ANALYSIS: Moussavi disputes Ahmadinejad win in Iran election

Jun 13, 2009, 11:24 GMT

   Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the Iranian presidential election by a clear majority, according to results announced on Saturday.

   Ahmadinejad won more than twice as many votes as his closest challenger, Mir Hossein Moussavi, election officials said.

   Many Iranians were shocked and refused to accept the outcome. The Interior Ministry said the result was the genuine will of the Iranian people.

   'Nobody ruled out that Ahmadinejad as incumbent president could have won the race, but winning by such a margin is indeed quite odd,' an election observer said.

   Moussavi accused the Interior Ministry of irregularities in both supervising the voting and counting the votes but refrained from using the term electoral fraud.

   'I am definitively the winner of the election and the legitimate president of the people,' Moussavi claimed.

   His close aides and campaign volunteers stood stoney-faced in his office. One of them said, 'That's the way it is.'

   According to the Interior Ministry, Ahmadinejad secured 65 per cent of the votes. Moussavi only gained 31 per cent.

   The challenger and his supporters said that Ahmadinejad's failure to implement promised economic reforms should have lost him votes, rather than increased his popularity.

   'The people cannot be happy about the recession and high inflation in the country and thank the government responsible for the problems by voting for it,' a university professor in Tehran said.

   Before the election, the president said that he would not even consider negotiating with the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council plus Germany, nor suspend the country's controversial uranium enrichment.

   He said he would present the world powers with a plan containing his vision of world peace and global nuclear disarmament.

   Opponents said that Moussavi as president would have given both sides greater diplomatic flexibility and hence a better chance of breaking the impasse.

   The prospect of resuming talks with arch-enemy the United States and a meeting between Ahmadinejad and US President Barack Obama remain in serious doubt.

   The approach of Ahmadinejad towards Israel is widely known. 'Expectations from Iran to play a constructive role in the Middle East crisis would have been a flop even under Moussavi as president, let alone with Ahmadinejad,' an Arab diplomat in Tehran said.

   Ahmadinejad will, however, have a tougher time during his second four-year term in office as he made himself many enemies before the election.

   He accused ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani in a televised debate of corruption and described his nuclear policies and willingness to compromise with the West as a 'disgrace.'

   Also Moussavi is not expected to go away quietly.

   'I have nothing other than the people's support, but with this support I will go to the end,' the election loser said.