Iranian clerics ask for more investigation into election fraud

Myanmar News.Net
Sunday 5th July, 2009

Iran's clerics have begun to question the country’s election process.

Influential clerics from seat of religious learning, Qom, have accused the country's electoral watchdog, the Guardian Council, of not adequately investigating charges of election fraud, alleged during the June 12th presidential election.

Some of the religious men have clustered into a reformist group and have called the vote null and void.

The clerics said they had found it hard to accept the legitimacy of the presidential election simply because the Guardian Council had made a decision on the matter.

But the head of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, has insisted the election was fair and clean, even though all three defeated presidential candidates have now lodged complaints of irregularities.

The former candidates have charged there was intervention by Revolutionary Guards and Basij militia in favour of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad during the election, as well as the printing of 14-million ballots more than the number of registered voters.

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