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#13061464
Heavy turnout predicted as Iranians vote

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranians packed polling stations from boutique-lined streets in north Tehran to conservative bastions in the countryside Friday with a choice that's left the nation divided and on edge: keeping hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or electing a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.

Crowds formed quickly at many voting sites in areas considered both strongholds for Ahmadinejad and his main rival, reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who served as prime minister in the 1980s and has become the surprise hero of a powerful youth-driven movement. At several polling stations in Tehran, mothers held their young children in their arms as they waited in long lines.

"I hope to defeat Ahmadinejad today," said Mahnaz Mottaghi, 23, after casting her ballot at a mosque in central Tehran.

Outside the same polling station, 29-year-old Abbas Rezai said he, his wife and his sister-in-law all voted for Ahmadinejad.

"We will have him as a president for another term, for sure," he said.

The fiery, monthlong campaign unleashed passions that could bring a record turnout. The mass rallies, polished campaign slogans, savvy Internet outreach and televised debates more closely resembled Western elections than the scripted campaigns in most other Middle Eastern countries.

In a sign of the bitterness from the campaign, the Interior Ministry - which oversees voting - said all rallies or political gatherings would be banned until after results are announced, which are expected Saturday.

The outcome will not sharply alter Iran's main policies or sway high-level decisions, such as possible talks with Washington. Those crucial policies are all directly controlled by the ruling clerics headed by the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But Mousavi has offered hopes of more freedoms at home. If elected, he could try to end crackdowns on liberal media and bloggers and push for Iran to embrace President Barack Obama's offer of dialogue after a nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze. He favors talks with world powers over Iran's nuclear program, which the United States and others fear is aimed at making weapons. Iran says it only seeks reactors for electricity.

Iranians around the world also took part in the vote. In Dubai, home to an estimated 200,000 Iranians, the streets around the polling station at the Iranian consulate were jammed with voters overwhelmingly favoring Mousavi.

"He is our Obama," said Maliki Zadehamid, a 39-year-old exporter.

With the race considered too close to call, a top election official predicted turnout could surpass the nearly 80 percent in the election 12 years ago that brought President Mohammad Khatami to power and began the pro-reform movement. A strong turnout could boost Mousavi. He is counting on under-30s, who account for about a third of Iran's 46.2 million eligible voters.

Even before the vote was over, Khatami predicted Mousavi will emerge the winner. "All indications suggest that Mousavi has won," Khatami told reporters.

In Tehran's affluent northern districts - strongly backing Mousavi - voters waited for up to an hour to cast ballots. Mahdi Hosseini, a university student, blasted the firebrand Ahmadinejad for "degrading Iran's image in the eyes of the world."

Ahmadinejad brought international condemnation by repeatedly questioning the Holocaust.

In the conservative city of Qom, home to seminaries and shrines, hundreds of clerics and women dressed in long black robes waited to vote in a long line outside a mosque. Ahmadinejad's campaign has heavily courted his base of working-class families and tradition-minded voters with promises of more government aid and resistance to Western pressures over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Mousavi's rallies in Tehran drew tens of thousands of cheering supporters, who later spent their nights shouting anti-Ahmadinejad slogans and dancing to Persian pop songs on the streets.

The highly charged atmosphere brought blistering recriminations against Ahmadinejad - whom Mousavi said was moving Iran to a "dictatorship" - and a stunning warning from the ruling establishment. The political chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Wednesday it would crush any "revolution" against the Islamic system by Mousavi's "green movement" - the signature color of his campaign.

Mousavi hammered Ahmadinejad for mismanaging the economy, burdened by double-digit inflation and chronic unemployment despite vast oil and gas riches.

For the first time in Iran, the forces of the Web were fully harnessed in an election showdown. That catapulted Mousavi, a 67-year-old former prime minister from the 1980s, into a political star.

On Friday, dozens of Iranians using Twitter posted messages including one that proclaimed: "For Iran, this is the Day of Decision."

Another tweet: "Keep my fingers crossed for green wave to win."

Mousavi's stunning rise also has been helped by his popular and charismatic wife, former university dean Zahra Rahnavard, and their joint calls for more rights and political clout for women. Iranian women work in nearly all levels of society - including as parliament members. But they face legal restrictions on issues such as inheritance and court testimony, where their say is considered only half as credible as a man's.

