The top US diplomat made her comments in Cairo on Monday in the keynote speech of a whirlwind tour of the Middle East aimed at boosting US policies for democracy and reforms in the region.
“In Iran, people are losing patience with an oppressive regime that denies them their liberty and their rights,” Rice charged, in an address to some 600 Egyptians delivered at the American University in Cairo.
“The appearance of elections does not mask the organised cruelty of Iran’s theocratic state,” she said.
“The Iranian people are capable of liberty. They desire liberty. And they deserve liberty. The time has come for the unelected few to release their grip on the aspirations of the proud people of Iran,” she went on.
Tehran’s ultra-conservative mayor Mahmood Ahmadinejad and moderate cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani were the top two finishers in the first round of voting and will face a run-off on Friday.
Iranian reformists have said the vote was rigged.
“I find it hard to see how this election could certainly contribute to the sense of legitimacy of the Iranian government, and it certainly is out of step with the way that elections are being held in the region,” she had said Sunday in an interview Sunday with the US network ABC.
