Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the Iranian nation needs calm and patience on Friday and ruled out any vote rigging in the recent presidential election.
Khamenei made the remarks at the Friday prayers congregation on Tehran University campus, as the country has been hit by massive rallies against the "frauds" in the recent presidential election.
In his speech broadcast live on state television, Khamenei said that the country's election mechanism does not allow any cheating and it is wrong to resort to street protests to exert pressure.
"Iran's (election) laws do not allow any cheating," Khamenei said. "How could it be possible to have such a vote-rigging with a margin of 11 million votes?"
"It's wrong to use street protests as a pressure tool," the Iranian supreme leader said, warning that "they will be responsible for any consequences of violence and chaos."
He urged the candidates to raise any complaints about the election through legal channels.
Khamenei also said that all four candidates in the recent presidential election belonged to Iran's Islamic establishment and the dispute was an internal issue, not an opposition to the regime.
He accused some Western countries and media of trying to create political rift and social chaos in Iran by discrediting the " victorious" election.
In the June 12 election, the two reformist candidates -- former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi and former Revolutionary Guards chief Mohsen Rezaei were vying with the incumbent hard-liner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the next presidency.
On June 13, Iran's Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli said Ahmadinejad won 62.63 percent of the total ballots on June 12, while his main rival Mousavi got 33.75 percent.
After the official declaration, Mousavi protested "strongly" the "obvious" violations in Iran's presidential election. He also appealed to the Guardian Council for a cancellation of the election result.
Mousavi's supporters have participated in massive rallies in Tehran and other cities over the past days.
In the Friday speech, Khamenei also said that there were some " deficiencies" in the television debates as part of the election campaigns, during which Ahmadinejad accused some family members of influential former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani of " financial corruption."
Khamenei dismissed the allegations and praised Rafsanjani as a long-time supporter of the Islamic Revolution, but the supreme leader still said that Ahmadinejad's opinions on some foreign, economic and social issues were close to his.
Iran's Guardian Council said Thursday that 646 complaints have been submitted to the council concerning the irregularities on Iran 's recent presidential election.
According to a report by local satellite Press TV, the council' s spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaie said that the three defeated candidates have submitted a total of 646 complaints which are carefully studied.
Kadkhodaie has also said that candidates of Iran's recent presidential election have been invited to its upcoming meeting session which is to be held within the next few days, the official IRNA news agency said in another report on Thursday.
(Xinhua News Agency June 20, 2009)
