Mousavi rejects partial recount

Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi today rejected authorities' proposals for a partial recount of votes…

Defeated Iranian presidential candidate Mirhossein Mousavi today rejected authorities' proposals for a partial recount of votes from this month's election and repeated his demand the entire ballot be annulled.

Iran's top legislative body, the Guardian Council, had offered to recount 10 per cent of ballot boxes from the June 12 vote in the presence of senior officials representing government and opposition.

"This kind of recount will not remove ambiguities...There is no other way but annulment of the vote. . . . Some members of this committee are not impartial," Mr Mousavi said in a statement posted on his website on Saturday.

Another defeated candidate, pro-reform cleric Mehdi Karoubi, rejected the partial recount offer in a statement on his website.

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Mass protests by Mousavi supporters have exposed splits in Iran's political establishment and plunged the country into its deepest crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. State media say 20 people have died in post-election violence.

While offering the partial recount, the Guardian Council has already said it found no major violations in the vote that returned hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power for a second term.

Mr Ahmadinejad warned today he would take a tougher approach in his second term of office to make the West regret meddling in Tehran's affairs.

"With no doubt, Iran's new government will have a more decisive and firmer approach towards the West," the official IRNA news agency quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying. "This time the Iranian nation's reply will be harsh and more decisive" to make the West rue its interference, he said.

He was speaking a day after US President Barack Obama praised the bravery of Iranians who protested against this month's disputed election in the face of what he called "outrageous" violence. Before the election, Mr Obama had made diplomatic overtures to Iran after years of hostility between the two nations.

Relations with the West have been overshadowed for years by Iran's disputed nuclear programme, which the West suspects is aimed at building an atomic bomb.

Mr Mousavi says the recent vote was rigged, and his supporters staged mass protests in the week after the election, but Iranian authorities have since then used warnings, arrests and the threat of police action to drive them off Tehran's streets. Smaller gatherings have been dispersed with tear gas and baton charges.

Mr Mousavi says the government is to blame for the violence, and has urged the Interior Ministry to allow his supporters to rally.

The establishment has made it clear it has no intention of holding a new election and has set up a special court to deal with hundreds of detained protesters. A hardline Iranian cleric has called for the execution of leading "rioters".