Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, during prayers last Friday made it clear that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the elected President of Iran and the demonstrations on the streets should stop. The demonstrators initially took little notice – until their protests were brutally suppressed by the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia. The crackdown has resulted in 10 people killed and 100 others injured according to official reports. The protests weren’t confined to the capital Tehran; there were demonstrations in cities on the Caspian coast, Tabriz in the north, Shiraz in the south and Kerman and Yazd in the interior.
Their anger was fuelled by growing evidence that so profligate was the vote rigging that there is now real doubt that Mr Ahmadinejad won an outright majority. On a minor scale, international votes show that, apparently, 70 per cent of the Iranians living in Britain voted for Mr Ahmadinejad, which seems unlikely. But on a major scale, the official figures show that in one-third of all provinces Mr Ahmadinejad took up to 44 per cent of former reformist voters, which would mean setting aside regional loyalties and bitter decade long conflicts between reformists and conservatives. As well as going against all the voting patterns in the country over the past decade.
Despite the doubts, and despite the demonstrations, Mr Ahmadinejad has been busy consolidating his position. Ali Larijani, a hard-line conservative and long time critic, has thrown his support behind the president, possibly in an attempt to neuter any reformist agenda for change.
But the most crushing news for Mr Mousavi and the opposition was this week’s announcement by the Guardian Council which ruled against any annulment of the election result and decided there was “no major fraud or breach in the election”. They admitted there had been irregularities in 50 districts, including local counts that exceeded the number of eligible voters, but said that Mr Ahmadinejad had the overwhelming support of the Iranian people. The ruling signifies that the door is now officially closed on any top down option for the opposition.
And the government’s tactics appear to be taking some effect as the sizes of the demonstrations have been getting smaller and less frequent. The opposition might try encouraging the unions to come out on a strike, but that would be a big ask.
After the tit for tat expulsion of diplomats between Tehran and London, the authorities have accused the BBC of fomenting violence through its Persian TV channel, which is funded by the Foreign Office
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