Iran’s Guardian Council Offers Dialogue With Opposition

646 Complaints Made Over Friday's Vote

Iran’s Guardian Council has announced that it will invite the three challengers in last week’s presidential election: Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaei, to attend a Saturday meeting “to express their ideas and ask any questions in the presence of the Guardian Council’s members.”

Since the election results were announced by the Interior Ministry, the three candidates have all alleged fraud, and Mousavi’s supporters in particular have engaged in massive public protests against the election. Faced with the allegations, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has charged the Guardian Council with investigating the matter.

The Guardian Council says it has begun a careful examination of the complaints, and says that between the three candidates they have received 646 separate complaints about last Friday’s vote. The powerful council has previously offered a partial recount of the vote.

Details of the situation on the ground have been difficult to come by, as the government has officially banned foreign media from reporting on the protests. Some reporters have managed to dodge this ban, but much of the news is coming either directly from the state media or the opposition campaign.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.