Do Iranian Elections Mean Anything?

In a country where no one seems to seriously argue whether or not the Jews should be drowned in the Mediterranean Sea and where the Government makes heavy use of intimidation to keep its populace subdued, is there really a difference between a "hardliner" or a "fundamentalist" or a "reformer" or a "moderate?" After all. the elections are manipulated by a board of Islamic Clerics who can, with or without reason, deny someone a right to run, a right to win, or even if elected, a right to serve. In the San Francisco Chronicle, this article makes the point that just as it's tough for some of us to see the difference between Republicans and Democrats, so it is (for us) with the Iranian parties. But the Iranian people can tell the difference between very oppressive and not so oppressive.

"Experience shows that both in America today and in Iran today there is an important difference. To Mr. Homayoun ... there may not be a difference, but to the people in Iran ... those small, nuanced differences are a whole lifetime difference between absolute repression and relative repression," he said. "They know the difference."

Many of us are tired of Ahmidinejad's taunting, and would like for his mouth to be somehow strapped shut. So I've seen many articles that emphasize the losses that Mahmoud's team took. The title from the sfgate article above is "Iran vote rattles leader's authority
Hardline president saw lack of support," and makes us aware that he indeed took a shot. But it's interesting, especially in America where you really don't know if the writer has an agenda or has any knowledge or is just writing what the Iranians are repeating. For instance, Betsy's Pagelinked to a Micheal Ledeen article that argues the mullahs have such control over the media that the result was a foregone conclusion, that whatever truly happened is what the mullahs wanted.

The first step toward understanding the Iranian “elections” is that they weren’t. Elections, that is, at least in our common understanding of the term, namely the people vote and the counters count those votes and so we find out what the people want. That’s not what happens in Iran, where both the candidates and the results are determined well in advance of the casting of ballots.

My first reaction to Mr Ledeen is, "look at the tool the mullahs use in Iran to control their citizens. (the press).
In any case, watersblogged linked to Amir Teheri's take on the elections , and his are generally positive.

The first and politically more important election concerned the choice of 86 mullahs to form the new Assembly of Experts (AOE) who has the task of electing and, if need be, dismissing the "Supreme Guide."

...This part of the election, if it had gone Ahmadinejad's way, may have put his spiritual "guru" in line for the title of "Supreme Leader."

With more than 90 per cent of the results confirmed by last Monday, however, it was clear that Ahmadinejad had failed to secure the extra 17 seats he needed. Worse still, his ultra-radical faction suffered other humiliations.
His guru, Mesbah-Yazdi came bottom of the list of those elected in Tehran while Ayatollah Hussain Gheravi, the faction's standard-bearer in the key province of Khorassan, where the holy city of Mashad is located, failed to win a seat.

This CFR link will take you to an assessment of the Iranian economy. Though they have lots of oil cash, they also have inflation and unemployment.

quote