In Iran Elections, Everyone's A Winner!
Both President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and challenger Mirhossein Mousavi won 60% of the vote in today's Iranian elections. Hooray for democracy! Iran does elections just like America does, too: with crazy, confusing ballots.
Joe Klein, in Tehran, reports:
The candidates are listed by name and by number...and also by code. You vote by writing down the candidate's name and then his...what? Number...or code? No one is quite sure. The leading reformer, Mir-Hussein Moussavi, has the number 4 and the code 777. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has the number 1 and the code 444. So the question arises: If you vote for Moussavi and list his number as 4...have you actually voted for Ahmadinejad? And why on earth have they devised such a complicated ballot in the first place?
Now polls closed... like a half-hour ago? But no one will know the results until tomorrow morning. And also there might be a run-off on June 19, if for some reason the Ayatollah hasn't made up his mind which guy to throw the election to.
Hah, no, seriously, he doesn't need to actually interfere in the election itself too much because he will retain his ultimate power over the nation no matter who the president is.
Here is a thing about how the government in Iran works, in case you are curious.