Both sides in Britain's national elections are looking to capture a little bit of the Obama magic in a series of upcoming televised debates:

David Cameron has hired two of President Obama’s former advisers to help him to prepare for the televised debates due to be held before the election. Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director, and Bill Knapp, who has worked on the past four US Democratic Party presidential campaigns, will also advise the Tory leader on general strategy.[...]

Gordon Brown, meanwhile, is being advised by Joel Benenson , a pollster and strategist who helped to prepare Mr Obama for his TV showdowns with John McCain. Labour has also received help from David Axelrod, Mr Obama’s senior adviser, and David Plouffe, his former campaign chief.

Thanks to prime minister's questions, British party leaders have plenty of experience with televised verbal jousting, but American-style debates are an entirely different beast. From an outsider's perspective, the younger more dynamic Cameron would appear to have the upper hand, though the polls do appear to be narrowing. 

Ukrainian politics are really confusing:

"The main result of these elections is that Yanukovich came first, but did not win. Tymoshenko, on the other hand, lost but was not defeated," Ukrainska Pravda commentator Vadym Karasov wrote.

Got that?

Tymoshenko broke her post-election silence yesterday, attacking Yanukovych's campaign promises at a cabinet meeting but not discussing her future plans. Since Tymoshenko clearly has no intention of stepping down voluntarily and Yanukovych likely doesn't have the votes to dismiss her government, Ukraine appears set for another crippling political standoff.

With more than 99 percent of the vote counted, there seems to be little doubt left and that Viktor Yanukovych has defeated his one-time Orange Revolution foe Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine's presidential election. But, never one to avoid drama, Tymoshenko has not conceded yet leading opponents and supporters alike to wonder if she plans to take to the streets again. 

Not likely says the BBC's Richard Galpin: 

At a news conference in Kiev on Monday, a team of election observers from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe was blunt in its assessment of Ukraine's post-election landscape.

"Yesterday's vote was an impressive display of democratic elections. For everyone in Ukraine, this election was a victory," said Joao Soares, the team co-ordinator.

"It is now time for the country's political leaders to listen to the people's verdict and make sure that the transition of power is peaceful and constructive."

Those two sentences alone may have been enough to cut the ground from underneath Mrs Tymoshenko's feet.

Challenging the election result in the courts or on the street without the cover of credible allegations of fraud would be a tough sell even to her own supporters.

This time around, there isn't a whole lot of daylight between Tymoshenko and Yanukovych's positions, and it would be hard to imagine her being able to drum up the same level of fervor for an opposition movement.

This morning at the Center for American Progress, a panel of veteran American Ukraine hands briefed a group of Ukrainian political leaders and think tankers via satellite on the implications of this Sunday's presidential election on U.S.-Ukrainian relations. The main takeaway from the panel -- former ambassador William Taylor, former ambassador Steven Pifer, former NSC official Damon Wilson, and CAP associate director and FP contributor Samuel Charap -- was that unlike the 2004 "Orange Revolution" election, the U.S. doesn't really have a dog in the fight between Viktor Yanukovych and Yulia Tymoshenko and was simply hoping for a credible government that could be a reliable negotiating partner on issues like NATO integration and energy security.

The Ukrainian audience seemed to mostly share the Americans' frustration with the pace of political change in Ukraine, but some questioners also expressed frustration that Ukraine was being ignored in the "reset" with Russia:

After the panel, asked Wilson and Pifer what a Yanukovych vs. a Tymoshenko win would mean for Ukraine's relations with the west:   

Damon Wilson: Yanukovych has a high bar to prove that he is a modern European leader. He has a bad record, stole an election, not to mention criminal actions before then. He has an image problem. When you look at him on the campaign trail, he harkens back the old school, not the modern European political school. When he's sitting in a room with a European president or prime minister, do they feel like they're dealing with someone who's really bringing his country toward Europe? He's got some work to do. 

The challenge with Tymoshenko: is she going to be a reliable partner.

Steven Pifer: Which Tymoshenko do you get? Do you get Tymoshenko the populist, or the Tymoshenko we saw in 2009 who is maybe the more serious politician, prepared to tackle problems in a serious way. That's also a question on Sunday. Which Tymoshenko has she persuaded the Ukrainian electorate that their going to get. 

