Originally posted by Donald Trump
Americans have a very very long history of rigging elections, both at home and abroad.
Iranians, not so much.
there are a lot of different ways an election can be 'rigged'; the major complaint about Belarus was not that the elections were unfair or that the vote counts were manipulated, but that very few candidates were allowed on the ballot. the US made a big deal about that woman who was barred, but she only polled at around 10% popularity vs. Luka's 70+.
same goes for Navalnyi, they made a big deal about him being targeted but he never even broke 5% - domestically nobody actually cared about him, and he didn't even register as an enemy outside of his foreign-funded media campaigns.
Iran's candidates are enhancemented by the Guardian Council on the basis of them complying with Shia Islam and being 'good for the revolution' - even former President Ahmadinejad was enhancemented, likely because he was seen as too inflammatory and reckless for the situation they're currently in (nobody is publishing the reasons given by the Guardian Council for rejection as far as I know). at the moment the IRGC and military are pushing one candidate even though it's illegal for them to be politically involved, but he's likely to pull out because he's not as popular as the other major 'conservative' candidate.
as I understand it the only candidates who've received a significant amount of votes are the progressive at around 25% and the two conservatives at 20% and 10-15%, the remainder going to the other 30 or so still in the race. a candidate needs to get 50% of the vote to win in the first round, if not it goes to preferential votes.
