Iranians headed to polls yesterday after three weeks of mass rallies, a series of fiery television debates and mudslinging among the four presidential candidates.
With the interior ministry predicting record voter turnout, the poll has emerged as a tense race between incumbent hardliner Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main challenger, moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is seeking a comeback after two decades in the political wilderness.
The two other candidates are reformist former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and the former head of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohsen Rezai.
Polls opened at 8am yesterday and may continue until midnight depending on turnout, election officials said.
Campaigning, which began on May 22, saw Iranians pour into streets and party until dawn in support of their favorite candidates, mainly Mousavi and Ahmadinejad.
This year’s campaign has been almost unprecedented in its ferocity, with candidates hurling insults and allegations of lying and corruption at each other on prime time television.
Observers say the level of mudslinging has never been seen before in the Islamic republic.
“One thing is clear. Iran will never have television debates involving presidential candidates in the future. They just did not handle it with maturity,” one foreign diplomat based in Tehran said.
Surveys showed that the three challengers were more likely to benefit from protest votes against Ahmadinejad rather than votes in their favor.
“The sympathies and antipathies for and against the president will have a bigger impact on the election outcome than the programs of the three rival candidates,” an election observer said.
The interior ministry predicted a record turnout in the 30-year history of the Islamic republic, with 46.2 million Iranians over the age of 18 eligible to vote. Both the presidential and the opposition camps hope to benefit from the high turnout.
It was widely expected that Iranians who oppose the prevailing Islamic system but who have so far avoided elections would vote this time.
Ahmadinejad claims that his government has returned “dignity and pride” to the Iranian nation and vows to continue this trend in the next four years.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not