Iranian elections

CBC News:

Iranians voted for a new president Friday in what is expected to be the country's closest election since the 1979 Islamic revolution. None of the seven candidates is expected to get 50 per cent support needed to win the election, meaning the two top vote-getters will likely meet in a runoff vote. Some 47 million people are eligible to cast ballots. Many of them are under 30. Official results are expected on Saturday and any run-off vote would probably be held on June 24. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a cleric who was president from 1989 to 1997, is the front-runner. Second place is expected to be a contest between former culture minister Mostafa Moin, the leading reformist candidate, and former police chief Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, 44, the conservative candidate. If either does end up winning, he would become the first non-cleric president since Mohammad Ali Rajai was assassinated in 1981.

The real question in this election is not who the winner will be, although I think Moin could do some good if he won, but whether there will be much turnout and how the Iranian people will act after it is over. Power in Iran is not held by the Presidency, which is probably the main reason that those who have the power allow the people to vote for this office. Even then, they go to pretty extraordinary lengths to control who can and cannot be a candidate. The election itself matters very little, but everything around the election will be very interesting to watch.