In an unusual turn of events, a Russian court has overturned the result of a mayoral election in the city of Derbent. Reportedly, riot police used tear gas and shot at voters, preventing them from entering polling stations. Threats were made to local election officials, frightening them enough that more than a third of the polling stations never opened.

The St. Petersburg Times reports that it is "extremely rare" for an election to be overturned, and that in the past cases, judicial interventions were seen as Kremlin machinations to oust successful opposition candidates. That makes the current decision even more noteworthy, since the incumbent, a member of the dominant United Russia party (UR), officially carried the election with 67.52 percent of the vote.

It's worth asking if the case is linked to a power struggle between Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, who, in the 2012 elections, will be eligible to run for a third term as president. There has been growing speculation about a possible rift between the two men, even though Medvedev has said that he and his former political guardian would "agree on how not to elbow each other out and make a decision that is useful for the country."

Vanity Fair dubbed Putin the world's most influential person in 2007; Forbes puts him at #3 in 2009, topped only by Hu Jintao and Obama. UR is Putin's powerbase - after stepping down as president, he became the party's chairman. And it's a powerful group indeed, controlling 70 percent of the parliament's seats and exerting enormous influence on the country.

Putin handpicked Medvedev as his successor, tying him inextricably to UR. But since coming to office, Medvedev has also consolidated his own supporters, replacing officials appointed by Putin with his own men and women. And this court decision comes just days after Medvedev sharply addressed the UR's 11^th Congress, making clear allusions to electoral fraud: "Sadly, some regional divisions of United Russia. . . show signs of backwardness and concentrate their political activity on intrigues and games within the apparatus," he said. That intrigue will no longer be tolerated, he suggested, saying "such people need to go, as do some other political customs."

But Medvedev's track record doesn't scream "liberal democrat!" The best indication of what to expect in 2012 might be Putin's take on elections in general, as he phrased it back in 1998. "One has to be insincere and promise something which you cannot fulfill," he said. "So you either have to be a fool who does not understand what you are promising, or deliberately be lying."

Photo:ELENA PALM/AFP/Getty Images

This weekend, Honduran citizens voted Porfirio Lobo president, months after a coup ousted Manuel Zelaya. Here, Foreign Policy contributor and former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western Hemisphere Otto J. Reich replies to criticism of his FP article on the coup.

How does one rebut so many errors and distortions as those in Christopher Sabatini and Daniel Altshuler's response ("Calling a Coup a Coup," from Nov. 2) to my Foreign Policy article on Honduras ("Honduras is an Opportunity," from Oct. 27). Let us deal with just some of them.

By my count, Sabatini and Altshuler (hereafter, "SA") repeat the term "coup" 11 times, an incantation designed to cast a spell over the reader. But no matter how many times the liberal duo recite the mantra to misidentify the events that removed Manuel Zelaya from office, it was not a coup. Since the entire letter is based on that false premise, its conclusions are equally false.

SA accuse me of "ideological revisionism," for saying the U.S. should recognize the transitional government that is based on Honduran law, while they insist on calling a constitutional removal of a law-breaking president by a unanimous vote of a nation's Supreme Court, a "coup." Curiously, SA dismiss the Supreme Court action by citing two obscure U.S. academics' papers which portend to rebut a U.S. Law Library of Congress report that supported the legality of Zelaya's ouster. Is that ideological on their part, or just plain confused?

The ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, had violated several articles of the Honduran Constitution (as documented in the aforementioned Supreme Court decision), and therefore according to Honduran law (not my opinion) he was no longer president of Honduras when he was deported (the deportation was not legal, but it occurred after the legal removal from office). Further evidence that Zelaya's removal was not a coup was the ratification of his removal by a nearly unanimous vote of the Honduran Congress. SA gloss over Zelaya's violations of the law and focus instead on his subsequent -- and inexcusable -- deportation.

SA claim that "Reich vigorously defended Micheletti's assumption of power as the victory of the rule of law and a stand against Latin American leftists." False. I not only did not defend (or condemn) Micheletti, I mention Micheletti only once in my article, in passing, acknowledging that he replaced Zelaya. This is only one example of the paucity of facts in SA's article. I am not sure whose article they were rebutting, but I don't think it was mine. Their allegations are directed at "conservatives," "Micheletti apologists," and others -- people I know did not write my FP article.

