IRANIAN presidential candidate Dr Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is set to win the election despite his competitor already claiming victory, the election chief says.
Dr Ahmadinejad has taken a strong lead in his bid to be re-elected as Iran's president, chalking up 67 per cent of the vote with nearly half the ballot boxes counted, said Kamran Daneshjoo, chairman of the electoral commission at the interior ministry.
But reformist former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi has already claimed a landslide win despite conflicting reports.
"In line with the information we have received, I am the winner of this election by a substantial margin," Mr Mousavi told a news conference.
With 47 per cent of total boxes counted, amounting to over 15.2 million votes, Dr Ahmadinejad received over 10.2 million votes, or 67 per cent of the total.
That compared with 4.6 million, or 30.3 per cent for Mr Mousavi, the electoral commission said.
Mr Daneshjoo did not indicate where the votes were from, saying only that the counting was from polling places across the country.
Separately, a former senior member of the National Security Council, Agha Mohammadi, said Dr Ahmadinejad was likely to end the day with a narrow victory, avoiding the need for a runoff.
"According to the information we have the voter participation will be 70 per cent overall and Ahmadinejad will have a little more than 50 per cent of the total vote," Mr Mohammadi said.
The president is leading in the countryside, which accounts for 33 per cent of voters, and in small and medium-sized cities (34 per cent).
"In big cities and in Tehran, in some parts Mousavi is leading and in some parts Ahmadinejad."
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TEHRAN (Reuters) - Opposition challenger Mirhossein Mousavi claimed victory on Friday against hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran's presidential election on Friday. "I am the definite winner of this presidential election," Mousavi, a moderate, told a news conference in Tehran.
But he said many people had not been able to cast their ballots even after voting was extended by four hours.
A victory for Mousavi could help ease tensions with the West, which is concerned about Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and improve chances of engagement with U.S. President Barack Obama, who has talked about a new start in ties with Tehran.
Continued on Page 47
Dinnerjacket will of course "win".
You were nothing but a pawn in these "elections"
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/12/2009 16:05 Comments ||
Top||
#2
I don't think so. A fair number of the Mad Mullahs were unhappy with Mahmoud, not the least because he was bringing a lot of unwelcome attention to issues they'd prefer to keep quiet, and (also) because he's an economic idiot. The Mullahs understand that if the Iranian economy tanks that they'll be in considerable trouble -- that's how they deposed the Shah, remember.
So Mousavi might well win. Then he'll be told what to do. And he'll obey.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
06/12/2009 16:08 Comments ||
Top||
#3
TEHRAN, Iran Iran's state news agency reported that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won re-election Friday, but his main reformist challenger also confidently claimed victory at a news conference moments earlier. The rival claims came even before the close of polls, which authorities permitted to stay open an extra six hours, until midnight (1930 GMT, 3:30 p.m. EDT), to allow long lines of voters to cast ballots. Official results were not expected until Saturday.
Neither the report in the IRNA news agency nor the competing announcement by Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi gave details on what their claims were based on.
Mousavi said only that he was "definitely the winner of the election" based on "all indications from all over Iran."
Yes, that's another possibility. A friendlier looking Dinner Jacket.
And a bit more freedom for the hoi polloi before they start rioting
Posted by: European Conservative ||
06/12/2009 17:54 Comments ||
Top||
#6
nothing new , failed elections , not an election when not in a democracy .. Just another day in the ME . Sun shines , sand hot , puppets out in best suits , shining a beacon of shit
#7
640 pm edt; iran election officials declare election for dinner jacket - outright victory no runnoff needed
Posted by: lord garth ||
06/12/2009 18:46 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Where Jimmah to ensure the elections are legit? Don't all dictatorships want the Carter Seal of Approval for their phony baloney elections?
Posted by: regular joe ||
06/12/2009 19:38 Comments ||
Top||
#9
ION PAYVAND > WHY IRAN '09 MAY BE LIKE FLORIDA '00.
Also, IRAN-DAILY > IRAN: PGCC STANCE ON THREE DISPUTED ISLANDS IS IRRELEVANT. Iran doing a "CHINA" = DISPUTED CHINA SEAS ISLANDS; + US IS CONCERNED ABOUT [Iran's] MILITARY SUCCESSES [Nuclear, LR Missles]???
