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Iran's Expediency Council stresses legal means for settling vote disputes

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-06-28 10:43

TEHRAN -- Iran's Expediency Council on Saturday stressed that legal ways were the only means to settle any differences and disputes over the recent presidential election, the official IRNA news agency reported.

In a statement issued after its Saturday morning session, the Expediency Council urged the Guardians Council (GC), which is charged with supervising elections in the country, to carefully and fairly investigate all claims and complaints about the June 12election.

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The Expediency Council, which arbitrates in disputes between the parliament and the GC and also serves as an advisory body to the supreme leader, asked all presidential candidates to show the utmost cooperation with the GC experts and use the existing proper ground to offer all their documents for further investigations.

The Expediency Council hailed the massive turnout of the Iranian nation in the presidential election and said it proved the public's strong bonds with the ideals of the Islamic Revolution and its founder Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini.

The statement also expressed gratitude to both the Iranian nation for its huge turnout in the election and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for his "wise and strategic guidelines."

On June 13, Iran's Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli announced that incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won 62.63 percent of the total ballots, while his main rival Mir-Hossein Mousavi got 33.75 percent.

The other two candidates, former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi and former Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezaei, eachgot less than 2 percent of the total ballots.

After the official declaration, all the three defeated candidates filed complaints over irregularities in the election, while Mousavi and Karroubi have demanded an annulment of the election.

Rezaei withdrew his complaint to the GC over presidential election results on Wednesday.

IRNA on Friday quoted GC spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodai as saying that "no major irregularities were found besides some minor ones that are usual in every election ... we didn't see any fraud in the election."