June 19, 2009 8:11 PM
- Text
Khamenei: Vote Showed Iran's "Solidarity"
(CBS/AP)
Last updated 5:39 a.m. Eastern
Iran's supreme leader said Friday there was "definitive victory" and no rigging in his country's disputed presidential elections which have sparked a week of unprecedented protests.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking after Friday prayers in Tehran, offered no concession to opposition supporters who are demanding the elections be canceled and held again.
CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that Friday prayers are usually a religious ceremony, but today, the thousands massed to hear Khamenei were waiting for a political message. And when it came, it was crystal clear.
Khamenei said protests should cease and the opposition must pursue its complaints within the confines of the cleric-led ruling system.
He said protesters would be "held responsible for chaos if they didn't end" the demonstrations. The unrest has posed the greatest challenge to the system since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power.
Khamenei has already approved the June 12 election results that gave hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory, but he has not been able to ignore the powerful defiance of the opposition, which has called the vote rigged.
Khamenei made his address as part of Friday prayers at Tehran University. He urged all Iranians to embrace the "tranquility" and "piety" of Islam.
IranWatch: Track the latest on the Iran election upheaval
Khamenei said God shielded Muslims "from agitation and panicking." He added that the "enemies of Islam" have always sought to "agitate the hearts" of Muslims.
"Your gestures, your postures, all these should be in line with the teachings of God."
"So far there's no reaction from the leaders of the opposition movement," reported Palmer from Tehran, "and no word on whether they have the will to do what only weeks ago would have been unthinkable - to defy the supreme leader himself."
Khamenei directly blamed "some of the Western countries" and the media "which they control," without naming any specific entities, for fomenting the unrest Iran has seen since during the week since the vote.
He lauded the controversial June 12 election as "a great manifestation of people's participation in the affairs of their country."
The supreme leader declared that the vote tally "depicted very well the peoples' solidarity with the establishment." He dubbed the election "a political earthquake" for the enemies of Iran, and a great show of "religious democracy".
"Trust in the Islamic establishment was evident in this election," he said, arguing that the enemies of Islam wanted to see that trust "crushed".
Khamenei sought to dispel the rising sentiment that the opposition camp was directly challenging the authority of the country's Islamic leadership. He said all the candidates were part of the establishment.
"This competition was made within the Islamic establishment," he said, not a competition from "inside and outside the establishment as some media in the U.S. and the U.K. have been trying to say."
Khamenei flatly rejected the opposition's claim that the election results were fixed in any way: "People should know and be sure that the Islamic establishment will never manipulate peoples' votes and commit treason."
He said that if the tally had shown a much narrower gap between the candidates, he might be able to accept that there was some foul play, but not with the results as they have been certified - which showed Ahmadinejad winning with a whopping 62 percent of votes.
"There is a difference of 11 million votes. How can vote-rigging happen?" he asked.
"If some people have their doubts, and they have proof and evidence, then it should be dealt with through legal ways. It should only be dealt with through legal channels," Khamenei warned. "I will not accept any illegal initiatives."
"Today if the legal frameworks are broken, in the future, no election will be safe. In every election some people are winners and some people are losers."
It was not immediately clear whether opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was among the thousands of participants gathered around Tehran University for the speech. At least one other candidate who ran against Ahmadinejad, reformist Mahdi Karroubi, had said he would attend the service.
Both Mousavi and Karroubi asked their followers not to attend the prayers Friday in messages on Mousavi's Facebook and Twitter accounts.
The address came one day after hundreds of thousands of protesters in black and green flooded the streets of Tehran in a somber, candlelit show of mourning for those killed in clashes after Iran's disputed presidential election.
The massive march - the fourth this week - sent a strong message that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has the popular backing to sustain his challenge.
After the June 12 elections, Khamenei approved the balloting results as a "divine assessment" and urged the Iranian people to pursue their allegations of election fraud within the limits of the cleric-led system.
But this week's rallies, which recall the scale of protests during the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ended the Iran's U.S.-backed monarchy, openly defied those orders.
It may be hard for Khamenei - a man endowed with virtually limitless powers under Iran's constitution - to back down from his support of Ahmadinejad. But Mousavi and his supporters have also shown that they can't be brushed aside.
