So apparently early reports are saying that around 65% of the votes are in and that they show Mir Hossein Mousavi as the victor but nobody is celebrating yet.
4.50pm: Update: Voting has been extended for a third time, Reuters reporters. Polls will now close at 9pm (5.30pmBST).
5.10pm: President Obama said that his government was "excited" about the debate surrounding the elections, Reuters report. "Whoever ends up winning, the fact there has been a robust debate hopefully will advance our ability to engage them in new ways," he said.
6.35pm: As night fell on Tehran the heavens opened with a deliciously cooling downpour after a very long hot day, writes Ian Black in his final blog posting of the day.
Amazingly, polling stations are still open and heaving, with voting extended for a fourth extra hour to accommodate what by all accounts is a massive voter turnout that could even break the 1997 record.
Friends in the Mousavi camp can hardly contain their excitement at what they think is the likelihood of imminent victory. But they say they are worried about a last-minute hitch: the meaning of a reported shortage of ballot papers in some places, for example, and ominous predictions that the regime may lash out if Ahmadinejad does lose.
A Revolutionary Guard warning about not tolerating a "velvet revolution" by the Iranian "greens" has been noted with some alarm. The blocking of SMS messages throughout the day was almost certainly designed to disrupt contact between Mousavi supporters.
"We are all very excited," said a North Tehran photographer, "but we fear that we may have to pay for our empowerment."
Hope everything remains peaceful and can't help but wonder if Ahmadinejad will attempt something.
The president of Iran is more of a figurehead than anything...he holds very little power. The Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has the real power in Iran.
On June 13 2009 04:45 iamtt1 wrote: the elections are bullshit, religious leaders have been running iran for the past 40-50 years since the shah got overthrown
On June 13 2009 04:45 iamtt1 wrote: the elections are bullshit, religious leaders have been running iran for the past 40-50 years since the shah got overthrown
Oh, nice! I see TL has a PhD candidate in Near Eastern Studies!
It's a real shame the Shah couldn't stick around to see the Beatles before he got overthrown in 1959.
EDIT: The electon means a lot, and Khomeini doesn't wield his power absolutely like most of you think.
Trita Parsi, the president of National American Iranian Council, told Al Jazeera that the emphatic nature of the victory raised "a lot of question marks".
"There are so many inconsistencies. They are even reporting that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz, which is Mousavi's home town, with 57 per cent. That seems extremely unlikely.
"How come the votes were counted so quickly, even though the polls were open six hours extra?"
Ahmadinejad's supporters took to the street in the early hours of Saturday, waving Iranian flags and honking car horns, after the official Iranian Republic News Agency (IRNA) had declared the election for the incumbent president.
"Where are the greens? In a mousehole," some of them said, referring to the campaign colours of Mousavi, whose supporters held mass rallies in recent weeks.
The two other candidates up for election - Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, and Mehdi Karroubi, an ex-parliament speaker - finished a distant third and fourth.
Karroubi added his voice to those criticising the result, saying it was "illegitimate and unacceptable".
On June 13 2009 22:52 D10 wrote: Yep iranians got shafted, now you see how the world saw bush winning his second term.
Difference being we did it to ourselves, since he did legitimately win that election. You can't just declare an election rigged if you don't like the winner, which I guess I should keep in mind before saying anything about Iran's.
I would've preferred seeing Mousavi win, too bad. Especially since I expected him to win, since 2/3rd of the Iranians are below 30 and Mousavi is especially popular with this group. A victory of this magnitude is hard to believe.
Oh it hasn't been mentioned yet in this topic but apparently the results are that Ahmadinejad won with 63% (wtf).
every picture i see of Iranian elections all the women are beautiful, in regards to the election itself, i wonder, even if Ahmadinejad is really the winner, will it change at all there given the public support for another candidate/policies, I mean would the Ayatollah or Ahmadinejad be more open to some reformist movements to sort of satisfy some of the opposition? hope that question made sense
On June 13 2009 23:25 XoXiDe wrote: every picture i see of Iranian elections all the women are beautiful, in regards to the election itself, i wonder, even if Ahmadinejad is really the winner, will it change at all there given the public support for another candidate/policies, I mean would the Ayatollah or Ahmadinejad be more open to some reformist movements to sort of satisfy some of the opposition? hope that question made sense
The answer to that question is most likely No. Iran is not the United States. It's not a country where you have someone like Obama who adds Clinton to his cabinet after beating her in the primaries. The schism in Iranian politics between reformists-conservative groups is much much bigger than in the United States. Also, the margin was not very close. If it was 51%-49% maybe there would be some sort of pressure to appease the reformists but Ahmadinejad got about 63% of the vote. He has a firm mandate to rule.
You guys have to realize; in Iran the incumbent has NEVER lost the election. It's not even rigging, Khatami (reformist) won as an incumbent as well. People here who likely haven't been following the election or Iranian politics very much just browsed through the Western election coverage, which only started earlier this week, and thought "oh I'm hearing a lot about Moussavi (obviously because ALL the election coverage was taking place just in Tehran which has a lot of young educated people who are Moussavi supporters) it seems like he has an Obama vibe and is going to win".
The thing that most people don't realize is that Iran is a huge country and although Moussavi appeals to some young intellectuals, Ahmadinejad has such a broader base of support. Practically everyone outside of Tehran supports him, and many of the old generation support him, people in South Tehran support him, A LOT of people support him. People here in the West talk about Ahmadinejad as if he's bad (and I'm not arguing that he's good) and not friendly to the West so they automatically assume that the Iranian people don't want him in power. But the fact of the matter is, they do. Despite the fact that he's done a TERRIBLE job with the economy, he is a really strong and charismatic figure who resonates a lot with a majority of Iran's population and you can't ignore that.
Ahmadinejad is one of the most popular and recognizable figures in the Middle East for a reason. So don't be too surprised at these election results. Most likely they weren't rigged in any significant way. The Moussavi camp is just shocked at the loss, because many of them just failed to see the reality. Think about the 2004 election here. John Kerry campaigned so hard to get young people to vote and to energize them, but in the end he lost. Why? Because Bush appealed to a larger segment of the population. Same story with Ahmadinejad.
On June 13 2009 23:24 Frits wrote: I would've preferred seeing Mousavi win, too bad. Especially since I expected him to win, since 2/3rd of the Iranians are below 30 and Mousavi is especially popular with this group. A victory of this magnitude is hard to believe.
Oh it hasn't been mentioned yet in this topic but apparently the results are that Ahmadinejad won with 63% (wtf).
Again, this is wrong. Just because most Iranians are under 30 and Moussavi is generally more popular with young people than old people doesn't mean ALL young people support him. Quite the contrary actually, many young people in Iran are pretty fanatical, conservative, and think Ahmadinejad is a sort of West-defying inspirational figure.
During the Gaza war, sooooo many young Iranians volunteering to willingly to fight against Israel. Khamenei had to give an official order to stop them from doing that. And there were a LOT of people who were like that, young ones, and people who likely would not support Moussavi.
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