I’m going to take Gary’s banner and run with it here: how is it that the blogosphere is getting this story so wrong? I usually don’t like to open my mouth too wide too quickly, but when the media isn’t even shooting, the blogosphere simply can’t afford to miss the mark. What I mean by this is that many bloggers are pointing to the obvious fact that the election results were rigged, instead of to the not-so-obvious fact that the regime had to invent high turnout numbers to legitimize itself.

That’s the real story. So blogosphere, stop pouting. Moin the “reformist” was never going to be allowed to win. And even if he was, what difference would that make? Moin would be powerless under the Guardian Council, Rafsanjani would put a “pragmatic” face on them, and Ahmadinejad would just be up-front about his totalitarian instincts. Moin was just a regime ploy to pimp for larger turnout numbers from the youth and reformist camps. Here’s what I wrote a month ago when Moin was first approved.

This will not make much of a difference in the outcome, however, and the mullahs know this. The problem for the regime is not that they????????ll lose the election, but that people may simply reject them by not showing up to vote. By allowing two reform candidates to run, they are hoping that it will draw larger crowds out than they otherwise would.

Sometimes I hate being right. As for the regime, they were dead wrong. Even Moin did not bring out the crowds that they needed for legitimacy. That’s when the regime mobilized.

Fearing a complete shut out, they extended the voting time by four hours, saying that the lines were so long that it was necessary. Meanwhile, they broadcasted images and video from previous elections. They made several polling places too small so that lines were forced to develop outside. The journalists, who had to be accompanied by a regime agent and could only go where permitted, only saw these stations.

Yet, they continue to report as if they know with authority what the hell is going on. The regime is playing the media like a greased harmonica. All that they can really report is “The Interior Ministry says turnout is this high,” or “The Guardian Council says it’s higher,” without ever being able to investigate outside of their hotel rooms if that is true or not.

It’s because of this that the real story isn’t getting out of Iran: Almost nobody voted. It was a total rejection of the Islamic government. The regime has zero legitimacy.

Just take a look at these pictures of normally busy streets on election day:

Shiraz:

Esfahan:

Tehran:

Hey, you, where did those big lines go? It’s hard to look at the truth a few days too late, when the opportunity to act is farther and farther out of sight. Even as melancholy beholds us and the Iranian people for once again living through a lie, a sudden dangerous twist is unfolding in the upcoming run-off elections.

Faced with the prospect of Ahmadinejad, the reformist camp is rallying behind Rafsanjani — just as the mullahs intended. A higher voter turnout seems guaranteed come this Friday. On the other hand, Karrubi and Moin are now speaking out vehemently against the voter fraud committed by the regime, something unprecedented in modern Iranian history. Hoder is reporting on the rumors of this coming power vacuum.

Things are really getting nasty here. After Karrubi’s unbelievably blunt letter to the Supreme Leader, everything is suddenly changing. All non-fundamentalists are rallying behind Rafsanjani. Many are talking about a possible coup by Sepah and Basij after Friday’s second round results.
…
Karrubi for the first time has publically challenged the Supreme Leader and has accused his son of paving the way for an unexpectedly high vote for Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad is closely aligned with the elite Revolutionary Guards and various paramilitary forces. Revered among them, even. Regime Change Iran is reporting that the paramilitary Bassij forces are attacking Rafsanjani campaigners. Here’s why this is bad especially: even the mullahs didn’t expect Ahmadinejad to do so well.

This could be the telling tale of a mobilizing fundamentalist force that sees the current Guardian Council as going too soft in the face of these recent elections, especially with the high-level dissention concerning voter fraud. If the GC has anything to do with it, Ahmadinejad won’t win. If we had our way, the people of Iran would take to the streets for their rights. But if Ahmadinejad has his way, and this is the scariest outcome, he may outright overthrow the Guardian Council and impose a body even worse than them. No wonder the reformist camp is mobilizing behind Rafsanjani.

What’s sad, though, is that it never had to come down to this. It’s because nothing happened this week that next week could be a lose-lose situation for democratic progress in Iran.

More Photos: (Both empty streets and empty polling stations)
http://news.sosiran.com/manifest/shiraz.html
http://news.sosiran.com/manifest/esfehan.html
http://news.sosiran.com/news/foto.html
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2493
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2497