US casts doubt on Iran poll validity

Agencies/Tel Aviv

The US yesterday called into question the credibility of Iran’s presidential election next month, criticising the disqualification of candidates and accusing Tehran of disrupting Internet access.

“I cannot think of anyone in the world... who would not be amazed by a process in which an unelected Guardian Council, which is unaccountable to the Iranian people, has disqualified... hundreds of potential candidates according to vague criteria,” US Secretary of State John Kerry said at a news conference in Tel Aviv.

“The Council narrowed a list of almost 700 potential candidates down to...officials of their choice, based solely on who represents the regime’s interests,” Kerry said shortly before flying out of Israel.

“That is hardly an election by standards which most people in most countries judge free, fair, open, accessible, accountable elections.”

Most of the remaining eight men left on the Iranian ballot are seen as loyalists to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The disqualifications appeared to leave lead nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, a figure close to Khamenei, as the frontrunner.

Kerry, whose country’s decades-old rift with Iran has widened over the latter’s nuclear ambitions, said Washington saw “troubling signs” that the Iranian government was slowing down or cutting off Internet access to its citizens.