I imagine that many PULSE readers, like me, hope that Iran is able to preserve the anti-imperialist character of its revolution while ridding itself of the more oppressive aspects, such as dress codes, morality police, and harassment of intellectuals. In these elections, Mousavi certainly seemed the more intelligent and diplomatic of the candidates. The commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s announcement even before votes were counted that a ‘popular revolution’ would not be tolerated seems to suggest that the election results have in fact been rigged. Yet nothing is clear. Mousavi’s campaign was aimed at the merchant class and the liberal bourgeoisie – no more than a third of the population. And Mousavi received about a third of the votes.
Abbas Barzegar believes Ahmedinejad won the election fair and square, and that Iranian and Western commentators indulge in wishful thinking when they find this incredible. “Observers,” he writes, “would do us a favour by taking a deeper look into Iranian society, giving us a more accurate picture of the very organic religious structures of the country, and dispensing with the narrative of liberal inevitability.”
I have been in Iran for exactly one week covering the 2009 Iranian election carnival. Since I arrived, few here doubted that the incumbent firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad would win. My airport cab driver reminded me that the president had visited every province twice in the last four years – “Iran isn’t Tehran,” he said. Even when I asked Mousavi supporters if their man could really carry more than capital, their responses were filled with an Obamasque provisional optimism – “Yes we can”, “I hope so”, “If you vote.” So the question occupying the international media, “How did Mousavi lose?” seems to be less a problem of the Iranian election commission and more a matter of bad perception rooted in the stubborn refusal to understand the role of religion in Iran.
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