Image from Revolutionary Road blog
Around forty-six million eligible voters went to the polls last Friday June 12th to vote in Iran’s Presidential elections. The two front-runners were the sitting Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and opposition leader Mir Hassein Mousavi, a former prime minster from the early years of the Iranian Revolution. On June 12th, as the votes were being counted around the country, the Interior Ministry announced that President Ahmadinejad was leading by a margin of two to one. On Saturday June 13, both candidates claimed victory; however, the government declared President Ahmadinejad the official winner. Mousavi supporters challenged the result of the government and questioned the findings of the Interior Ministry. The ministry is responsible for vote count and for overseeing the presidential election. It is headed by Mr. Sadegh Mahsouli, a supporter of Mr. Ahmadinejad.
Protests have erupted in Tehran and across the country over the election results. On Monday, June 15th, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khomeini, announced that he had directed the 12 member Guardian Council to investigate the charges of fraud by the opposition. This is the same authority that had reviewed the findings of the Interior Ministry just few a days ago and had declared Mr. Ahmadinejad the winner.
To learn more about the election disputes and protests The American Enterprise Institute has set up an IranTracker, Stratfor Global Intelligence has several article and Twitter is alight with steady streams of updates, here and here.
Update: AGI’s Farsi website, Cheragheazadi, has an article on the topic as well, entitled, “About Elections in Iran” (in Farsi only)
Copyright © 2010 The Atlas Network.
Developed by The Liberty Lab