Iran election watchdog says result stands

IranMania:

Iran's hardline poll watchdog insisted that the outcome of last month's presidential election was final after reformist Interior Minister Abdolvahed Moussavi-Lari said he was ready to order a partial recount. "The election is a finished matter," Guardians Council spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told the student news agency ISNA.

"There is no reason for a recount," he said, noting that hardline president elect Mahmood Ahmadinejad's victory had already been validated by the council. READ MORE

"I am not sure if the interior minister's letter is serious or a political consolation," he said, referring to Moussavi-Lari's message to reformist outgoing President Mohammad Khatami on Friday.

The minister's offer followed an open letter to the president from moderate former parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi, asking for a recount after he was knocked out in the June 17 first round in which he polled third.

Karoubi angrily denounced what he said was interference by military personnel in the conduct of the vote.

Former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a stalwart of the clerical regime who recast himself as a moderate, lost out to Ahmadinejad in the June 24 run-off and the hardliner is set to take over as head of state on August 3.