The bitter third-placed finisher in Iran's presidential race called on voters Tuesday to flock to polling stations this weekend to defeat an Islamic hard-line candidate he termed a "symbol of totalitarianism." The former parliament speaker, Mahdi Karroubi, also intensified his claims of election fraud, claiming that the supervisory Guardian Council had overlooked alleged cases of multiple voting and other violations by hard-liners.Speaking at a news conference, Karroubi appealed for a strong turnout in the runoff election to defeat Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and "save the nation ... from this symbol of totalitarianism." He said the alternative was "Talibanization" — a reference to the puritanical Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, who were ousted by the U.S.-led coalition after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He called the polls "the darkest pages" of Iran's ideological struggle since the election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami in 1997.