Iran’s supreme leader passionately defended last week’s presidential election process Friday, praising President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s election as a “definitive victory” and sloughing off charges of vote-rigging.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed a crowd at Tehran University in a sermon during Friday prayers.
His speech was greatly anticipated amid massive protests from supporters of opposition leaders such as Mir Hossein Moussavi, who disputed the government’s assertion that Ahmadinejad won in a landslide.
While Khamenei called on those who don’t believe the results to use proper legal avenues, such as requesting the recounting of ballots in their presence, he did not issue a call for a new vote.
He also criticized the street protests and said those who caused violence during demonstrations would be held accountable.
The supreme leader took on what he considers enemies of Iran — United States, Britain, Israel, and apparently those inside the country — for manipulating and undermining the process.
He criticized international media messages that the election pitted people who support the government against those who oppose it. He said all four candidates — Ahmadinejad, Moussavi, Mohsen Rezaie and Mehdi Karrubi — support the Islamic revolution.
Khamenei praised the 85 percent voter turnout of about 40 million people, but said that some critics “wanted to indicate that as a doubtful victory. Some even wanted to show that this is a national defeat.”
“They wanted to give you bad taste in the mouth. They could not see that the highest turnout in the world goes down in history in your name, but that happened. It’s recorded in history in your name. They cannot manipulate it no more,” he said.
Khamenei said Ahmadinejad got more than 24 million votes, defeating Moussavi, his main challenger.
“Eleven million votes difference? Sometimes there’s a margin of 100,000, 200,000, or 1 million maximum. Then one can doubt maybe there has been some rigging or manipulation or irregularities,” Khamenei said.
“But there’s a difference of 11 million votes. How can vote rigging happen?” he asked.
The Guardian Council — which supervises the country’s elections — said Thursday that it is looking into the complaints questioning the validity of the election outcome.
On Thursday, tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets of Iran’s capital for the sixth day in a row to protest the election results. Some estimates put the total number of participants in the hundreds of thousands.
Moussavi spoke through a bullhorn from atop a building to the throngs of marchers who snaked through the city, in what was described as a peaceful protest. He spoke hours after the Iranian government agreed to meet with candidates to discuss complaints stemming from the election, a journalist at the scene told CNN.
Ahmadinejad has not made a public appearance since Sunday. Daily protests quickly followed his re-election.
The demonstrations have claimed at least eight lives, according to Iran’s government-funded Press TV. Seven of those were protesters who were killed as they attacked a military post after a rally Monday, the government said.
(Source: CNN)
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Blah, blah blah. We should invade Iran like we did in Iraq but this time equip our soldiers properly and leave the rules of engagement to the military and not politicians. Russia and China are not overly happy with Iran, either.