Mir Hossein Mousavi sounds like a good man to me. He'ld get my vote.

POLITICAL history was made last night when Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's President, was forced to abandon an election rally because the crowds who gathered to hear him were too vast.

As many as 50,000 fanatical supporters of the Islamic fundamentalist President had stood jam-packed for four hours in suffocating heat inside a vast prayer hall in Tehran.

Outside, an overflow crowd almost as great blocked all access to the venue. Officials said Mr Ahmadinejad's vehicles spent 90 minutes trying to force their way through, without success. There was talk of him holding the rally outside, but the idea was dropped when officials warned that people would be crushed to death.

As Mr Ahmadinejad's disappointed followers flooded on to the streets, supporters of the President's strongest rival, the reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, mounted their own show of might.

Tens of thousands of them, all dressed in green, formed a human chain running the length of Valiasr, the thoroughfare that runs 30km from the north to the south of the Iranian capital.

As darkness fell last night the city was in chaos, with all traffic paralysed and rival groups rampaging through the streets in support of two leaders with radically different visions for the future of their country.

It was a highly combustible situation and testimony to the extraordinary passions and excitement generated by Friday's election in which Mr Mousavi, a former prime minister, is fighting to become the first challenger to defeat a sitting president in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic.
Iranians say that the only other presidential election that has caused such fervour was when Mohammed Khatami was swept into power on a tide of reformist fervour in 1997.

The chasm that has opened up in Iranian society after four years of Mr Ahmadinejad's ultra-conservative, socially repressive presidency were starkly apparent yesterday.

The President's rally matched any that Barack Obama held last year in both size and ardour. It was attended by the deeply devout, the working poor - Iranians still consumed by revolutionary fervour. The men were bearded and draped in red, white and green Iranian flags; the women dressed in all-encompassing black chadors with their headscarves drawn tight. The sexes were segregated.
The supporters regard Mr Ahmadinejad as Iran's saviour, the man who has rescued his country after the decadence of the Khatami era and restored its prestige. "He brought the revolution back to its true course," Mohammed Saberi, 25, a student, said.

"He's stood up to our enemies. He's stood up to the United States with all its strength," said Hassan Khani, 47, paralysed by shrapnel in the Iran-Iraq War, who was in a wheelchair.

The surging, seething sea of humanity demonstrated its commitment through sheer endurance. All afternoon it filled the massive hall with deafening noise, chanting "Ahmadi is our love", "Death to Israel", "Down with the enemies of Islam" and "Mousavi is a liar".
Hour after hour, the frenzied multitude sang religious songs, recited verses from the Koran and roared approval for a string of sports stars, film directors and other Iranian celebrities who endorsed the President.

Barriers were swept aside. War veterans in wheelchairs were lifted over the heads of the multitudes to stop them being crushed. Those who collapsed in the intense heat were likewise passed through the crowds.

The Mousavi supporters who filled Valiasr were the polar opposite - predominantly young, liberal, urban and middle-class, people who are compelled to obey Islamic strictures in public but enjoy western lifestyles in the privacy of their own homes.
Here there was no segregation. Women wore make-up, sunglasses, jeans beneath open chadors, and headscarves that left most of their hair exposed. The men had daubed themselves in green facepaint, ribbons and headbands. Some even held hands.

With just four days left before the election, the morality police have all but vanished from Tehran's streets and young Iranians are using the rare opportunity to run amok. Well into the early hours, the streets are filled with honking cars awash with campaign posters, young men and women hanging from the windows, music blaring and hazard lights flashing. At every junction rival groups of supporters chanted and jeered at each other.

If the vote were in Tehran alone, Mr Mousavi would be likely to romp home, but Mr Ahmadinejad has assiduously courted Iran's more rural areas and is running as a champion of ordinary people fighting a corrupt urban elite.
The two other candidates, Mehdi Karoubi and Mohsen Rezaie, stand little chance, but will split the reformist and conservative votes respectively. There are also fears of vote-rigging.

Most independent observers predict that no candidate will achieve 50 per cent on Friday, pitching Mr Ahmadinejad and Mr Mousavi into a run-off a week later.

 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/12/2596106.htm?section=justin
VOTE-RIGGING FEARS CLOUD IRAN VOTE
By Middle East correspondent Ben Knight for AM

A leading expert on Iran says there is a great deal of public concern today's presidential elections could be rigged in favour of the incumbent government.
The election could decide whether the country opens up to the West or deepens its isolation.
Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be facing a serious challenge, with strong support for reformist candidates.
Of the four running in this election, only the President is refusing to open up talks with the United States and he retains huge support among the country's poor voters.
Former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi has been attracting many of the country's younger voters.
But professor Ali Ansari has told ABC 1's Lateline that the other candidates and the public are aware of the possibility of cheating.
"A lot of the criticism of this has emanated not just from the moderates or the reformists but even from some pragmatic conservatives and others who have really raised alarm bells at every possible avenue of the potential for cheating," he said.
"Iranians themselves are aware of this but I think measures are taking place to ensure that this is at the very least minimalised."
Aside from the rigging concerns, picking a winner is impossible and the vote is likely to go to a run-off election next week.


CONTRADICTIONS
One of the first things to notice when walking around the capital, Tehran, is that common-held perceptions about the country ring true.
Women are covered up from head to foot and the buildings carry giant murals glorifying the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei and vilifying the US and Israel. And the traffic is appalling.
Conversely the city and its people have a capacity for surprise.
In local parks women can be seen skateboarding in hijabs and people love American basketball.
Many of them are just trying to live normal lives under very, very tight restrictions.
They actually admire the West and its freedoms, and privately, they will tell you so. And those two sides of Iran are clashing head on in this election campaign.
The capital has been in a frenzy this week as the wave of support for Mr Mousavi grows.
Those Iranians who despise Mr Ahmadinejad and the Islamic regime got braver by the day about speaking out.
"I do hope that after so many years of torture, all the dictators will be toppled," one man said.
"It is a counter revolution. It's about one week that I see what I look forward to seeing for 30 years."
Most people here would never dream of going that far but within the boundaries of their own courage, they are making a statement.
For young women, it might simply be wearing their headscarf back as far as they dare at the mass rallies for the reformist candidates.
Iran has never seen an election like this. Millions of people are desperate for change and to end the cold war with the West and have freedom of expression inside their own country.
At a rally for Mr Mousavi's, his wife Zahra Rahnavard left the crowd in doubt what was going on.
"The young people who will turn this 10th presidential election into a revolution within a revolution," she said.
People here remember the disappointment of the Khatami years. He was the reformist president who never fulfilled their hopes.
Mr Mousavi has raised them again, even higher than before. So if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is returned and Iran's isolation deepens, will the supporters of reform quietly go back to the life they had?
The other reformist candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, says if that is the case, people will be disappointed.
"But you as Westerners have developed a baseless expectation and local politicians make you confused," he said.
It may well be that if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is returned as president, people will quietly go back to the lives they led before.
For all the excitement, Iran is still under the control of its supreme leader, the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, and has a much feared security police.
Demonstrations are not tolerated and it is highly likely that those who have already spoken out in this campaign will have a heavy price to pay afterwards.