This does not bode well.
---
Hardline Mayor Wins Iran Presidential Race
By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 33 minutes ago
The hardline Tehran mayor steamrolled over one of Iran's best-known
statesman to win the presidency Saturday in a landslide election victory
that cements conservative control over the nation's political leadership.
The outcome capped a stunning upset by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who many
reformers fear will take Iran back to the restrictions imposed after the
1979 Islamic Revolution.
The Interior Ministry gave Ahmadinejad 62.2 percent of the vote over his
more moderate rival, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had nearly 35.3
percent. The ministry posted a notice in its headquarters declaring
Ahmadinejad the winner of Friday's runoff. The rest of the ballots were
deemed invalid.
The figures were based on more than 90 percent of the estimated 26
million votes cast, or nearly 55 percent of Iran's about 47 million
eligible voters. In last week's first round of the presidential
election, the turnout was close to 63 percent.
The victory gives conservatives control of Iran's two highest elected
offices the presidency and parliament and gives a freer hand to the
non-elected theocracy, which holds the final word on all important
policies.
Clerics led by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have true power in
Iran, able to overrule elected officials. But reformers, who lost
parliament in elections last year, had been hoping to retain some hand
in government to preserve the greater social freedoms they've been able
to win, such as looser dress codes, more mixing between the sexes and
openings to the West.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Joanne Moore indicated the
result would not change the U.S. view of Iran, and what it considered to
be a fundamentally flawed election that refused to accept scores of
candidates, particularly women.
"With the conclusion of the elections in Iran, we have seen nothing that
sways us from our view that Iran is out of step with the rest of the
region in the currents of freedom and liberty that have been so apparent
in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon," Moore said.
Ahmadinejad supporters will go to mosques to hold prayers and "thank God
for this great victory," said his campaign manager Ali Akbar Javanfekr.
But he said no street celebrations are planned.
The streets of Tehran were quiet before dawn. State television announced
the results in its dawn bulletin, but there were no immediate outdoor
celebrations.
Ahmadinejad is expected to start consultations soon on selecting his
Cabinet. People will watch to see if he chooses clerics such as
Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, a firebrand who has been mooted for the Culture
Ministry a post that controls the arts, publications and the cinema.
Ahmadinejad, the 49-year-old mayor of the capital, campaigned as a
champion of the poor, a message that resonated with voters in a country
where some estimates put unemployment as high as 30 percent. He struck
the image of a simple working man against Rafsanjani, a wealthy member
of the country's ruling elite.
"The real nuclear bomb that Iran has is its unemployed young people,"
said Ali Pourassad, after casting his vote for Ahmadinejad at a polling
station set up in the courtyard of a mosque in the middle-class south of
Tehran. "If nothing is done to create jobs for our young people, we will
have an explosion on the streets."
But Ahmadinejad also vowed to return Iran to the principles of the
Islamic Revolution more than a quarter-century ago. Such comments and
reports about his inner circle of supporters members of the
Revolutionary Guard, the vigilantes who enforce public dress codes and
some of the most hard-line clerics in Iran's theocracy frightened
Iran's reformers.
Ahmadinejad (pronounced "Aah-MA-dee-ni-JAHD") had not been expected even
to make the runoff. But he squeaked ahead of his rivals into the No. 2
spot in last week's first-round vote. There were accusations that
Revolutionary Guards and vigilantes intimidated voters to sway the vote
in his favor.
Going into the first round, the 70-year-old Rafsanjani had been
considered by far the favorite. But he was battered, placing first with
only 21 percent in that round.
During Friday's voting, the reformist-led Interior Ministry reported
"interference" at some Tehran polling stations. A ministry worker who
was at a polling station reminding officials to watch for violations was
arrested after he got in an argument with representatives of one of the
two candidates, ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani said.
An Interior Ministry observers' group reported 300 complaints of
violations in Tehran, said group leader Ibrahim Razini.
In the eyes of most, Rafsanjani who was president from 1989-97
represented the status quo. Backers felt confident he would continue the
many social changes introduced by outgoing President Mohammad Khatami,
including youth-supported freedoms such as dating, music, and colorful
headscarves for women.
Rafsanjani now appears to be facing his political grave. He was humbled
in 2000 when he failed to win a seat in parliament. He may retain his
seat on the Expediency Council, which mediates between parliament and
the ruling clerics, but he now casts the shadow of a two-time loser.
Ahmadinejad's surprising strength alarmed moderates and business groups
at home and was watched with concern by international officials.
Ahmadinejad would likely be a tough negotiating partner in Iran's talks
with Europe over its nuclear program, which the United States contends
aims to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran says the program aims only for
producing energy.
He has criticized Iran's current negotiators as making too many
concessions to Europe particularly in freezing the uranium enrichment
program and he was expected to put Iran's nuclear program into the
hands of some avowed anti-Western clerics.
The pragmatic Rafsanjani has appeared more willing to negotiate on the
nuclear program. But a Foreign Ministry spokesman Friday underlined that
the suspension is temporary and that enrichment will eventually be
restarted no matter who wins the election.
But for many Iranians, the biggest issue was an economy that has
languished despite Iran's oil and gas riches. Iran's official
unemployment rate is 16 percent, but unofficially it is closer to 30
percent and the country has to create 800,000 jobs a year just to stand
still. In the fall, another million young people are expected to enter
the work force.
Ahmadinejad, the son of a blacksmith, presented himself as the humble
alternative to Rafsanjani, whose family runs a large business empire. He
has promised Iran's underclass higher wages, more development funds for
rural areas, expanded health insurance and more social benefits for
women.
"Every vote you cast is a bullet in the hearts" of the United States,
said Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the Guardian Council and
considered a leading supporter of Ahmadinejad.
"What they (Western countries) have is not democracy, but rule of
trickery. It's parties and capitalists who get the vote of the people in
their own favor to fill their pockets," he told worshippers at Friday
prayers.
___
Associated Press correspondents Brian Murphy and Ali Akbar Dareini
contributed to this report from Tehran.
___
http://tinyurl.com/7cl39
--
John Hachmann aa #1782
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities"
-Voltaire
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