GUARDIANS PLAN TO INVALIDATE ELECTION RESULTS FOR TEHRAN
PARIS 2ND May. (IPS) The Council of Guardians is prone to "put on ice" the approval of election results for Tehran until after the second round of the elections in order to stop reformists who swept all but one of the Tehran 30 seats but one to be present at the beginning of the next Majles, according to informed sources.
"Once the run off elections is over, the leader-dominated Council would proceed to invalidate the results for the capital, demanding that new by-elections to be held for the capital, they reported.
Quoting some analysts, the pro-Government English language "Iran News" that is published by the official news agency IRNA said after the end of the second round, the leader-controlled Council would proceed to "invalidate" the results for the capital and decide for by-elections.
The controversy took place as a result of the Guardian's decision to recount for the fourth or fifth times the results for Tehran, where the conservatives, led by former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were dealt a humiliating blow.
Entering the race with certainty that he would become the lead vote catcher, Mr. Rafsanjani did not received enough vote to enter the Majles and in order to save him face, the Council of Guardians decided on rigging the polls in his favour.
"In this light, it can therefore be said that if this approach is applied, it could be advantageous to the conservatives in many ways, as the next Majles would convene in the absence of Tehran MPs, many of them high profile political figures, thus making the new parliament an impotent one posing no serious challenge to the conservative deputies", the paper added.
The scenario, according to "Iran News", has other advantages as well since when it comes to the election of the Majles presiding board, the absence of Tehran deputies would help the conservatives to share the control the presidency of the House in the one hand and prevent any political bickering, infighting and accidents in the enfeebled Majles on the other.
In fact, analysts believe that the best part of this contingency plan comes when the candidates of Tehran would have to re-register for the bye elections, meaning once again to become subject to vetting and screening by the same Council.
''Given this new parameter, the composition of the new Majlis would be in all probability, completely different from how it stands now,'' the paper pointed out.
Sources close to the reformist camp said they now realise why the Guardians refused "from the outset" that the vote counting be done by electronic system, reducing greatly risks and possibilities of frauds and manipulation, deciding instead on the now antique, fraud-prone, open to all kind of rigging, counting system.
"Even with this old system, counting the votes should not take such a long time, unless one is after a miracle by counting and recounting the votes and transporting ballot boxes from one place to another", one analyst observed, advising the Guardians that it is faster to count only the votes cast for Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani.
"In fact, it is an open secret that ever since the humiliation suffered by the former president in the Majles elections, the Guardians, on solicitation from Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, are doing what they can to secure Mr. Rafsanjani a seat in the next reformist-controlled House", a former Minister said. ENDS ELECTIONS 2500