Iran Elections Monday -- Updated

Update Sunday, December 17:
This post first published Dec. 8, now moving to top...
Ahmedinejad is not showing well in the Iran elections. Their system is not anything like ours but it is a representative democratic form. (Certainly much closer to representative than many of the tyrants the US has allied with in the past and continues to be in bed with. Of course the monarchies and dictatorships we support are all nice guys, so their constituencies are well cared for, right?)

This from Wampum. Go to the link for nuts and bolts.

Things are looking up. Bush is a lame duck. Olmert is a lame duck. Ahmadinejad is a lame duck. Broken elections, fake wars, phony controntationalism simply are non-salable products, at least when presented a second (or third) time to the market.

Where in the world is the US media, anyway?
That's what I wan----
Forget it. Nobody's interested anyway and they have to pay the rent just like everyone else.

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News reportage is an odd business. Virtually no one in the Western press is writing about next Monday's elections in Iran where there is also an official blackout.

Many websites including Amazon.com and YouTube had access from Iran shut down as ordered by the senior judiciary officials reported The Guardian this morning. Also, 10 newspapers have been threatened with closure following promotion of candidates before the official municipal election campaign, opening on Thursday, which contradicts electoral law.

The ten newspapers may be shut down for the whole month of December or at least up to the elections on 15 December 2006. Turnout last year was just 10% where conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a surprise victory.

With 7.5million surfers (the highest in the Middle East after Israel) many citizens have started blogs to overcome the recent suppression in media restriction of free speech. Perhaps this will increase with the imminent ban of the newspapers if current reporting trends don’t cease.

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What if Ahmadinejad had a poor showing? I don't know how elections work in Iran, if there are opposition candidates, coalitions or what, but no matter how they work, elections are an index to the strength or weakness of whatever group or individual is in control.

I find it interesting that only ten percent of eligible voters even bothered to vote. That sounds like a comfortable, fairly detached population more or less disinterested in politics. I bet they now rue the day when so few people were paying attention.

Do we know any place where participation is equally unimpressive? Or where a large population is more interested in pop stars, fashion trends and sports than civil liberties?