How many of the Iranian rural/urban poor have access to Twitter? They were supposedly Ahmadinejad's power base, it seems unlikely that the internet would've influenced them to vote otherwise this time.
Obviously, I've no idea if the election was corrupt or not. But in some ways it reminds me of the coup in Thailand (where I was living at the time) and what came after - specifically, the recent bourgeois revolution - the urban elites and middle classes forced out a democratically elected government, accusing them of corruption, electoral fraud and so on. These things were true to some extent, but the majority of the rural poor voted for them because they brought in universal health care, rural development funds, and generally were effective in reducing poverty. The middle class urban 'yellow shirts' depicted the rural poor as stupid and ignorant, claiming that they "didn't understand democracy".
I actually believed them at the time. Most of my friends were yellow shirts, the press supported them, the western media were sympathetic, and the other party - the PPP (formerly TRT) - were responsible for extra-judicial killings, massive fraud etc. What democrat wouldn't support the 'yellow revolution'? However, the PPP were elected democratically... The poor knew exactly what they were getting from the PPP, they knew that the opposition party, the Democrats, were an establishment party and would only impose neo-liberal policies on the country, which would benefit no one except the already rich and well-off. As has now become clear.
Isn't it possible that Iranians voted for Ahmadinejad because of his redistributive policies and against his opponent's commitment to a neo-liberal project?