In a possible complication for Mousavi's backers, Iran's mobile phone text messaging system was down. Many Iranians, especially young voters, frequently use text messages to spread election information quickly to friends and family.

"Unfortunately, some of my representatives were blocked from entering polling stations and SMS (text messaging) is also down, which is against the law," Mousavi said after voting, according to his campaign Web site. "We should not be fearful about the free flow of information, and I urge officials to observe the law."

Telecommunication Ministry spokesman Davood Zareian confirmed to The Associated Press that the text message system has been down since late Wednesday.

"We are investigating," he said.

Iran's elections are considered generally fair, but the country does not allow international monitors. The ruling clerics, however, put their stamp on the elections from the very beginning by deciding who can run. More than 470 people sought to join the presidential race, but only Ahmadinejad and three rivals were cleared.

During the 2005 election, there were some allegations of vote rigging from losers, but the claims were never investigated.

There were no reports of unrest or claims of serious problems as the vote got under way. Some reformist Web sites complained that Ahmadinejad supporters were allowed to campaign near polling stations in violation of rules.

After casting his vote in the white ballot box, the Supreme Leader Khamenei urged Iranians to remain calm.

"As far as I see and hear, passion and motivation is very high among people," Khamenei told reporters. "If some intend to create tension, this will harm people," he added.

After voting at a mosque on Friday in eastern Tehran, Ahmadinejad commented on the high turnout.

Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli said reports to election officials indicate an "unprecedented turnout will be recorded in the country's election history," according to the official IRNA news agency.

Mousavi voted with his wife at a mosque in Tehran's southern outskirts.

In the southern city of Shiraz, people waited for hours with temperatures nudging 100 degrees (37 C). About 500 people stood in line to vote at the Shahchragh shrine, the burial site of a Shiite saint.

In the southeastern city of Zahedan - where a bomb blamed on Sunni militants killed at least 25 people at a Shiite mosque last month - there were no reports of tensions. The bombed mosque was used as a polling station.

The race will go to a runoff on June 19 if no candidate receives a simple majority of more than 50 percent of the votes cast. Much depends on how many votes are siphoned off by the two other candidates: conservative former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaei and moderate former parliament speaker Mahdi Karroubi.
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090612/D98P4UIG0.html


I just hope Mousavi wins. I will be willing to trust him to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
User avatar
By Vladimir
#13061465
I will be willing to trust him to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

I'm sure that's just what he needs! :D
User avatar
By chuuzetsu
#13061469
I just hope Mousavi wins. I will be willing to trust him to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.


Are you implying that Ahmadinejad would use nuclear energy for preemptive strikes?
User avatar
By Nets
#13061527
I just hope Mousavi wins. I will be willing to trust him to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.


Foolish. Mousavi and Ahmadinejad are irrelevant. The Ayatollahs set policy, the President is just the public face.

Why would you want a moderate face on a wmd-seeking Iran as opposed to a radical face on a wmd-seeking Iran? Which do you think would be easier to deal with internationally?
User avatar
By pikachu
#13061537
I just hope Mousavi wins. I will be willing to trust him to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.
Can a neoconservative stay consistent between claiming that Iran is a totalitarian dictatorship and realistically hoping that opposition candidates win elections? I see these things as mutually exclusive.
I would definitely prefer that Iran had a leader more moderate than Ahmadinejad, however I am also slightly afraid that the victory of the opposition may provoke instability and perhaps even change of political system in Iran, which wouldn't be something I'd like.
User avatar
By dudekebm
#13061689
Looks like we'll have to wait for the counts to come in but looks like Ahmadenijad and Mousavi are both proclaiming victory.

SOURCE

Guess we'll have to wait until all the votes are counted and/or the Expediency Council rules on such.
User avatar
By chuuzetsu
#13061690
I just read on PressTV that Ahmadenijad has 70% of the vote after 20% of the vote counted.
User avatar
By Igor Antunov
#13061847
I bet Israeli policymakers are prsying that Ahmadinejad wins, having a moderate in power would stuff up the international support arrayed against iran's so called nuclear program.
User avatar
By chuuzetsu
#13061851
I bet Israeli policymakers are prsying that Ahmadinejad wins, having a moderate in power would stuff up the international support arrayed against iran's so called nuclear program.


Refer to this:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/st ... 84,00.html

I've never read this publication before, so I am not sure about the credibility.

A SENIOR Israeli official said yesterday the consensus among his colleagues in Jerusalem was that a victory for the hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the Iranian elections would be in Israel's best interest.

