Who can run
Under the Iranian Constitution, candidates for president must be Muslim and between the ages of 25-75. There are differing interpretations about whether women are eligible for the presidency, but the ruling clerics have blocked all women from standing. Parliament permits women and members of religious and ethnic minorities. People with criminal records or high-ranking officials of the toppled monarchy are banned from running for president or parliament.
Reaching the ballot
All hopefuls for high elected office must be cleared by the Guardian Council, a 12-member body of clerics and scholars loyal to the ruling theocracy. The council often rejects potential candidates considered too liberal or critical of the Islamic system. For Friday’s election, just eight of more than 1,000 possible candidates were allowed.
Who wins
A simple majority — 50 percent plus one vote — is needed to win the presidency. If no candidate attains that, a second round is held between the two top vote-getters. Run-offs have never been needed in Iran’s presidential polls up to now.
Who votes
Anyone at least 16 years old. There are more than 46.7 million eligible voters for Friday’s election. The figure includes millions of Iranians living abroad.
President Bush, addressing the Iranian people on the eve of their presidential election, yesterday denounced Iran's electoral system as undemocratic and vowed that America would stand with those seeking freedom in the Islamic republic.
'''Today, Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread terror across the world,' Bush said in a statement distributed by the White House. 'Power is in the hands of an unelected few who have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic requirements of democracy.'"
It's symptomatic of the failure of strategic vision from which our chatterers and leaders currently suffer, that so many words and so much energy are being wasted on the immense charade that goes under the name of Iranian "elections." Any normal person familiar with the Islamic republic knows that these are not elections at all, and for extras have nothing to do with the future of the Iranian nation. They are a mise en scene, an entertainment, a comic opera staged for our benefit. The purpose of the charade, pure and simple, is to deter us from supporting the forces of democratic revolution in Iran.
Ask yourself two simple questions. Does the president of Iran hold any real power? Has any "candidate" (of which there are eight) been chosen by anyone other than the supreme leader and his cronies?
Already saddled with resolving a looming nuclear showdown with Iran, the Bush administration now faces the possibility that that country's new leader helped take 52 Americans hostage in 1979.
Iran's newly elected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has nominated a string of known hardliners for key positions in his first cabinet.
Keep Democracy Out of the Arab World!
Syria's President Confirms: Islamic World Can't Handle Democracy
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Comment:
These Mullahs in Iran are crazy like Fox, they know that no one believes in the election show that they have started and want to give it an acceptable face, what they do? They make it a competition between 'bad' and 'worst', and guess what, when people are faced with a hated candidate like Rafsanjani, and a much more hated one like 'Ahmadinejad', they have no choice but to vote for the lesser evil, because they know if someone like Ahmadinejad is elected, it is going to be a bigger disaster than Rafsanjani. At the end, millions go to vote out of fear that Ahmadinejad may win. The result? A huge number of people voting, hence legitimizing the election. No matter what the Mullahs win. Isn't that clever? By the way, for those who call Rafsanjani a moderate, it is like calling a snake 'caring' and 'kind'. He is the one who was an important part of the 'People's Courts' that executed thousands, and he is the one who ruined the country under his leadership. So much for a moderate, not to mention, Billions of wealth that he has accumulated for himself and his family