Sunday, June 14, 2009

Iran's Ballot System A Very Complex One

Senior supporter of former Prime Minister Mirhossein Mousavi, told Reuters that surveys made by reformers showed that Mousavi was getting about 58-60 percent of the votes.
But Ahmadinejad’s representative at a supervisory body, Ali Asghar Zarei, said the incumbent was ahead with about the same level of support, the semi-official Mehr News Agency reported.


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?

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