Word: voting
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...reformist movement - by a staggering 50% but also managed to win in Azerbaijan, the birthplace of his chief rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, by a 4-to-1 margin. (As an Azeri friend of mine said, this would be akin to Senator John McCain winning the African-American vote against Barack Obama.) It seems odd that the election was called so soon after the polls had closed, despite the many millions of ballots still to be counted, most of them by hand. (Read "Thirty Years After the Revolution, U.S. Still Struggling to Understand Iran...
...campus or lining the surrounding streets in his first public address since the outcome of last Friday's disputed presidential election. He insisted there had been no fraud in the result, describing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election win as "definitive." He added that the "Islamic establishment would never manipulate votes and commit treason. The legal structure in this country does not allow vote-rigging. If the difference was 100,000 or 500,000 or 1 million, well, one may say fraud could have happened. But how can one rig 11 million votes?" For Khamenei, the election was proof positive that...
...Supreme Leader spoke for the best part of 100 minutes, offering no concessions whatsoever to protesters demanding that the vote be held again. He went on to say that the demonstrations should cease with protesters being "held responsible for chaos if they didn't end" and that a "street challenge is not acceptable." But Khamenei didn't just reserve his remarks for the Iranians. He called the British government "the most evil opponent" (The U.K. government has since summoned the Iranian ambassador to protest against the comment) and blamed external "enemies of Islam" for trying to stoke anger. "Some...
...Khamenei, who has since backtracked by ordering an investigation into claims of voter fraud. Despite violent attacks on demonstrators and arrests of political figures, security forces have in the main refrained from unleashing their repressive might on demonstrators who are openly defying the law. The partial recount of the vote has bought Khamenei time, but the crisis of legitimacy facing those in power grows by the day. (See pictures of Iran's presidential election and its turbulent aftermath...
...investigate claims of electoral fraud. If the combination of escalating street demonstrations and the politicking of Mousavi's backers inside the regime's councils prompts Khamenei to conclude that an Ahmadinejad victory is untenable, he could press the Guardian Council to heed the opposition's demand for a new vote - or, more likely, "adjust" the result so that no candidate has a clear majority, forcing a runoff election between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Such a course would be a bitter pill for the Supreme Leader, dealing a body blow to his efforts to install Ahmadinejad and mocking his authority by forcing...