Elections

It’s difficult to explain what’s been going on the last few days. But suffice to say that yesterday was voting day for the Presidential elections here.

The popular Reformist candidate, Mousavi was tipped to win, as he had a groundswell of support from youth, particularly in Tehran.

The current President, Ahmedinejad also ran. He’s the guy that you see on TV, ranting about Israel and causing people at the UN to walk out on his speeches.

Ahmedinejad won. Supposedly.

There are widespread rumours of vote rigging. Polls being closed early in the cities (where Mousavi’s voter base is) and kept open in the villages (where Ahmedinejad’s voter base is). Crates of votes being ‘lost’.

SMS services were down all day yesterday (not surprising – again, a service used widely by Mousavi organisers).

Certain sites on the internet have been blocked (e.g. BBC etc)

And I’m not even going to begin about Amedinejad’s terrible economic policy, and subsidising (read: bribing) rural people.

In short, it appears to be complete bullshit. Now, if the election process had been completely transparent, and he won fair and square, then fine. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but I’d know that it was the will of the people that got him into Government.

But it’s not transparent, at all. And no one is happy about it.

The mood when I got into the office this morning was grim. Everyone was very upset indeed. They still are. Some of the boys went to a protest earlier. It’s not safe for them to go, but they want their voices heard.

Either way, the election is the topic of discussion for today, period. Don’t even bother asking about the weather.