Iran vote continues despite US scorn

TEHRAN - Officials dismissed rigging allegations in Iran's presidential election, clearing the way for a run-off vote on Friday.

Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and hardline Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will go head to head - and many political analysts say the result is unpredictable.

Iran's hardline Guardian Council, which has the final word on election results, ordered a recount from 100 ballot boxes in four cities after reformists alleged rigging. It was a tiny fraction of tens of thousands of ballot boxes used last week.

"It has been clarified there was no discrepancy in the election results," the council said after the recount.

It said fifth-placed reformist candidate Mostafa Moin had asked for a postponement of the run-off. Third-placed reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi had said some Ahmadinejad votes were paid for with bribes. There have been no popular protests over the results.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli described the election as "highly ... unrepresentative and certainly not responsive to what the Iranian people are looking for, which is more participation, not less; more freedoms, not less; and more democracy, not less".

Addressing hardline lawmakers in Parliament yesterday, Ahmadinejad criticised the present Government's approach to talks with the West. "Those who are in negotiations are frightened and don't know the people. A popular and fundamentalist Government will quickly change the country's stance in favour of the nation."

Ereli's criticism came a day after his boss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, blasted the polls during a a tour of the Middle East.

"The appearance of elections does not mask the organised cruelty of Iran's theocratic state," Rice said. "The Iranian people are capable of liberty. They desire liberty. And they deserve liberty. The time has come for the unelected few to release their grip on the aspirations of the proud people of Iran."

President George W Bush also savaged the electoral process before the vote.

- REUTERS