Previously it had offered to recount 10 percent of the ballots in the disputed districts in the presence of opposition campaigns, but insisted it was impossible that the irregularities had changed the end result, given the wide margin by which the Interior Ministry insists President Ahmadinejad won.
The Interior Ministry has insisted that the accusations of fraud, despite evidence unveiled by the Guardian Council, “lack concrete and legal evidence.” Opposition candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has called for the election to be thrown out.
Mousavi seems to be following the American way of propaganda…repeat a 'statement' so many times that it becomes difficult to deny it. He hasn't yet supported the accusation with hard evidence, but simply called for the election annulment.
I wonder if the situation was reversed (that is Ahmedinejad had lost and his supporters were rioting), what would the US say. They would demand hard proof, and call Ahmedinejad a bad looser.
I'm surprised how many people here are guzzling the NeoCon Kool-Aid, when it comes to Mousavi. Especially considering that the NeoCon Timmerman admits financing him.
I expected more from Antiwar.com.
All the caution has been thrown into the wind when it comes to reporting from Iran. Finding that more people voted in some voting districts (not towns, as reported), is nothing unusual. It is not that the vote exceeds the registered voters, it just exceeds the number of people voting in the same district in the previous election. Iranian voter can be registered elsewhere, but vote in the place of their current residence. Ahmedinejad was predicted a winner by every poll conducted before election, and by 2:1 margin. Extending the time for examination was an astute move. All it will do is to expose other color revolutionaries hidden deeply in the Rafsanjani's network.