BF2S Forums Iran: Revolution in the works?

U.S. analysts find it “not credible” that challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi would have lost the balloting in his hometown or that a third candidate, Mehdi Karoubi, would have received less than 1 percent of the total votes.

    Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini apparently has released a statement calling the results “final” and hailing the election as a legitimization of the regime and its elections…

  The dominant view among Obama administration officials is that the regime will look so bad as a result of whipping up Iranian hopes for democracy and then squelching them that the regime may feel compelled to show some conciliatory response to Obama's gestures of engagement.

But Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, isn't so sure about that. He noted the Ahmadinejad team "has not been terribly eager to show the United States goodwill and I'm not sure if we would see a shift." He also said if a stalemate emerges, a paralyzed Iranian government would make it difficult for the Obama administration to engage Iran.

Parsi praised Obama for staying largely silent leading up to the election to ensure

By Saturday morning, the most often repeated exclamation in Tehran was: “It’s not possible!”…

    A group of young men said they had talked to their families in the provinces, including Kurdish Kermanshah, Azeri Oroumiyeh and Ardeblil. Mohsen, 23, said, “Everyone in Tabriz [Mousavi's hometown] voted for Mousavi. The official count says a majority for Ahmadinejad. That’s not possible.” Mehdi, 27, chimed in, “Even if just Karroubi’s family in Lorestan had voted for him, he would have won more than 300,000 votes.”

    More serious allegations came from officials involved in the various reformist candidates’ campaigns. Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, part of opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi’s campaign, pointed out that the government “announced a wholesale figure of 70% for Ahmadinejad last night, as opposed to breaking it down province by province as they usually do.” The first figures were announced shortly after voting closed, he added. A breakdown of how people in each city and province voted has not been released yet.

    At the Mousavi headquarters, former Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour protested that Mousavi observers had not gained access to many of the polling centers. He also said that in Tabriz, Mousavi’s birthplace, many of the polling stations had run out of ballots only two hours after opening, even though about 59 million ballots had been printed by the government, about 13 million more than the number of eligible voters.

Two interesting points on Iranian election:

    1. After election results were announced, the election committee must wait for three days to accept any grievances for any irregularity before certify the results.

    2. The results of election needs to be certified by the Council of Experts before it goes to the Leader for final approval

    Today neither of these two rules were followed and the Leader in his speech approved the results of the election and asked all parties involved to work with Ahmadinejad.