Electoral authorities on Monday ordered a limited recount of Iran's inconclusive presidential election after reformists accused military organisations of rigging the vote in favour of a hard-line candidate.
The recount comes four days before an unpredictable second round run-off between the top two candidates in Friday's poll - pragmatic former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hard-line mayor of Tehran.
Friday's run-off, forced after none of the original seven candidates won an absolute majority, is likely to have a major impact on Iran's relations with the world and the future of fragile reforms in the Islamic Republic.
Rafsanjani, 70, bidding to regain the post he held from 1989 to 1997, rebranded himself as a liberal for the campaign, saying the time was right to open a new chapter in Iran-US ties and indicating he would increase social and political freedoms.
His surprise rival Ahmadinejad, 49, who would be Iran's first non-cleric president for 24 years, ran a far more modest campaign focusing on the need to tackle poverty and revive the ideals of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Speaking to hard-line lawmakers in parliament on Monday, Ahmadinejad criticised the current government's approach to talks with the West, which accuses Iran of building atomic arms.
"Those who are in negotiations are frightened and don't know the people," the ISNA students news agency quoted him as saying. "A popular and fundamentalist government will quickly change the country's stance in favour of the nation."
Reformists, some of whom accuse state military organisations like the Basij militia of supporting Ahmadinejad, say he is part of an ultra-conservative totalitarian plan.
"If he wins (Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei will really rule everything," said Mohammad Reza Khatami, head of Iran's largest reform party. "We will not have free elections and opposition voices won't be tolerated," he told Reuters.
Islamic hard-liners, many of them former Revolutionary Guards members, won control of many city councils and Iran's parliament in 2003 and 2004 elections which were marred by low turnout.
Iran's hard-line Guardian Council, which has the final word on election results, said it would recount votes from 100 ballot boxes in four cities on Monday to allay the rigging fears.
Third-placed reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, who asked for the partial recount, said some Ahmadinejad votes were paid for.
A newspaper which printed his charges in a daringly critical letter to Khamenei was shut by the judiciary.
There have been no popular protests about the vote results.
Rafsanjani, alluding to "organised interference" in Friday's vote, urged Iranians to help him defeat Ahmadinejad.
"I seek your help and ask you to be present in the second round of the election so that we can prevent all extremism," he said in a statement published in several newspapers.
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