Iran Presidential Election

[Kasz216]

Jackson50 said:

Kasz216 said:

Desroko said:More fishiness: Mousavi hails from Azerbaijan province, which has a history of voting for local candidates in strong numbers. According to the official tallies, Ahmadinejad won 57% of the vote in its capital city, and probably a majority in the province at large. He won a majority in Tehran, where he is deeply unpopular according to every poll.

Another candidate, Karoubi, lost in his home province.

Ahmadinejad's numbers are fairly uniform across the country, which is bizarre considering how ethnically, religiously and ideologically fragmented the country is.

Yeah, this actually makes things interesting... and may make a difference.

The question is... did the religious authority back this rigging?  And if not... how are they going to take it?

Karroubi, the other reform candidate, did not simply lose his home province, his support mysteriously evaporated. In the first round of voting in 2005 he won 17% of the vote in his home province of Luristan. In this election he won less than 1% of the vote. It seems as if the order was to prevent a potential run-off next Friday by ensuring that Ahmadinejad won a majority instead of a plurality. 

Most assessments I have read seem to implicate Khamenei and the GC as the architects of the coup. However, there is new information that implicates the military as the entity that ordered the coup.

The Military as a whole eh?  I'd heard that the speialied forces took over for regular army grunts.

Intriguing... it's so hard to figure out why you would rig an election for puppet ruler.  I suppose as a puppet ruler you are still given a lot of lattitude in iran.