Alireza Zakani, a conservative eighth Majlis lawmaker and member of the six-man Majlis committee to investigate the post-election turmoil revealed that according to opinion polls conducted by government sources, a first-round victory for Ahmadinejad was impossible and the election would have been decided in the second round. Speaking at the Imam Sadegh University, Zakani also revealed that Ahmadinejad had fewer votes than Mousavi among workers at such sensitive institutions as the state radio and television broadcasting.
Referring to the six-man Majlis committee’s meeting with Mousavi on the Tuesday after the election, Zakani claimed to have told Mousavi, “During the election we traveled to many provinces and gave speeches so that you would not be elected. But we now say that we are not your enemy. We just did not see you fit to be president.” As a member of the Majlis committee to monitor election fraud, however, Zakani was supposed to have been impartial and not publicly voice his support for Ahmadinejad.
Zakani then referred to the Majlis committee’s meeting with Hashemi Rafsanjani on the Wednesday after the election, noting that Hashemi said to committee members that Mousavi will not accept any solution other than voiding the results and holding a fresh election. Zakani quoted Hashemi as having said, “Conditions in the society are difficult, and now students, not the clerics, serve as leaders in society. The 3.5 million people that came onto the streets will not return home, and it is better if we fulfill their demands.” He added that the conservatives who opposed Ahmadinejad, under the leadership of Nategh-Nouri (the main conservative candidate in the 1997 presidential election), sought to nominate an alternative candidate. Nategh-Nouri suggested Ali Larijani as the alternative candidate, who refused the offer for certain reasons.
This lawmaker from Tehran also referred to the results of opinion polls conducted by the intelligence and interior ministries one day before the election, which conclusively demonstrated that the election would be decided in two rounds: “Exactly on Thursday, June 11, two opinion polls conducted by the interior and intelligence ministries, both of which connected to the administration, were released revealing that the election will be decided in the second round.”
Zakani revealed: “Based on these opinion polls the National Security Council also announced that the election will be decided in the second round.” In Zakani’s view, the two opinion polls supplied the opposition with an “excuse of fraud.” He said that after the election it was discovered that “there were elements within the intelligence ministry that participated in the post-election turmoil.”
This member of the Principalist faction in the Majlis added that, out of the 800 ballots cast by workers at the state radio and television broadcasting, 750 belonged to Mousavi, which in his view resulted in the organization’s failure to take adequate positions against the post-election agitators.
Discussing Zakani’s remarks, one political analyst in Tehran told Rooz, “While the Ahmadinejad administration has spent all its efforts on proving the claim that he won the election in the first round without fraud, his supporters now confess that the administration’s own opinion polls indicated that such a victory for Ahmadinejad would have been impossible.” He adds, “It is interesting that even people such as Zakani are unhappy with the publication of confidential opinion polls revealing the pre-election atmosphere and accuse Ahmadinejad’s intelligence and interior ministries of treason and ‘supplying enemies with excuses’ for doing so.”
