Likely to see major protests by the left but at the same time this will likely push Iran closer to war with the U.S. which may unite Iranians, Interesting and dangerous times ahead.
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TEHRAN – Hard-line Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was sweeping toward a stunning presidential election victory over veteran cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani with the backing of Iran’s religious poor on Saturday, officials said.
Political analysts say a win for Mr. Ahmadinejad, 48, could spell an end to fragile social reforms made under outgoing President Mohammed Khatami and harden Iran’s foreign policy toward the West, particularly over its nuclear program.
An official at the Islamic Republic’s Guardian Council, which must approve the results, said that with 12.9 million votes counted, Mr. Ahmadinejad had secured 61 per cent.
The Associated Press reported that a top aide in the Rafsanjani campaign said their figures also pointed to a victory for his opponent.
The official said turnout was 22 million, or 47 per cent, well down on the 63 per cent of Iran’s 46.7 million eligible voters who cast ballots in the first round on June 17.
Yesterday’s vote exposed deep class divisions in the oil-producing nation of 67 million.
“Ahmadinejad is well ahead and it seems he is the winner,” said an Interior Ministry official, who declined to be identified. “Poor provinces have voted massively for Ahmadinejad.”
The Tehran mayor’s humble lifestyle and pledges to tackle corruption and redistribute the country’s oil wealth have appealed to the urban and rural religious poor, analysts say.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters, banned supporters from the two sides from holding victory celebrations after a fractious campaign marred by allegations of electoral irregularities.
Aides to Mr. Rafsanjani, who was president from 1989 to 1997 and has cast himself as a reformer, accused the hard-line Basij militia of trying to intimidate voters to back Mr. Ahmadinejad.
“We know massive irregularities have taken place in steering votes towards a certain candidate in which the Basij has played a role,” one aide, Mohammad Atrianfar, told reporters.
Officials at the Interior Ministry, dominated by reformists who back the former president, also complained of illegal election-day campaigning.
Mr. Rafsanjani, 70, has said he wants to improve ties with the West. But Mr. Ahmadinejad maintains that restoring ties with Washington is unimportant.
“Whoever loses we are going to feel the reverberations,” said Karim Sadjadpour, Tehran-based analyst for think-tank International Crisis Group. “Either of them are going to inherit a divided nation. Both of them are polarizing figures.”
