Iran Goes To Polls; Heavy Turnout; And the Winner Is....

No word on who won, but there are claims that there was extremely heavy turnout in the election held by the mullahs to put a shine on the fact that they are the ones who determine who the eligible candidates are and who give sanction to their continued presence.

Turnout was massive and could break records. Crowds formed quickly at many voting sites in areas considered both strongholds for Ahmadinejad and his main rival, reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi, who served as prime minister in the 1980s and has become the surprise hero of a powerful youth-driven movement. At several polling stations in Tehran, mothers held their young children in their arms as they waited in long lines.

Both sides claimed victory before the close of polls, and Mousavi called journalists to a news conference late Friday after confident claims from his campaign that he had won.

"I hope to defeat Ahmadinejad today," said Mahnaz Mottaghi, 23, after casting her ballot at a mosque in central Tehran.

Outside the same polling station, 29-year-old Abbas Rezai said he, his wife and his sister-in-law all voted for Ahmadinejad.

As usual, President Obama opines on matters that he poorly understands:

President Barack Obama said Iran's "robust debate" leading up to elections shows change is possible there, and it could boost U.S. efforts to engage Tehran's leadership.

He's ignoring the fact that the mullahs hold the real power in Iran, and that they allow the elections to proceed according to their designs, not the other way around. If the mullahs think that Ahmadinejad's usefulness has run its course, they'll push him aside, but this much is clear. Iran wants nuclear weapons and the technologies to deliver them far and wide through the region and beyond. Ahmadinejad was a public face to that, but the nuclear program started before he came on the scene, and it will continue regardless of the outcome of this election.

Further, Ahmadinejad's genocidal rhetoric mirrors that of the mullahs themselves, who have also regularly called for Israel's destruction. Suggesting that the elections are somehow indicative of changed circumstances in Iran misreads the underlying facts (typical for diplomats these days, who are busy trying to substitute their reality for the facts as they are).

UPDATE:
The official Iranian news outlet claims Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won, but Mousavi claims that he's won.

UPDATE:
The Chinese media reports that Ahmadinejad won overwhelminginly in rural areas to such an extent that Mousavi had no chance.

By getting more than 75 percent of votes in the rural areas of the country, Ahmadinejad determinately wins the election, Iran's official IRNA news agency said in a report minutes before 12:00 p.m. (1930 GMT), the deadline for voters after a six-hour extension.

But Iran's poll chief said about an hour later that only 19 percent of the total ballots were counted.

Mousavi, who took the lead in declaring victory in the closely-fought presidential race, said at a press conference, "according to the information we have received, I am the definite winner in this presidential election," without elaborating what kind of information has proven his win.

The poll chief said early results showed that Ahmadinejad leads by 69.04 percent of the votes, while his main rival Mir-Houssein Mousavi followed with 28.42 percent.

Two other candidates -- former chief of Islamic Revolutionary Corps Mohsen Rezaei and former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi --got only 1.62 percent and 0.9 percent respectively, said the poll chief.