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Trump’s early victory claim reminds Iranians of 2009 election claim

Friday, 06 November 2020 12:01 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 06 November 2020 12:01 AM ]

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Saman Kojouri
Press TV, Tehran

US president Donald Trump’s early victory claim on Wednesday in the US election has prompted reactions across the US. But here in Iran the case reminded the country of the 2009 Presidential elections in which one of the Presidential hopefuls made the same claim.

With the winner of the US presidential election yet to be announced, on Wednesday evening US President Donald Trump asserted election fraud, pledged to mount a legal challenge to official state results and made a premature claim of victory in a bitterly contested race that may take time to resolve.

In remarks at the White House Wednesday, Trump claimed that he won several states that are still counting ballots, including Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. He also vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court.

The case of early victory claim is similar to what happened in Iran’s presidential elections back in 2009 when the then Presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi claimed premature victory before all votes had been counted. But after vote counting ended Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the polls. Mir Hossein Mousavi’s early victory claim and his following claims of vote fraud was widely supported by the US which led to street protests across the nation, plunging the country into chaos and riots for days.

Clashes have reportedly erupted between US police and protesters in several cities across the US amid a state of high anxiety across the nation over the winner of the election.

Legal and elections experts in the US say that there is no evidence to back up Trump’s claims – and taking time to make sure every vote is counted in no way signals that something improper is under way.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei says Iran is NOT concerned about who will be the winner of the US presidential elections and that the Islamic Republic’s stance towards the US hegemony will remain unchanged whatever the result of the US polls.

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