[berntb]

>[polls predicted Ahmadinejad victory]

I've seen the argument that people in Iran tend to not have "unpopular" opinions if asked in polls. (I don't know if the population would have been that nervous, considering that only four candidates were allowed out of more than 400.)

Anyway, the opposition party seemed to have a good few last weeks of campaign. Also, there are some bad smells... the uniquely short time to publish results, the way different minorities switched totally from the previous election, etc.

In non-democracies, there are lots of conspiracy theories. (As the joke goes, the population live in a conspiracy theory!) So maybe there weren't outright cheating and the election was "fair", but I'd rather buy a bridge than bet money on that.