Authority rules out annuling Iranian elections

Iran’s state TV today has reported the country’s top electoral authority has ruled out annulling the results of the disputed June 12 election in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was named the winner.

A spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted by Iran’s state-run English language Press TV as saying the organisation had found “no major fraud or breach in the election.”

As a result, he said, the results would not be annulled.

President Ahmadinejad’s main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, has charged the election was a fraud and insists he is the true winner.

His followers have been staging near-daily rallies. In recent days, the government has intensified a crackdown on the protests.