[Jerusalem Post Middle East] Lebanese Telecommunications Minister Gibran Bassil claimed on Tuesday that according to a recent investigation, Israel garbled cellular networks in Southern Lebanon, beginning three days before the June 7 parliamentary elections.
Speaking at a press conference, Bassil said that following the probe's findings, he requested that Lebanon's foreign minister report the alleged disturbance to the relevant international bodies. "There are known sources of interference from the sea and air," he said, mentioning his appeal from some two months ago to take notice of such possible interferences. Bassil added that land lines were also affected to a lesser degree.
Lebanon's cellular networks are considered to be in a poor state, incapable of supporting the 1.8 million-strong subscribers nationwide.
Over the past few weeks, Lebanese authorities arrested 35 people they claimed were spying for Israel. Lebanon has recently upped its efforts to close in on an alleged ring of Lebanese spies for Israel.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/12/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11132 views]
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Lebanese internal security forces arrested two Israeli sisters at Beirut's international airport as they tried to leave the country after one of them voted in Sunday's parliamentary election, a Hezbollah-affiliated website and TV station reported late Wednesday.
Sisters Josephine Moussa, 67, and Georgette, 69, entered Lebanon with Lebanese passports shortly before the hotly contested parliamentary elections but they reportedly lived in Israel and held Israeli passports, according to the media reports. Josephine was also said to possess an American passport.
The American embassy told Al Arabiya it had no information about the incident and did not know whether Josephine had contacted the embassy.
According to Hezbollah's Al Manar satellite TV station, Georgette reportedly admitted to voting in a Beirut district in the elections that saw the pro-Western March 14 alliance retain its hold on the majority.
After a preliminary investigation, a Lebanese Military Court judge ordered that the sisters be transferred to the Lebanese Internal Security's intelligence branch.
According to the report, the judge made his decision after information in the sisters' travel documents and other papers were found to be contradictory, and after it was discovered that Georgette's Israeli passport stated that her original nationality was Jordanian.
The arrests came amid a wave of crackdowns on alleged Israeli spy networks in Lebanon that has resulted in several arrests.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/12/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11141 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
I've figured out how there are so many Lebanese spies for Israel: hezbully is tracking down anyone who's ever read an Israeli blog and left a comment. These two sisters are probably Jordanian spies in Israel. In a week or two, Jordan will make a quiet demand for their release, and it will be granted.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
06/12/2009 13:46 Comments ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Iranian presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi said that if he is elected in Friday's upcoming elections his first priority would be to establish good relations with neighboring Gulf states, but insisted that the body of water between them was Persian and not Arabian.
Karroubi said in an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya that "Arabs refer to it as 'Arabian Gulf,' while we say 'Persian Gulf' because we believe that this is a fact." Karroubi added that the United Nations officially acknowledges that it is the "Persian Gulf" and said that it was an undisputable historical fact.
"We have all the documents that prove it. The name the Persian Gulf was first used by the people of Bushehr 100 years before the birth of Christ," he told Al Arabiya.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/12/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11131 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
He has a point, I wonder receptive the folks in the UN buildings in New Amsterdam will be. After all it was Native American land a hundred years before the birth of Christ, then Dutch, then British, then American. Its' the way of the world.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah will reportedly support the nomination of Future Movement bloc leader Saad Hariri as prime minister.
In a report published in its Thursday edition, the Beirut-based As Safir quoted Hezbollah circles as saying that the group "does not object to Hariri becoming prime minister."
The officials also declared, according to the report, that Hezbollah had informed all those concerned that Lebanon's incumbent parliament speaker Nabih Berri is the 'natural' candidate to head the parliament.
As Safir in addition hinted at the likelihood of a meeting between Hariri and Hezbollah Secretary-General Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah in the 'immediate future'.
Another Lebanese newspaper, Al-Akhbar , meanwhile, divulged that preparations are underway for the 'urgent' meeting between Hariri and Nasrallah.
The Al-Liwaa daily reported that a Hariri-Berri meeting is likely to take place prior to the Hariri-Nasrallah meeting.
Hariri is now the man most likely to become the new prime minister of Lebanon after his pro-Western March 14 coalition won Sunday's elections.
The Future Movement bloc of the 39-year-old son of slain former prime minister Rafiq Hariri gained 68 seats to the Hezbollah bloc's 57. The other three seats in the 128-member parliament went to independents.
Continued on Page 47
Posted by: Fred ||
06/12/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11131 views]
Top|| File under: Hezbollah
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
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dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
