Friday, June 11, 2010

One year ago Iran had a Presidential election

One year ago, on June 12, 2009, Iran held its tenth presidential election with incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad running against three challengers.

The next morning the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's official news agency, announced that with two-thirds of the votes counted, Ahmadinejad had won the election with 62% of the votes cast, and that Mir-Hossein Mousavi had received 34% of the votes cast.

Election fraud was suspected by many. Mousavi issued a statement saying, "I'm warning that I won't surrender to this charade," and urged his supporters to fight the decision, without committing acts of violence.

Protests, in favour of Mousavi and against the alleged fraud, broke out in Tehran.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mousavi is like Harper - more popular in rural areas; not in the big cities.

Stephen Downes said...

Ahmadinejad is like George W. Bush - in office as a result of a questionable ballot, and a far-right zealot who thinks he's on a crusade in the holy land.