The supreme leader, who has the final say in all state matters, has tried to strike a compromise. On Monday, he ordered the Guardian Council, an unelected body of 12 clerics and Islamic law experts close to Khamenei, to investigate Mousavi's voter fraud claims.
Even Ahmadinejad has appeared to take the growing opposition more seriously and backtracked on his previous dismissal of the protesters as "dust" and sore losers.
"I was only addressing those who rioted, set fires and attack people. I said they are nothing," Ahmadinejad said in a previously taped video shown Thursday on state TV. "Every single Iranian is valuable. Government is a service to all."
The government has tried to placate Mousavi and his supporters by inviting him and two other candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad to a meeting Saturday with the Guardian Council. Abbasali Khadkhodaei, a spokesman for the council, said it received 646 complaints from the three candidates.
Mousavi accuses the government of widespread vote-rigging and demands a full recount or a new election, flouting the will of Khamenei.
The Guardian Council also has said it was prepared to conduct a limited recount of ballots at sites where candidates claim irregularities. But Mousavi accuses the government of widespread vote-rigging and demands a full recount or a new election, flouting the will of Khamenei.
Iran's ruling clerics still command deep public support and are defended by Iran's most powerful military force - the Revolutionary Guard - as well as a vast network of militias.
But Mousavi's movement has forced Khamenei into the center of the escalating crisis, questioning his role as the final authority on all critical issues.
So far, protesters have focused on the results of the balloting rather than challenging the Islamic system of government. But a shift in anger toward Iran's non-elected theocracy could result in a showdown over the foundation of Iran's system of rule.
The crowds in Tehran and elsewhere have been able to organize despite a government clampdown on the Internet and cell phones. The government has blocked certain Web sites, such as BBC Farsi, Facebook, Twitter and several pro-Mousavi sites that are vital conduits for Iranians to tell the world about protests and violence.
Text messaging, which is a primary source of spreading information in Tehran, has not been working since last week, and cell phone service in Tehran is frequently down. The government also has barred foreign news organizations from reporting on Tehran's streets.
Iran's supreme leader said Friday there was "definitive victory" and no rigging in his country's disputed presidential elections which have sparked a week of unprecedented protests.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaking after Friday prayers in Tehran, offered no concession to opposition supporters who are demanding the elections be canceled and held again.
CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports that Friday prayers are usually a religious ceremony, but today, the thousands massed to hear Khamenei were waiting for a political message. And when it came, it was crystal clear.
Khamenei said protests should cease and the opposition must pursue its complaints within the confines of the cleric-led ruling system.
He said protesters would be "held responsible for chaos if they didn't end" the demonstrations. The unrest has posed the greatest challenge to the system since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that brought it to power.
Khamenei has already approved the June 12 election results that gave hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory, but he has not been able to ignore the powerful defiance of the opposition, which has called the vote rigged.
Khamenei made his address as part of Friday prayers at Tehran University. He urged all Iranians to embrace the "tranquility" and "piety" of Islam.
IranWatch: Track the latest on the Iran election upheaval
Khamenei said God shielded Muslims "from agitation and panicking." He added that the "enemies of Islam" have always sought to "agitate the hearts" of Muslims.
"Your gestures, your postures, all these should be in line with the teachings of God."
"So far there's no reaction from the leaders of the opposition movement," reported Palmer from Tehran, "and no word on whether they have the will to do what only weeks ago would have been unthinkable - to defy the supreme leader himself."
Khamenei directly blamed "some of the Western countries" and the media "which they control," without naming any specific entities, for fomenting the unrest Iran has seen since during the week since the vote.
He lauded the controversial June 12 election as "a great manifestation of people's participation in the affairs of their country."
The supreme leader declared that the vote tally "depicted very well the peoples' solidarity with the establishment." He dubbed the election "a political earthquake" for the enemies of Iran, and a great show of "religious democracy".
"Trust in the Islamic establishment was evident in this election," he said, arguing that the enemies of Islam wanted to see that trust "crushed".
