Akbar Hashemi's Memoirs - June 9, 2001 - Reporting on the Initial Results of the Presidential Election and Its Noteworthy Controversies

The initial results of the presidential election are gradually being announced. According to the announcement from the Election Headquarters, Seyyed Mohammad Khatami has been elected president for a second term, having received 21,659,053 votes out of a total of 28,081,930 ballots cast. Ahmad Tavakoli came in second with approximately four and a half million votes, and Ali Shamkhani came third with about seven hundred thousand votes. Seven other candidates received fewer votes than the number of invalid ballots.

In my account, I mention the visit of Javad Maghsoudi, head of the Friday Prayer Organizing Committee in Tehran, who admitted their incorrect predictions and my warnings regarding this matter.

I also met with Brigadier General Abdollah Ali Askari, head of the West Studies Foundation, who announced that he had stepped down from managing the Foundation of the Revolutionary Guards' Cooperation to establish the West Studies Foundation. It was interesting to hear about the Revolutionary Guards' support for two newspapers: Javan and Siyasat-e Rouz.

Additionally, I met with Seyyed Reza Sajjadi, Homayoun Madadi, and Ali Vakili to follow up on the fuel cell project.

Full Text of the Daily Notes:

From early morning, the results of the presidential election began to be announced gradually. It appears that the total number of votes exceeded 28 million, which is two million votes fewer than the previous election, despite the fact that the number of eligible voters has increased by about seven million. Mr. Khatami’s votes exceeded 21 million, and Mr. Ahmad Tavakoli received slightly more than four million votes. Gradually, suspicions of electoral fraud began to arise. Since yesterday morning, there have been reports of a shortage of ballots in many polling stations, even though over 45 million ballots had been distributed and the Ministry of the Interior insisted on adding more ballot boxes. However, due to the significant difference between Mr. Khatami and the other candidates, the other candidates see no benefit in filing complaints. The Guardian Council has made some indications.

Mr. Javad Maghsoudi, the head of the Friday Prayer Organizing Committee in Tehran, came to me and admitted that their predictions were incorrect. Yesterday, during Friday prayers, he told me that evidence suggested that Mr. Khatami had less than 12 million votes and that Mr. Tavakoli had more than 10 million votes. He acknowledged the right-wing faction's mistakes and asked me for a way to rectify them, to which I provided some advice. I reiterated my opinion from six years ago that the Society of Combatant Clergy should coordinate with the moderate and independent faction, which comprises more than 40 percent of the electorate. However, this was not the view of the leadership and the Society of Combatant Clergy, which believed that the values of the left and right should unite against others, which is impractical.

Mr. Abdollah Ali Askari also brought up this issue and sought solutions. He mentioned that he had resigned from the Foundation of the Revolutionary Guards' Cooperation to establish the American Studies Foundation, aiming to understand and identify the major enemy of the revolution. He stated that the Revolutionary Guards were supporting the newspaper Javan and the newspaper Siyasat-e Rouz.

In the afternoon, I met with Seyyed Reza Sajjadi, the head of the Presidential Office of Technology, Dr. Homayoun Madadi, and Engineer Ali Vakili, the head of the Oil Industry Research Institute, to follow up on the fuel cell technology. I provided them with solutions.

Foreign media, especially BBC Radio, expressed happiness over Mr. Khatami’s significant victory and made provocative and divisive remarks.