Iranian elections, fraud or freedom?

I thought this was interesting.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8097617.stm

The Iranian presidential elections are wrapping up right now, and the country’s youthful population is enthusiastically joining in after years of declining voter turnout. Both of the front runners, the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the somewhat less conservative Mir Hossein Mousavi, are claiming victory at this point, but it's still early in the vote counting process.

Likely neither candidate will get the 50% of the vote needed to avoid a run off with whoever finishes second. Accordingly, pretty much nothing is settled at this point except that Ahmadinejad and Mousavi will be the two to run off in the next round.

Of course Iran's government is still headed by an unelected religious council led by supreme leader Ali Khamenei, so none of this really matters. When it comes to military and domestic policy, Iran is still an autocratic theocracy. But, the enthusiasm of Iran's voting population in this election does show that the people of Iran are starting to wax progressive, and that is encouraging.

One hot button issue that will make the Americans cringe is that both of the front runners are in favor of continuing the Iranian nuclear program. Many Americans rightfully fear a nuclear holocaust could be set off should the Iranians try to use nuclear clout against Israel.

This would of course fuck with the America’s oil supply, which is agood way to provoke the end of the world.

And God help us all if the Russians get involved.

Regardless of the outcome of this relatively meaningless election,

one can only hope that this mass mobilization of Iran's youth will lead to a positive outpouring of reformist fervor. Iran

needs this. If this political up swell is stifled by election fraud or political repression, youthful hope and zeal could lead to widespread violence, or even worse, soviet style apathy.

I apologize for the formating issues. I'm still new to this game and I will get them resolved