The Iranian Government declared an outright election victory for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday morning,and riot police officers fought with supporters of opposition candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi,who insisted that the election had been stolen. After a mostly quiet morning in Tehran,Moussavi supporters began filtering onto the streets. By early afternoon,thousands had come together,many of them wearing the trademark green of his campaign,chanting angrily that they would fight on as Moussavi had urged them to do on Friday night when he claimed that he had won and that there had been voting irregularities. I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin, Moussavi said during a news conference with reporters just after 11 pm on Friday,adding: It is our duty to defend peoples votes. There is no turning back. A statement posted on Moussavis website on Saturday morning urged his supporters to resist a governance of lie and dictatorship. But the Iranian authorities moved quickly to head off any concerted street demonstrations. Thousands of police officers could be seen moving into central Tehran,charging straight into the biggest concentrations of protesters. Irans Interior Ministry said on Saturday that final results gave Ahmadinejad 62.6 per cent of the vote,with Moussavi getting just 33.7 per cent. The ministry says turnout was a record 85 per cent of eligible voters. Though there was no word of Moussavis whereabouts on Saturday,statements on his website made clear that he was contesting the official line. Im warning that I wont surrender to this manipulation, he said,adding that the election outcome is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran sacred system and governance of lie and dictatorship. He warned people wont respect those who take power through fraud and said the decision to declare Ahmadinejad the winner was a treason to the votes of the people. The conflicting claims,coming after an extraordinary campaign that saw vast street demonstrations and vitriolic televised debates,seemed to undermine the public legitimacy of the vote and to threaten unrest. The emotional campaign was widely seen as a referendum on Ahmadinejads divisive policies. It pitted Moussavi,a former Prime Minister who has pledged to move Iran away from confrontation with the West,combat economic stagnation and expand womens rights,against Ahmadinejads economic populism,social conservatism,and hardline foreign policy. At his news conference,Moussavi cited irregularities that included a shortage of ballots. He accused the Government of shutting down websites,newspapers and text messaging services throughout the country,crippling the oppositions ability to communicate during the voting. Fraud has been a prominent concern for Moussavis campaign,with many of his allies warning that Ahmadinejad could use the levers of state the military,the Revolutionary Guard,and the Basij militia to cajole or intimidate voters. At his news conference,Moussavi called on the countrys supreme leader,Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,to help the country reach a favourable conclusion. Amid the confusion overnight,a reformist website called Fararu said Moussavi was talking with the two other candidates,Karroubi and Rezai,to discuss the situation.
