Iranian election roundup, 6 June 2009

One week left!

The big news yesterday was the debate between Karroubi and Ahmadinejad, which I stayed up late to liveblog. Karroubi was telling the truth when he said he wasn't going to go easy on Ahmadinejad; during the first ten minutes it seemed like a bit of "I tied an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time"-type largely unfocused conversation, but after that he became extremely fired up and the interpreter was having a hard time conveying everything. You can see a few writeups of the debate here, here, and here.

So that was the debate. Here are some other articles from yesterday.

• The Washington Post has an article on Ahmadinejad's failing support in rural regions as well
• The Telegraph has an article on the benefits Mousavi's campaigning with his wife
• Los Angeles Times article on the disparate groups allying to campaign against Ahmadinejad
• Soccer/football and politics in Iran
• Clashes for a second night in Tehran between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi supporters
• More analysis on the election from Today's Zaman
• Ahmadinejad calls on everybody to declare their belongings. Note to self: having the smallest house is AWESOME when running for office as you can always bring it up in a debate. Or at least a decade or so of hard living that you can always bring up later on.
• Rezaei says he'll form a shadow government to monitor the main government if elected. Expect him to bring this up at the last debate.
• Ban on "Yas-e now" (یاس نو, means New Jasmine) newspaper lifted and it begins publication again. Today's edition gave an endorsement of Mousavi for president.
• Another article on Yas-e now. You can see Mousavi on the front and the headline (پس لرزه های مناظره) means "aftershocks of the debate".

There are two debates remaining: the one today is between Mousavi and Karroubi, and this one will naturally be quite friendly but focused as each of them tries to make their case for why people should vote for one in preference to the other, and tomorrow will be between Ahmadinejad and Rezaei, which will probably be anything but friendly (Rezaei has the greatest chance of taking support away from Ahmadinejad). Really looking forward to that last one.