Iran confirms authenticity of presidential election runoff

Iran's election and legislation supervisory body, the Guardian Council, on Wednesday confirmed the authenticity of the country's ninth presidential election runoff, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Given the fact that no cases had occurred during the elections which could mar the healthy process of the elections and considering that no complaints had been received in the due legal time, the authenticity of elections was confirmed," Ahmad Jannati, chief of the Guardian Council, was quoted as saying.

Jannati made the statement in a letter to Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, whose ministry was in charge of the organization of the election.

Jannati, however, stressed that a few violations in the course of the presidential campaigns, which have been referred to the judiciary for further investigation, can never bring the soundness of the elections under question.

Iran held the presidential election runoff on Friday, in which hardline Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a stunning dark horse in the race, defeated pragmatist former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Rafsanjani had consistently been the front runner of the election since he hinted his intention to participate in March. He even stood ahead of Ahmadinejad with 21 percent of the total votes against the latter's 19 percent in the first round of voting on June 17.

Ahmadinejad's victory aroused rumors and worries over the authenticity of the runoff voting.

One day after the outcome of the voting was announced, Rafsanjani blamed his failure on some illegal activities against him in the election, alluding to an alleged campaign before and in the election to "destroy his image and that of his family" and some "illegally organized interference in the polls."

Source: Xinhua