The Candidates

In the 2005 elections Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then a largely unknown candidate and mayor of the capital city of Tehran, won in stunning fashion. Behind candidates [incumbent and political superstar] Ali Hashemi Rafsanjani and [cleric, former parliamentary speaker and notorious liberal] Mehdi Karroubi, Ahmadinejad came from behind to make the startling win. It was widely speculated [and for many, assumed] that the election was stolen. Eight years earlier, the liberal cleric Mohammad Khatami won the 1997 elections in a remarkable landslide. With the election of Khatami millions of Iranians expected a drastic shift in civil rights and liberties within Iran. Unfortunately they were wrong. Ayatollah Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran--aka the guy with the real power--closed newspapers and intimidated opposition forces with beatings and killings. It is not a stretch to suggest that it was with Khatami's attempts to initiate a liberal society in Iran, Khamenei and his crew opted to create an alternative political reality--one in which the Iranian public could "vote" for the right candidate. And that's how a holocaust-denier was "elected" in 2005.

2009 was pretty much the same thing but with one significant difference.

While Ahmadinejad "won" this election the campaign that was conducted differed drastically from that of previous years. This time around the candidates utilized technology both before and after the elections. The award for most prominent use of technology easily goes to Mir Hussein Mousavi. Mr. Mousavi followed the in the path of Howard Dean and Barack Obama, turning to online for grassroots organization and mobilization of supporters. The strength of the Green Movement is direct a result of vast network of communication constructed on the foundations of text messaging, emails, and facebook messages/posts. Mr. Mousavi himself had (and still has) his own website, an account on facebook (which has over 125,000 fans), twitter, delicious.com, a youtube channel in addition to an extensive Wikipedia page. His base in technology is so strong that I regularly read updates of Iran's goings-on through his facebook status updates. His facebook also posts pictures and videos of the candidate himself, sometimes appealing for help from the world or decrying the maltreatment of political prisoners.

It is no mistake that this movement is still alive: the potent blend of passion, dedication, and of course social networkign sites has allowed for democracy-seeking Iranians to sustain their fight.