Even more reason to be suspicious about the election results in Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's statement was very forceful, suggesting that a vote for anyone else would be a vote against Iran.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the record voter turnout in Friday's election showed Iranians value "resistance against oppressors," the agency reported.Ahmedinejad meanwhile is feeding the street chaos, instigating protesters as he so often does with the world. He's finding new enemies hiding under his bed and the media is going along with the paranoia as if it's normal. Anyone who dared run against him or vote for the other candidate is now bad. It's going to be another long four years.
"Pointing to enemies' massive propaganda campaign to discourage people from taking part in the elections, Ayatollah Khamenei also said there was really a divine miracle behind this elections, given its results that was 10 million higher than any of the previous ones in the 30-year history of elections in Iran," IRNA reported.
Official results showed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with more than 62 percent of the vote. But the hardline incumbent's leading opponent, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi, has disputed the results, and his supporters have fought in the streets with police and Ahmadinejad's supporters since the vote.
Less than two hours later, before the sweating thousands of his supporters in Val-y-Asr Square, we saw Ahmedinejad the Bad. "They are branding us as liars and corrupt," he screamed. "But they are themselves corrupt. I am going to use my position as president to name these people..." The crowd roared its approval. Of course they did. They all held Iranian flags or pictures of their pious leader amid heavenly clouds.
The day started badly with another of those dangerous, frighteningly brief statements from Tehran's loquacious police commander, Bahram Radan. "We have identified houses which are bases for the political mobs." This was the only reference the authorities would make about the outrageous street battles in which Radan's black-clothed cops beat Mousavi's supporters insensible on the streets of Tehran.
Then there was the front page of "Etemade Melli" – "National Trust" in English – which belongs to another of Ahmedinejad's enemies, Mehdi Karoubi. After the election results at the top of the front page – Mousavi officially won only 33.75 per cent of the votes and Karoubi 0.85 per cent – there was a caption: "Regarding the election results," it read, "Mehdi Karoubi and Mirhossein Mousavi made statements which we cannot publish in our newspaper." Beneath was a vast acre of white space. You could doodle on it. You could construct a crossword on it. You could draw a red light on it. But you couldn't read those statements.
