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DUBAI (Reuters) Iran on Tuesday accused the United States of meddling for saying its presidential election on Friday was neither free nor fair, Iranian state media reported.
A spokesperson for the US State Department said on Monday that the United States viewed the process that made Ebrahim Raisi the president-elect of Iran as quite fabricated, reiterating the US view that the election was not neither free nor fair.
We regard this statement as interference in our internal affairs, contrary to international law and reject it, Iranian government spokesman Ali Rabiei said as quoted by state media.
The US government is not in a position to have the power to express its views on the election process in Iran or any other country, Rabiei said.
Raisi, a hard-line judge who faces US sanctions for human rights violations, claimed victory in Iran’s presidential election on Saturday after a contest marked by voter apathy in the face of economic hardship and political restrictions .
More than half of eligible voters were too unhappy to vote or appeared to have listened to calls from domestic and foreign dissidents to boycott the elections. A deterrent for many pro-reform voters was the lack of choice, after a hard-line electoral body barred prominent moderates and conservatives from running.
The turnout for the four-way race reached an all-time high of around 48.8% and there were 3.7 million spoiled ballots considered to be mostly blank or protest votes.
(Dubai Editorial Report; Editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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