It is plausible that the election results do not reflect anything but an arbitrary pre-set number based on pumped up figures from earlier opinion polls.
A letter has leaked from the interior ministry apparently giving an election result that favours Mousavi. It is addressed to Ayatollah Khamenei to present him with the result and do as he pleases with it, and it places the responsibility for naming the president in the hands of the religious leader.
A tv still also shows the number of votes for one of the opposition candidates actually decreasing over the course of a couple of hours as the counting was in course. This could though theoretically be attributed to a later reassessment of the validity of the votes in question.
Strong arguments include evidence of weeding out dissidents from parts of interior ministry dealing with the election, and some of them, including a former interior minister, telling the Mousavi faction that they have indeed won a majority of votes. The same source also tells that in 70 districts the number of votes counted were more than the number of inhabitants eligible to vote.
The argument that there must have been fraud in Mousavi's azeri home province since he didn't win there is weaker. Ahmadinejad still has traditionally the support of the rural working class, speaks fair azeri after eight years of service in the area, and made big deal out of this during the campaign there by reciting poetry in azeri.
This does not mean that all but Teheran is for Ahmadinejad. There has at least been massive rallies for the green revolution in Isfahan and riots in Shiraz in recent days.
The position of the army seems as divided as the old revolutionary scholar elite. A former defence minister and admiral is a Mousavi supporter, and when police tried to arrest him yesterday, marines scrambled to protect him and the police had to stand down.
There are also sign that the police are beginning to crack. Riot police separating pro-government from Moussavi supporters yesterday shielded the opposition protesters from armed Basiji hardliners.
Police are no longer entirely able or willing to enforce the ban on foreign journalist reporting on riots.
Basiji beat, threatened, and forced students out in the streets to shout pro-Ahmadinejad slogans and take part in pro-Ahmadinejad rallies. Pictures of which were then photoshopped and presented by state media.
In other places around the country tonight, Basiji raided university dormitories and attacked students. At the same time protesters in Teheran, wary of entering the dark streets with random patrols of Basiji, were standing on rooftops shouting slogans, symbolically echoing events from the last days of the Shah regime.
The deathtoll of last days' riots is unclear. Official figures say eight dead. But several hospital workers in Teheran report that the military have ordered riotwounds to be sent to military hospitals instead. Deceased from the riots, some children with gunshot wounds, are loaded on military trucks and taken away before the hospitals are allowed to register their names.
There was some hope that an unprecedented meeting of the council of experts tonight, the only authority that has the power to legally replace the Ayatollah, would yield some results, but it appears only to have ended in a consensus, recited today by the Ayatollah, that the violence must end and the four presidential candidates all must distance themselves from any violent acts.


The stills showing votes for the opposition decreasing.

Evidence of state media photoshopping pictures of pro-government rallies.
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