Choosing Between Two Evils

Continue to watch the presidential election in Iran. Today's 'run-off' does not offer much hope for Iranians no matter what the outcome. Electing the moderate conservative rather than the hard-liner will show some movement towards liberal reforms, but its not likely that anything substantial will change under either. Furthermore, it may actually hinder the Iranian reform movement if the moderate is elected because his election might satisfy less concerned groups in the country. The election of a hard-liner, which would obviously be rigged, will help unify the people against their repressive regime. So, honestly I don't know which outcome is better. The fact that there is this run-off implies to me that the hard-liner will win, because the circumstances seem to imply that the election was altered the first time to bring him within enough votes to make a run-off necessary. If the rulers were willing to tamper with results to get the run-off I doubt they're going to allow anyone but their man to win. There are more hard times ahead in the Middle East, and there always will be until Iran becomes a true democracy.

****UPDATE****
The run-off experienced complications and closing time for the polls was extended 3.5 hours from 7:30PM to 11:00PM local time. Iranian officials are already saying the results are skewed as a result of intimidation and fear. No matter who is elected a good portion of the country is going to be unhappy and declare the election invalid -- which it probably is. Many of the people still waiting to vote at closing time were supporters of the hard-line candidate. The country's theocratic ruler and his followers have the last say in everything that happens, so its no surprise that it looks more and more like their man is going to win despite the fact that his opponnent seemed to have victory in hand until the last minute of the initial vote.