Limited recount possible in Iran's disputed vote
The spokesman for Iran’s Guardian Council said today it was ready to recount specific ballot boxes in last week’s disputed presidential elections.
State television quoted Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei as saying that the recount would be limited to voting sites where candidates claimed irregularities occurred.
The results showing a landslide victory for president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad touched off Tehran’s worst violence in 10 years. Supporters of reformist candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claim the vote was rigged to re-elect the hard-line president.
The 12-member Guardian Council includes clerics and experts in Islamic law and its role includes certifying election results.
The move came as Iran’s state radio reported that clashes in the Iranian capital the previous day left seven people dead during an “unauthorised gathering” at a mass rally over the alleged election fraud – the first official confirmation of deaths linked to the wave of protests and street battles after the disputed elections.
The report said the deaths came as protesters “tried to attack a military location”.
It gave no further details, but it was a clear reference to crowds who came under gunfire on Monday after trying to storm a compound for volunteer militia linked to Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard.
The shootings came at the end of huge rally by opponents of president Ahmadinejad claiming widespread fraud in Friday’s voting. The protest movement has shown no signs of easing – with another reported rally planned for later today – and has even forced Iran’s non-elected ruling clerics into the unfamiliar role of middlemen between the government and its opponents.
The deaths also raise the prospect of further defiance and anger from crowds claiming that reformist leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was the rightful winner of the election. Mousavi’s backers reportedly plan to gather in a Tehran square later today where pro-Ahmadinejad crowds also have called a rally to demand punishment of “rioters”.
In a message posted on his website, Mousavi said he would not attend the rally and asked his supporters “not fall in the trap of street riots” and exercise self-restraint.
The deaths happened on the edge of Tehran’s Azadi Square after hundreds of thousands of Mousavi supporters defied an official ban and marched through the city. Gunmen, standing on a roof, opened fire on a group of demonstrators who tried to storm the militia compound.
Angry men showed their bloody palms after cradling the dead and wounded who had been part of a crowd that stretched more than five miles.
The march also marked Mousavi’s first public appearance since shortly after the election and said he was willing to “pay any price” in his demands to overturn the election results.
Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, arrived in Russia today to attend a regional security summit, after having postponed the trip for one day.
A website run by Iran’s former reformist vice president, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, said he had been arrested by security officers, but provided no further details. Abtahi’s website, popular among the youth, has reported extensively on the alleged vote fraud.
The huge rally Monday – and smaller protests around the country – display the resolve of Mousavi’s backers and have pushed Iran’s Islamic establishment into attempts to cool the tensions after days of unrest.
The death toll reported today was the first in Tehran since the postelection turmoil gripped Iran and could be a further rallying point in a culture that venerates martyrs and often marks their death with memorials.
