Moderate candidate Mirhossein Mousavi said he "strongly protested" against what he described as many violations in Iran's presidential election, in a statement made available to Reuters on Saturday. Mousavi lost Friday's vote by a landslide to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to official figures.
"I personally strongly protest the many obvious violations and I'm warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade. The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardise the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny," he said in the statement.
Iran's state election commission said Ahmadinejad won a second four-year term with about 63.4 percent of the votes against 34.7 percent for Mousavi with almost all votes counted. About 80 percent of the electorate voted, it said. Mousavi, who late on Friday said he had won the election, called the official result "shocking". "People who waited in long queues, they know the composition of the votes and they themselves know who they voted for," his statement said. "They are surprised and are watching the juggling of ... officials when they announced the result."
Mousavi said he would disclose the "secrets behind this dangerous charade" and added: "I'm suggesting officials stop this trend before it is too late and return to the land of law and preserve people's rights."
Mousavi urged senior clerics in Iran's Shi'ite religious centre of Qom to speak out. "Today all the ways to preserve our rights are closed. Silence of the ulema and grand ayatollahs may create more harm than fixing voting," he said in a statement on his website. " ... No one even imagined this much vote rigging and in front of the eyes of the world by a government which says it is committed to religious justice," Mousavi said.
The authorities reject such allegations. Mousavi had been due to hold a news conference in Tehran on Saturday but police outside the building told journalists to stay away, saying it had been cancelled.
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