"His extremism and his calls for Israel's destruction have pushed the international community to try to head off Iran's nuclear program," he said.

A victory by the relatively moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi would not stop the nuclear program, the official said, but it could lull the international community into thinking the threat was over.

Since Mr Ahmadinajad's election in 2005, he has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map, and denied the Holocaust happened. And he has argued that the Israelis were punishing the Palestinians because of what the Germans did to the Jews in World War II, and called on European leaders to provide the Jews with territory so they could move their state to that continent.

This extreme aggressiveness combined with Mr Ahmadinajad's flaunting of Iran's nuclear program has clearly marked him as Israel's leading enemy.

However, in the run-up to the Iranian polls, Mr Ahmadinejad's re-election has come to be seen as a strategic advantage. "There is no one who has served Israel's information program better than him," wrote columnist Ben Caspi in the daily Ma'ariv yesterday.

Israeli security officials note that decisions regarding major issues such as the nuclear program are made in Iran not by the president, regardless of who he is, but by Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a small group of senior clerics.

"From an operational point of view, it doesn't make a difference who wins," said one official. And a Foreign Ministry official who deals with the Iranian issue said: "From an informational point of view, he (Ahmadinejad) is the best thing that's happened to us."

The head of the Iranian desk at Israel Radio, Menashe Amir, said there was no basic difference between the four candidates for the Iranian presidency.

"The difference is in their style of speech," he said. "Ahmadinejad is blunt. The others try to cloak their real thoughts with ingratiating words. At least with Ahmadinejad his words reflect what he thinks. I'd be very happy if he's elected again."

Amir, who monitors the Iranian media closely and is in telephone communication with many Iranians, said Ayatollah Khamenei might have ordered the Republican Guard to fix the election results to ensure an Ahmadinejad victory.

"If these elections were truly free, Ahmadinejad wouldn't get more than 15per cent of the vote, mostly from rural areas," he said.

Another reason some Israelis are hoping for an Ahmadinejad victory, while holding their nose, is that the unprecedented level of passion that has been revealed by the Iranian election campaign during the past few weeks, particularly among young voters, may be a signal that the long-awaited social explosion against clerical restrictions may be close, even imminent. The emotional engagement of voters is seen as higher than that in the 1997 elections, which brought reformer Mohammad Khatami to power.

If Mr Ahmadinejad is chosen for another four years, particularly if the victory is seen to be the result of ballot manipulation, the country could erupt.

Israel officials have noted the warning by a senior figure in the Republican Guard that his forces would confront any attempt at a "velvet revolution" by Mousavi supporters similar to the street demonstrations that brought down the Czech government in 1989.

There is concern that a Mousavi victory would make it more likely that Washington would arrive at an agreement with Tehran permitting Iran to build nuclear energy reactors for peaceful purposes, as US President Barack Obama suggested in his Cairo speech this month. This would put Iran only a few months away from achieving a nuclear weapon, if it wanted to build one.

Israelis have no ill-feelings towards Iran and admire its culture. The two countries have no common border and have never engaged in a war, although the Islamic Republic actively supports Hezbollah and the Palestinian militants.

Israelis have never understood the virulence that Iranian leaders, particularly Mr Ahmadinejad, express towards Israel. Iran has the largest community of Jews in the Muslim world, and they are permitted to practise their religion freely, and are represented in the Iranian parliament. A large number of former Iranian Jews live in Israel, among them two ex-chiefs of staff, a former air force commander and a former president.

In contrast to the sophisticated assessments of Israeli strategists, however, the bulk of the public would feel reassured by a victory for the Iranian moderates.
#13061883
Image
Hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is heading for victory in Iran's presidential election, official results show, as his supporters begin celebrating in the streets of Tehran.

With 61 per cent of total ballot boxes counted, amounting to 21,170,263 votes, Ahmadinejad held a commanding lead early on Saturday, receiving 14,011,664 votes, or 66.18 per cent of the total.

That compared with 6,575,844, or 31.06 per cent for his closest challenger, moderate ex-premier Mir Hossein Mousavi, said Kamran Daneshjoo, chairman of the electoral commission at the interior ministry.

Former Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Rezai remained a distant third, with 397,117 votes, or 1.87 per cent. Ex-parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi remained in fourth place with 185,578, or 0.87 per cent.

