[Zeno]

From the article:

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An element of the bizarre was added to the whole affair because Ahmadinejad, who had hovered at the back of the field of candidates in pre-election opinion surveys, announced hours before the ministry issued its own results that he would be in Friday's runoff.



The government did not respond to the charges of vote tampering, but the cloud had been hanging over the race since the early-morning hours when the Interior Ministry found its results being publicly contradicted on state television by the Guardian Council, the panel controlled by hard-line clerics that has the ultimate say over all government actions. It has, for example, the power to unilaterally reject the outcome of the election.



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Initially, the Interior Ministry had Rafsanjani first, Karroubi second and Ahmadinejad third. A half-hour later the Guardian Council, which is not supposed to be involved in counting ballots, said Ahmadinejad was in first place.

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-Zeno