Attacking "conservatives" put SA in a bind. They charge that "U.S. conservatives have argued that Barack Obama's administration should recognize the Nov. 29 elections in Honduras as a way out of the political crisis." Actually, it is not only U.S. conservatives, but also the Obama administration that has come to that conclusion, as evidenced in the agreement brokered by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Thomas Shannon in late October. It was Zelaya who renounced the agreement just days after he had signed it. Shannon then said the U.S. would recognize the winner of the Nov. 29 elections as the legitimate head of the next Honduran government.

In their letter to FP, SA praise the U.S.-brokered accord as follows: "[Most] importantly, the prospective settlement sets the stage for internationally recognized elections that will transfer power to a new president and help the country move forward." I agree. And contrary to SA's implication, I support that accord and think it is the best way out of the current crisis. I would hope that Zelaya's retreat from it has not caused SA to reverse course.

Although most of their letter can be dismissed as confused and self-contradictory, Sabatini-Altshuler's ideological motivation in attacking "U.S. conservatives'" position on the Honduras electoral crisis (as embodied by me, I assume) is serious. In concluding, SA claim that the "conservative" posture on Honduras they have attacked in their letter "would have mirrored the United States' foreign-policy blunders in Central America in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, the United States supported façade democracies -- deadly authoritarian regimes that held civilian elections to legitimize their rule -- to pursue questionable geopolitical aims. This position cheapened elections and weakened nascent democracies."

This not only reveals a clear leftist ideological direction by SA, but also a revisionism resulting in crass historical distortion. This is a contemptible and ignorant slap at Ronald Reagan, the president in "the 1980s," under whom unprecedented progress was made in hemispheric democracy. When Reagan took office in 1981, a majority of Latin Americans lived under military dictatorships. When the conservative Reagan left office eight years later, the situation had been reversed: An overwhelming majority of our neighboring countries had transitioned to democracy after long and brutal dictatorships, such as Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, Uruguay, and Chile. Which of those governments were "façade regimes," as in SA's accusation? Which were U.S. policy blunders? In which of those countries did the U.S. weaken "nascent democracy"?

As someone who worked for Ronald Reagan for those eight years, I can attest that democratic progress was no accident. It was the result of a policy designed and implemented to bring freedom and democracy to our hemisphere. That two American liberals attempt to re-write history and thus demean the U.S. role in the advance of freedom in this region, imperfect as it was but one that came at a high cost in lives and treasure, is an obvious illustration of the moral bankruptcy of American liberalism today.

But SA are not satisfied with running down their country: Their despicable and rude anti-Reagan screed reaches another ridiculous nadir with the statement that those (1980s) U.S. policies were based on "the pursuit of questionable geopolitical aims." Really? What aims were those? The main geopolitical aim of Ronald Reagan, as I remember, was the defeat of communism. The policy succeeded. And with it came an unprecedented global spread of freedom, human rights and prosperity. By whose standards was this policy "questionable?" I do recall it was questionable to the Kremlin, many western Marxist "intellectuals," and most Third World socialist despots and guerrilla leaders. It was not questionable to the hundreds of millions of people of Eastern Europe or the Soviet Union whom it helped to liberate from oppression. We now know they supported Reagan. As did the other hundreds of millions people who benefitted from the end of the Cold War and from the ensuing prosperity resulting from the "peace dividend".

Why does U.S. Cold War policy appear to be a "blunder" to Sabatini-Altshuler? For the same reason they cannot see why the U.S. should support free elections in Honduras. Historical ignorance and political ideology blinds them.

Writing for Eurasianet, Aunohita Mojumda makes the case that Abdullah Abdullah is the real winner in the Afghan election debacle:

Heading into the August 20 election, Abdullah, an ethnic Tajik, stood virtually no chance of winning the election -- whether outright in the first round, or in a run-off -- because of his inability to muster a united opposition. Given his previous political roles, most notably as Karzai’s foreign minister until 2006, Abdullah lacked a strong and cohesive political base to support his candidacy. Even the ethnic-Tajik opposition failed to unite around him. A key Northern Alliance ally, Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, campaigned for Karzai.

