Rafsanjani allies seek unity for Iran run-off vote
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-06-20 09:07

Iranian reformists urged their dejected supporters to rally behind pragmatic cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to prevent his surprise hardline challenger Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from winning a presidential run-off.

Iran's leading reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, said people had to vote to prevent Ahmadinejad, linked to the hardline Revolutionary Guard and Basij religious paramilitaries, from becoming president.

Iranians look at newspapers reporting on election results in Tehran June 19, 2005.[Reuters]

"Now the country faces the danger of direct involvement by military parties," its statement said.

Another reformist party, the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organization, led by Behzad Nabavi, also threw its weight behind Rafsanjani despite its differences with him.

It cited the "orchestrated involvement of military bodies and entities ... in favor of the most radical anti-reform faction" and said Iran was in peril from fascism.

Former Iranian president and election front-runner Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani casts his ballot in the Iranian presidential election in Tehran June 17, 2005.[Reuters]

Similarly, hard-liners called for conservatives to close ranks behind Tehran mayor Ahmadinejad, who almost overhauled elder statesman Rafsanjani, 70, in Friday's first-round vote.

Hardline candidate Ali Larijani, a former head of state television who limped in sixth out of seven presidential hopefuls, would throw his weight behind Ahmadinejad, one of his aides told the official IRNA news agency.

But cracks were emerging in the conservative camp, with agencies reporting that fourth-placed former police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf would not back Ahmadinejad and had more sympathy with Rafsanjani.

SLAPPING AMERICA

Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad, with about a fifth of the vote each, just pulled clear of the pack in a vote damned by Washington as a travesty of the democracy Iranians yearned for.

"I just don't see the Iranian elections as being a serious attempt to move Iran closer to a democratic future," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told Fox News.

She criticized the legitimacy of the electoral process, in which unelected clerics barred most of the 1,000 presidential hopefuls, including all the women, from standing.

But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed the 63 percent turnout as a slap to "ignorant enemy" President Bush.

Iranians now face a stark choice on their country's future in the first run-off vote since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

A senior Rafsanjani aide urged reformists, secularists and moderate conservatives to unite behind the former president to maintain a political balance against "militarist" tendencies.

"We all can hear the footsteps of fascism," Mohammad Atrianfar told Reuters. "If we create a united front for a national coalition, we will win the Friday election.

"Using a paramilitary organization to mobilize voters is a very dangerous move," he said.

The daily Sharq, which Atrianfar controls, said voting for Rafsanjani was the only way to stop religious hard-liners from gaining a monopoly on Iran's ruling institutions.

"We can call him arrogant and criticize his preference for development over democracy," wrote columnist Mohammad Qouchani, but added: "Now we clearly see that Rafsanjani is the only choice left for preserving democracy in Iran."

Though Rafsanjani does not challenge clerical rule, he is seen as a counterweight to the hardline anti-Western elite and has called for a "new chapter" in Iran-U.S. relations.

Ahmadinejad has said talks with Washington will not solve Iran's ills.

Close