Iranian presidential elections - from the blogs

Tomorrow sees the culmination of Iran's presidential campaigns. Millions of Iranians will go to their polling stations and vote. Millions won't. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians in the diaspora will vote too.

The BBC does have a review of a documentary about Iranian teens and their lives, Mousavi and women's rights, a background to the election, questions about Ahmadinejad and how much support he still has, on the campaign trail (although it describes Ahmadinejad's supporters as salt-of-the-earth types and Mousavi's as internet nerds), the economy and rural communities versus debauched urbanites. New York Times has a video about the election. POMED is doing a good job keeping track of the election news in the Western press (more, more and more).

The opinion from a lot of Iranian English-language blogs has been there people should vote...

If even for one day, for one hour, for one minute over the past four years you have worried about a possible attack on Iran, if you have felt shame about things that have happened in Iran, about the way Iran has been represented to the world, or for words that were said by someone else but whose weight you have carried, consider participating in the elections and showing that you care. (source: From Berkley)

For many, this election is more than a renewal of allegiance. It's something with a real, tangible outcome. Maybe not the end of the Islamic Republic, but certainly an opportunity for a shift in power. And that's why the different factions are competing so fiercely and will stop at nothing to win.

Tehran has painted itself green. Mousavi voters are showing their support. And the support for Ahmadinejad from the trendy young people who've suffered so much (for fashion) under his presidency, boggles the mind.

Mousavi and Karroubi are not the ideal reformist candidates. They may have been able to pass the Guardian Council, but both have history.

Mousavi's political transformation from the President at the time of the 1988 massacres of political prisoners to becoming the hope and aspirations for a more open society is impressive. Azarmehr reminds us who Mousavi's (current) supporters were back then. Even giving Mousavi the benefit of the doubt, maybe he was weak, isolated, unable to interfere... he's still surrounded himself in his campaign with some disreputable thugs.

Blogs seem to be doing a better job than larger media outlets to give some insight into what's happening in Iran and also Iranian opinions on the election.

• Hairy is back in Iran and looks at the elections, lies and woman, the green wave sweeping Tehran, Shiraz and the Ahmadinejad/Mousavi debate.
• Ali looks at the small window of freedom that opens up around election time, everyone's new favourite colour and Dr. Sadeq Zibakalam's defence of Obama's first 100 days in office.
• Ali covers Rafsanjani's letter to Khamenei, the BBC's poorly written documentary about Ahmadinejad and some of the candidates that never made it past the Guardian Council.
• Pedestrian sees this election as Mousavi's second chance. He's changed, Iran has changed and Islamic Republic has changed. There's that colour again, too.
• From Tehran Live, more green fashion.
• Shahrazad asks who really won the Mousavi/Ahmadinejad debate. It was certainly the most important and talked about of the debates. How are Iranian bloggers picking their candidates? And this election belongs to the people of Iran.
• Tori finds the election campaign has given Iranians their mojo back, might help stop the brain drain and maybe people who once backed reformist candidates can be coaxed back to voting, if only because there's something eerily familiar about those cranes holding Ahmadinejad's campaign pictures.
• Kamran is reminded of the importance of this election, but he's a realist and not a fantasist.
• Change has come to Iran and a quiet, non-velvet, revolution is already underway.
• See also Elections and nostalgia.

The daily news updates on the Iranian election campaigns from Iran Tracker have been really useful, especially for giving a flavour to the press coverage inside Iran.

Response on the streets of Tehran after the Mousavi/Ahmadinejad debate

The response on the streets of Tehran after the Mousavi/Ahmadinejad televised debate. A typical Tehran scene... A traffic jam.

More traffic jams...

Full presidential debate timetable

Air time: 1800-1930 GMT on IRTV3

• 2 June: Karoubi-Rezai
• 3 June: Ahmadinejad-Mousavi
• 4 June: Mousavi-Rezai
• 6 June: Ahmadinejad-Karoubi
• 7 June: Karoubi-Mousavi
• 8 June: Ahmadinejad-Rezai

Source: ISNA news agency.

Iran elections news and blog roundup

The upcoming presidential elections in Iran are getting lots of media attention. Add in several terrorist attacks inside Iran, the current US-Israel deadlock and attempts by Barack Obama's administration to take a more productive track with Iran, and the stakes are probably higher than they have been for an Iranian elections any time in the last twenty years.

The Economist takes a look at the campaign and expects the return of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due in part to his support from outside Tehran. Much has been made of his bribes of potatoes for the poor, but I doubt the poor Iranian electorate will forgive a crumbling economy for a few days of food. Ahmadinejad can make better use of the terrorist attacks, defiance in the face of international pressure and his own conservative politics to rally his base. However, a high turnout, particularly from Tehran, could unseat Ahmadinejad. As could a strong showing from Iran's ethnic and religious minorities.