Khamenei sought to dispel the rising sentiment that the opposition camp was directly challenging the authority of the country's Islamic leadership. He said all the candidates were part of the establishment.
"This competition was made within the Islamic establishment," he said, not a competition from "inside and outside the establishment as some media in the U.S. and the U.K. have been trying to say."
Khamenei flatly rejected the opposition's claim that the election results were fixed in any way: "People should know and be sure that the Islamic establishment will never manipulate peoples' votes and commit treason."
He said that if the tally had shown a much narrower gap between the candidates, he might be able to accept that there was some foul play, but not with the results as they have been certified - which showed Ahmadinejad winning with a whopping 62 percent of votes.
"There is a difference of 11 million votes. How can vote-rigging happen?" he asked.
"If some people have their doubts, and they have proof and evidence, then it should be dealt with through legal ways. It should only be dealt with through legal channels," Khamenei warned. "I will not accept any illegal initiatives."
"Today if the legal frameworks are broken, in the future, no election will be safe. In every election some people are winners and some people are losers."
It was not immediately clear whether opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi was among the thousands of participants gathered around Tehran University for the speech. At least one other candidate who ran against Ahmadinejad, reformist Mahdi Karroubi, had said he would attend the service.
Both Mousavi and Karroubi asked their followers not to attend the prayers Friday in messages on Mousavi's Facebook and Twitter accounts.
The address came one day after hundreds of thousands of protesters in black and green flooded the streets of Tehran in a somber, candlelit show of mourning for those killed in clashes after Iran's disputed presidential election.
The massive march - the fourth this week - sent a strong message that opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has the popular backing to sustain his challenge.
After the June 12 elections, Khamenei approved the balloting results as a "divine assessment" and urged the Iranian people to pursue their allegations of election fraud within the limits of the cleric-led system.
But this week's rallies, which recall the scale of protests during the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ended the Iran's U.S.-backed monarchy, openly defied those orders.
It may be hard for Khamenei - a man endowed with virtually limitless powers under Iran's constitution - to back down from his support of Ahmadinejad. But Mousavi and his supporters have also shown that they can't be brushed aside.
The supreme leader, who has the final say in all state matters, has tried to strike a compromise. On Monday, he ordered the Guardian Council, an unelected body of 12 clerics and Islamic law experts close to Khamenei, to investigate Mousavi's voter fraud claims.
Even Ahmadinejad has appeared to take the growing opposition more seriously and backtracked on his previous dismissal of the protesters as "dust" and sore losers.
"I was only addressing those who rioted, set fires and attack people. I said they are nothing," Ahmadinejad said in a previously taped video shown Thursday on state TV. "Every single Iranian is valuable. Government is a service to all."
The government has tried to placate Mousavi and his supporters by inviting him and two other candidates who ran against Ahmadinejad to a meeting Saturday with the Guardian Council. Abbasali Khadkhodaei, a spokesman for the council, said it received 646 complaints from the three candidates.
Mousavi accuses the government of widespread vote-rigging and demands a full recount or a new election, flouting the will of Khamenei.
The Guardian Council also has said it was prepared to conduct a limited recount of ballots at sites where candidates claim irregularities. But Mousavi accuses the government of widespread vote-rigging and demands a full recount or a new election, flouting the will of Khamenei.
Iran's ruling clerics still command deep public support and are defended by Iran's most powerful military force - the Revolutionary Guard - as well as a vast network of militias.
But Mousavi's movement has forced Khamenei into the center of the escalating crisis, questioning his role as the final authority on all critical issues.
So far, protesters have focused on the results of the balloting rather than challenging the Islamic system of government. But a shift in anger toward Iran's non-elected theocracy could result in a showdown over the foundation of Iran's system of rule.
The crowds in Tehran and elsewhere have been able to organize despite a government clampdown on the Internet and cell phones. The government has blocked certain Web sites, such as BBC Farsi, Facebook, Twitter and several pro-Mousavi sites that are vital conduits for Iranians to tell the world about protests and violence.
Text messaging, which is a primary source of spreading information in Tehran, has not been working since last week, and cell phone service in Tehran is frequently down. The government also has barred foreign news organizations from reporting on Tehran's streets.
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