Defeated Iranian candidates vow to continue protests

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 today, 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”.