Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, speaking at Tehran University, called the election an “absolute victory” and said that it would be hard to rig an 11 million difference in votes:

“If the difference was 100,000 or 500,000 or 1 million, well, one may say fraud could have happened. But how can one rig 11 million votes?”

And hinted that the protesters would suffer if they continued protesting the election results:

“It must be determined at the ballot box what the people want and what they don’t want, not in the streets,” he said. “I call on all to put an end to this method. … If they don’t, they will be held responsible for the chaos and the consequences.”

And warned that the protests wouldn’t make a difference:

“Some may imagine that street action will create political leverage against the system and force the authorities to give in to threats. No, this is wrong,”

He also made a very important point that I’ve been making (and Obama also made) that Mousavi was an establishment candidate and therefore there would be no difference in policy from Ahmadinejad since it’s the Supreme Leader and the Council that are in control of the country:

He stressed that the four candidates were part of the country’s Islamic system and reminded listeners that Mousavi was prime minister of Iran when Khamenei was president in the 1980s.
“All of them belong to the system. It was a competition within the ruling system”

And of course the people of Iran realize this but I suppose they wanted their voice to be heard and are upset that they are being ignored. I think it’s probably good for them to be reminded that they only get what their leaders give them, their system isn’t a true democracy (or anything close to it). Maybe this is what they need to push them to overthrow their oppressors (though, I doubt it).

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