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Officials acknowledge low voter turn out |
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Friday, 24 June 2005 |
 Iran – election – statement no. 5 - Reports from within the
regime are indicative of discord and disarray among international
factions over the low voter turn out.
An Interior Ministry official said the situation in Tehran was a
fiasco. In Tehran’s mosques, the paramilitary Bassij rushed to the
polling stations to collect votes.
Another official has complained of a directive issued by head of
Tehran’s district 13 education department, asking employees not to vote
for Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Election officials in Khorassan Square have asked for prior notice to
prepare the deserted polling station for foreign journalists. They want
to stand in line themselves to give the appearance of a high turn out.
Head of Rafsanjani’s election headquarters in Mashad pointed to empty
polling stations. He said that in Robat Sang region, the paramilitary
Bassij commander had threatened the public to vote for Ahmadinejad.
Head of former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati’s campaign
headquarters who is now working for Rafsanjani said the people in rural
areas had been threatened to vote for Rafsanjani. Velayati decided not
to run in the elections.
The election headquarters’ inspection office said that polling stations were much more deserted than last week.
Amid the power struggle within the regime, the Revolutionary Guards
Corps in Yazd has referred to cheating on the part of Rafsanjani’s
headquarters, which has been trying to buy the votes of the workers.
The head of the regime’s election headquarters in Hamedan expressed
concern over the low turn out, saying that the polling stations were
deserted until noon.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
June 24, 2005 |
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