Iran’s outgoing reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, warned on Thursday that the country’s presidential election was being undermined by orchestrated dirty tricks as voters prepared to choose his replacement.
With the polls opening on Friday amid tight security, Khatami accused unnamed elements of ”disruption of gatherings and beatings”. There had been ”illegal pamphlets” and spreading of ”lies to ruin candidates’ reputations regardless of political inclination”.
”It seems there is an organised movement to hurt the glorious process of these elections,” he said.
Khatami’s allegations, in a letter quoted by the state-controlled media, came as Iran’s hardline supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, demanded a high turnout to render Iran ”immune to the enemies’ plots” and called on the people to ”inject fresh blood” into the Islamic republic.
In Washington, the Bush administration took a dim view of the election. ”Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy,” President George Bush said in a statement.
An Iranian foreign minister official, Hamid Reza Asefi, shrugged off the criticism, saying Iran had more presidential candidates than the US. ”His remarks are based on hostility and enmity,” he said.
Opinion polls gave the former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a clear lead as campaigning ended but he was unlikely to gain the absolute majority needed to win outright. With no initial winner it would mean a second head-to-head contest with the second-placed candidate — expected to be either Mostafa Moin, a reformist, or the former police chief, Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, a hardline ally of Khamenei.
Khatami’s complaints followed reports of beatings of Moin’s supporters by religious extremists. It also came after 10 people were killed in bombings in Tehran and Ahwaz earlier this week.
The pro-reform newspaper Eqbal, which supports Moin, on Thursday quoted ”informed sources” as saying hardliners aiming to damage the reformists’ campaign were behind the explosions. It suggested the attacks were by those responsible for the deaths of political dissidents several years ago.
The student news agency, Isna, quoted Khatami as calling on the interior and intelligence ministries to step up their investigations. ”I ask you to identify those offenders and introduce them to the judiciary more seriously and more quickly,” he wrote.
His comments echoed those of Moin this week in an interview with the Guardian. Moin, a former minister under Khatami, suggested the bombings could have been related to the assaults on his supporters and said he might withdraw if attacks continued.
Reformists believe the violence is aimed at creating tension ahead of today’s poll, persuading some voters to stay at home and pushing others into voting for a hardliner.
The tension that has gripped the country since Sunday’s blasts was heightened on Thursday when an explosion injured three people in a sandwich shop in Zahedan. Police protecting today’s poll will be reinforced by soldiers and revolutionary guardsmen.
Speculation continued on Thursday on turnout. The interior ministry predicted 50% to 55% of 48-million registered voters would participate. – Guardian Unlimited Â