As it became clear that the reformist Mousavi's bid to halt Ahmadinejad's drive for a second term at the helm of the Islamic republic was faltering, the president's supporters began pouring onto the streets of Tehran, honking their horns and waving Iranian flags.

Mousavi, whose supporters had earned the nickname 'the greens' because in recent weeks they had flooded the streets wearing green items of clothing, was loudly mocked.

"Where are the greens? - in a mousehole,'' Ahmadinejad's supporters chanted. "It is a Saturday and Mousavi is disgraced.''

Sandwich seller Kamra Mohammadi, 22, was ecstatic at Ahmadinejad's success.

"I am happy that my candidate has won - he helps the poor and he catches the thieves,'' he said smiling broadly.
Mousavi had earlier claimed for himself an overwhelming victory in Iran's most hotly contested election since the Islamic revolution 30 years ago.

In line with the information we have received, I am the winner of this election by a substantial margin,'' he told a news conference in Tehran.

Only minutes earlier, close Mousavi aide Ali Akbar Mohatshemi-Pour told AFP his candidate had won 65 per cent of the vote.

State news agency IRNA, however, announced that Ahmadinejad had won re-election.

"Doctor Ahmadinejad, by getting a majority of the votes, has become the definite winner of the 10th presidential election,'' it said.

Separately, a former senior member of the National Security Council, Agha Mohammadi, said Ahmadinejad was likely to end the day with a narrow victory, avoiding the need for a runoff.

"According to the information we have the voter participation will be 70 per cent overall (of the 46.2 million-strong electorate) and Ahmadinejad will have a little more than 50 per cent of the total vote,'' Mohammadi said.

Iran's economic woes and its relationship with the outside world emerged as key issues during a feisty campaign marked by carnival-like street rallies and acrimonious candidate debates on prime-time television.

The election turned the spotlight on deep divisions in Iran after four years under Ahmadinejad, whose firebrand rhetoric further isolated the country from the West while at home he has come under fire over his economic policies.

Ahmadinejad, 52, is seeking a second four-year term, while the 67-year-old Mousavi is hoping to make a comeback after two decades in the political wilderness, pledging better ties with the outside world.

Young men and women in big cities are throwing their weight behind Mousavi while Ahmadinejad, who is pledging to help the poor and stamp out corruption, draws passionate support from rural towns and villages.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/ahmadinejad ... -c6fh.html
User avatar
By Fasces
#13061902
Odd, to be honest. He was not that popular. Any majority victory in a four-way race is suspect, not to mention one by such great numbers.
User avatar
By Igor Antunov
#13061905
I'd say he was very popular on the domestic front. What the western media portrays looking from the outside in is hardly authorative on reality, especially if they are arrayed against his rhetoric and methods. Meanwhile his main opponent is also claiming victory to stir shit up, get some western sympathy. Maybe he's hoping for a western funded 'orange revolution'. :lol:

You must remember that Iran's vocal minority is just that, a minority. Ahmadinejad has received the most support from the youth, the so called 'westernized' element of iranian society who were supposed to want change or something.
Last edited by Igor Antunov on 13 Jun 2009 02:10, edited 1 time in total.
By Sapper
#13061907
Any majority victory in a four-way race is suspect, not to mention one by such great numbers.

This is true only if the two lesser competitors were serious. Surely it is not bizarre, for instance, that Obama won in a four (or more) way race, between him and McCain, Nader, and the U.S. Libertarian Party. I don't know what the deal is with these Iranian elections, but your statement is not known a priori.
User avatar
By Fasces
#13061915
That is true, I suppose, Sapper.

Igor - Ahmadinejad at one point had a 33% approval rating. It is possible he might win, but by such a wide margin is, at best, suspect.
User avatar
By Oxymoron
#13061930
:lol:

Wow, either something isnt Hallah or the youngsters were to lazy to go to the polls.
User avatar
By Oxymoron
#13061940
Well the Gaurd units have made it clear prior to elections hinting of this fraud. They said if the opposition is not happy and they try to riot or move against the "elected" goverment then they will respond with force. Lets hope this isnt another Mugabe thing.
User avatar
By MVictorP
#13061951
Please expose, Paradigm and Oxy, why this election is a scam, as you believe.
User avatar
By Oxymoron
#13061952
All the information pointed to a close race, all sources discussed possible runoffs etc. Winning by such a margin when there was an obvious large and well organized opposition is just suspicious.
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