TEHRAN – Two prominent defeated Iranian presidential candidates said they would maintain their campaign against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, which has sparked Iran’s worst unrest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Mr Ahmadinejad will be sworn in by parliament today, and the authorities will want to avoid any repeat of the street unrest after the disputed June 12th poll in which at least 20 people were killed and hundreds were detained.
Leading moderates have accused the government of electoral fraud and have branded the next Ahmadinejad administration as “illegal”. The wife of Iran’s opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said yesterday he would continue to contest the election result.
“Despite all the hardship, we will continue our path to fight against the result (of the election),” Zahra Rahnavard was quoted as saying by the reformist website Mowjcamp.
Mehdi Karoubi, the most liberal of the presidential candidates, was quoted by the Spanish El Pais daily as saying he too would continue to oppose the government.
US president Barack Obama and the leaders of France, Britain, Italy and Germany have all decided not to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his re-election.
But when asked whether Mr Obama recognised Ahmadinejad as Iran’s president, spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “He’s the elected leader.” – (Reuters)