Everyone in Iranian politics is trying to spin current events to their advantage. All candidates have been working hard to convince the different powerful factions that they will not destabilise the Islamic Republic or disrupt the current arrangement.

Mehdi Karrubi has made it clear that despite being one of the left-wing revolutionaries, he's no threat to established power bases in the way that Khatami's 1997 campaign threatened to be.

Mohsen Rezai, making least use of technology, and with the lowest chance of winning the election, has been vocal about cleaning up corruption, criticising reconciliation with the West but making a public stand on discrimination against minorities. (Khatami did himself no favour being caught making jokes about Azeris.)

Photos of some of the children Mr. Mostafaie has defended. (Newsha Tavakolian/Polaris for The Wall Street Journal).

The Wall Street Journal's daily collection of news photos has included a photo essay about human rights, health and education in Iran, along with an article on child executions and how different presidential candidates have reacted and how those responses have been used by supporters of rival candidates.

Bloggers have been promoting their candidates using different campaign colours. As have people on the streets (more).

Mousavi, who has been criticised for being too ordinary and who has Khatami's backing has been using the internet wisely and getting backing from many bloggers. Much has been made of Facebook getting blocked for a few days and SMS text messaging being used as a campaign tool.

Probably for the first time since the founding of the Islamic Republic, presidential candidates' wives have been under scrutiny. Zahra Rahnavard, Mousavi's wife, has been praised as has the couple's hand holding in public. Pedestrian looks at touching and it's place in Iranian politics and the upcoming election. And Mousavi is apparently a secret Mossadeghist.

The Tehran Bureau blog has a great series five posts looking at different aspects of the upcoming election:

• Part I: The Political Landscape in Iran -- described the political and economical landscape in Iran.
• Part II: Political Groups in the Iranian Election -- provided a brief history of the important political groups in Iran after the revolution, their place on the political spectrum and their present position on the issues.
• Part III: The Candidates in the Iranian Election -- profiled the four candidates, their history and chances.
• Part IV: The Campaign Trail -- described the latest developments.
• Part V: the Hard-Liners in a Panic -- as the campaign heats up, different groups start attacking each other.

As the campaigns come to a head, different parts of the Iranian state and it's the support bases of the different candidates have clashes. The Iran Expediency Council issued a statement criticising Ahmadinejad's comments about the country's nuclear negotiations with the West.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp have been warned not to get involved in the election and the Basij (who have previously campaigned for Ahmadinejad) have also been warned.

A mosque in Zahedan was bombed and three men have already been hanged for the attack. One of Ahmadinejad's campaign headquarters has been attacked, allegedly by Jundallah (a Sunni insurgent group). The attacks have variously been blamed on Israel, the United States, Pakistani intelligence services, Jundallah and Iran's own security forces trying to rally support for hardline conservatives.

Tony Karon talks about how Benjamin Netanyahu is likely to derail Barack Obama's plans to resolve the conflicts in the Middle East. He also looks at what Netanyahu's faction in Israeli politics is willing to do to provoke Iran and why. The bottom line: Bibi and his friends needMahmoud and Mahmoud and his friends need Bibi and his friends.

Visualising Shi'isms numbers

Trouble flares in Bahrain as the Shia majority becomes discontented with minority Sunni rule. Writers such as Vali Nasr write about the rise of Shi'ite political power as Sunni states fall out of favour or are forced to become more democratic/representative. But judging the influence of Shi'ism in politics is a notoriously tricky thing to do. Whether that's because quietist Shia ulama discourage political participation, Shi'ites end up being counted amongst non-religious political forces, as was the case in Iraq...

Qasim had no political party of his own and it was the powerful Iraqi Communist Party (ICP) which provided him with a mass political base. Founded in 1934, the party had an impressive record of anti-colonial resistance and commanded widespread respect because of the tenacity with which it had pursued its struggle. In the 1940s and 1950s, its membership and support had expanded dramatically, particularly within the Shi’ite community. The tilt towards the Communist Party by the Shi’ite community has been explained as the response of a politically disenfranchised community from which ‘the poorest of the poor’ were drawn. In the 1960s the drift of Shi’ite youth towards the party was so alarming that the traditional Shi’ite ulama even issued a fatwa against those supporting or joining the party. (source)

Or because people lack the basic mathematics to put their numbers into context. Here is an interesting blog post that tries to visualise Shi'ite influence by population.