Iran opposition to keep pressure on Ahmadinejad

          
          Iran opposi on to keep pressure on Ahniadinejad Reutersoom http://wwwreuters .coni/artic lePrint?arfic le ld—USL448693420090804
          : t REUTERS
          Print I Close this window
          Iran opposition to keep pressure on
          Ahmadinejad
          Tue Aug 4, 2009 2:28pm EDT
          By Parisa Hafezi
          TEHRAN (Reuters) - Two prominent defeated Iranian presidential
          candidates said they would maintain their campaign against President
          Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election, which has sparked Iran's worst unrest
          since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
          Ahmadinejad will be sworn in by parliament on Wednesday, and the
          authorities will want to avoid any repeat of the street unrest after the
          disputed June 12 poll in which at least 20 people were killed and hundreds
          were detained.
          Leading moderates have accused the government of electoral fraud and
          have branded the next Ahmadinejad administration as “illegal.”
          The wife of Iran's opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi said on Tuesday he
          would continue to contest the election result.
          “Despite all the hardship, we will continue our path to fight against the result
          (of the election),” Zahra Rahnavard was quoted as saying by the reformist
          website Mowjcamp.
          Mehdi Karoubi, the most liberal of the presidential candidates, was quoted
          by the Spanish El Pais daily as saying he too would continue to oppose the
          government.
          “Neither Mousavi nor I have withdrawn. We will continue to protest and we
          will never collaborate with this government. We will not harm it, but we will
          criticize what it does,” Karoubi said in an interview.
          “Quite honestly, if the authorities had acted in a different way, we would
          never have had these problems, because the majority of those protesting
          only did so for that reason.”
          U.S. President Barack Obama and the leaders of France, Britain and
          Germany have all decided not to congratulate Ahmadinejad on his
          re-election.
          “I n view of the circumstances of the controversial re-election, the chancellor
          will not, as usual, write the normal letter of congratulation,” said a German
          government spokesman.
          White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said: “I don't have any reason to
          believe we will send any letter.”
          The Iranian government says the presidential election was fair and
          transparent and has accused Western nations, especially Britain and the
          United States, of being complicit in the bloody post-election unrest, a charge
          they deny.
          SERVANT OF THE REVOLUTION
          Two former presidents, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad
          Khatami, who backed Mousavi's failed presidential bid, boycotted Monday's
          endorsement of the president by the Supreme Leader although they were
          present at such events in the past.
          After the ceremony a witness said hundreds of Mousavi supporters, some
          of them honking car horns, gathered near a central Tehran square, where
          riot police and Basij militia were assembled to prevent any demonstration.
          1 of 2 8/13/2009 3:39 PM
        

          
          Iran opposi on to keep pressure on Ahniadinejad Reutersoom http://wwwreuters.coni/artic lePrint?arfic le ld—USL448693420090804
          Mousavi's credentials as a loyal servant of Iran 's revolution may help explain
          why he has escaped arrest for leading protests against an election he says
          was stolen to keep Ahmadinejad in power.
          The 68-year-old moderate may lack charisma, but he has not hesitated
          from speaking out, castigating authorities for their handling of the election
          and its tumultuous aftermath. He has even defied his relative, Supreme
          Leader Ayatollah /lJi Khamenei, who backed Ahmadinejad.
          “What has endeared him to the public is the fact that, contrary to former
          President (Mohammad) Khatami who would be reluctant to stand up to
          Khamenei and others, Mousavi has stuck to his guns,” said Mehrzad
          Boroujerdi, an Iran scholar at New York's Syracuse University.
          Mousavi has previously demanded the elections in the world's fifth biggest
          oil exporter be annulled, but may need a new goal once Ahmadinejad is
          reinstalled.
          “The plan should be to call into question the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad's
          administration at every turn, through civil disobedience, and also to press for
          some revisions to the constitution,” Boroujerdi said.
          The president now faces the difficult task of assembling a cabinet which is
          acceptable to the mostly conservative parliament, which may object if he
          just picks members of his inner circle. Parliament has in the past rejected
          some of Ahmadinejad's cabinet choices.
          Mousavi has yet to unveil a promised new political front with his reformist
          and pragmatist allies, perhaps partly because so many leading figures are
          in jail, including 100 whose trial for inciting unrest began on Saturday and
          resumes on Thursday.
          Karoubi backs talks with the United States and other Western governments
          to aft empt to open up the channels of communication with Iran, which is
          locked in dispute over its nuclear program that it says is for energy and the
          West suspects is for arms.
          “The most beneficial thing for the Iranians is negotiations. Nobody benefits
          from our ongoing problems with the United States,” said Karoubi,
          highlighting one of the fissures in the clerical leadership that the election has
          exposed.
          Another potential source of friction with the United States arose on Saturday
          when Iran arrested three American hikers who an Iraqi Kurdish official said
          had strayed across the border and who were being questioned by the
          Iranians.
          “They are definitely Americans. They were detained four days ago. We
          don't know whether they are tourists or not. We are questioning them,”
          security official lraj Hassanzadeh told al-Alam state television on Tuesday.
          (Additional reporting by Ross Colvin in Washington and Madeline Chambers
          in Berlin)
          © Thomson Reuters 2009. All rights reserved. Users may download and print extracts of content from
          this webste for their own personal and non-commercial use only. Republication or redistribution of
          Thomson Reuters content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the
          prior written consent of Thomson Reuters. Thomson Reuters and its logo are registered trademarks or
          trademariG of the Thomson Reuters group of companies around the world.
          Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and
          disclosure of relevant interests.
          2 of 2 8/13/2009 3:39 PM