Nevertheless, Abdullah emerged as the man of the moment. His skillful campaigning caused his popularity to surge, said Mir. "He had lost touch with the ordinary people as foreign minister. Now he has emerged as a national leader," the political analyst said.

Ironically, Abdullah’s prestige is now probably higher following the first-round vote-rigging scandal than it would have been had August 20 balloting been deemed largely free and fair.

This could be seen as the electoral equivalent of the "Streisand Effect," an Internet phenomenon often invoked by my colleague Evgeny Morozov in which attempts to censor information give it more publicity and impact than it would have had on its own. By attempting to rig the vote, Afghan authorities turned a not-particularly-credible Afghan politician into a credible international public figure.

Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

Via the invaluable Boursa Exchange, I see that the Egyptian government is contemplating a redevelopment plan in downtown Cairo which would transform the area into a pedestrian-only area. This plan has been commissioned by Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, and envisions the construction of "multi-story underground garages" to eliminate traffic and pave the way for the creation of an area of open-air restaurants and shops.

As anyone who has even passed through Cairo knows, the traffic is truly hateful. It can sometimes take hours to get across the city, and the noise and pollution can be overwhelming. Therefore, the creation of a car-free zone in the center of the city seems like a grand idea.

This isn't the first example of the Nazif government's attempts to change the way Egyptians do business. Since becoming Prime Minister in 2004, Nazif has embarked on a series of structural reforms to the Egyptian economy which has moved the country closer to a free market system. The government has privatized many of the state's assets, particularly in the financial sector. These reforms allowed Nazif to aim to reduce the budget deficit to 3 percent of GDP in 2010, down from 8.2 percent in 2005, and paved the way for GDP growth near 7 percent.

So, if Nazif is the financial mastermind behind Egypt's economic recovery, why isn't he mentioned in the same breath as his Palestinian counterpart Salam Fayyad -- another technocrat who is taking steps to improve the West Bank's economy? The first reason relates to his boss: Mubarak has given no hint that he's prepared to loosen his grip on power, to the simmering resentment of many Egyptians. It's hard to love even an effective Prime Minister when he is the front man for an increasingly illegitimate dictator. 

More importantly, despite the impressive GDP growth, Nazif's reforms don't appear to be making a dent in Egypt's widespread poverty. Because of rapid population growth, Egyptian per capita income only grew 3.9% annually from 2002 to 2007, which is only middling by regional standards. To absorb the millions of new applicants to the job market, the Egyptian economy must grow at least 6 percent annually -- a rate that it almost certainly will not meet during the current recession.

The daunting task of restoring health to the Egyptian economy even makes one rethink the wisdom of creating a carless downtown Cairo. The area could very easily become the exclusive domain of the only people who can afford to drink cappuccinos in these chic open-air restaurants: upper-class Egyptians and wealthy foreigners. With rampant poverty spreading throughout Egypt, doesn't the Nazif government have better projects to spend its limited investment dollars on than downtown Cairo?

KHALED DESOUKI/AFP/Getty Images

It's cartoon Wednesday here at Passport. Three editors at the Uganda weekly The Independent, including editor-in-chief and FP contributor Andrew Mwenda, were summoned by police over a political cartoon in last week's magazine. The cartoon, seen above, implies that President Yoweri Museveni is beginning a strategy to rig the elections scheduled for early 2011. Uganda is one of the few self-proclaimed democracies to retain criminal libel laws which can be used to prosecute journalists. However, the sedition law is currently under appeal to the Supreme Court and no prosecutions are allowed to move forward. (Freedom House rates Uganda "partly free.")

The Comittee to Protect Journalists, which gave Andrew Mwenda its International Press Freedom Award for 2008, has the details and explains the first list item:

For four hours, 10 officers of the Media Crimes Department of Uganda's Criminal Investigations Directorate questioned the editorial decisions of Managing Editor Andrew Mwenda, Editor Charles Bichachi, and Assistant News Editor Joseph Were of the bimonthly newsmagazine The Independent, according to defense lawyer Bob Kasango. Were was told to return for further questioning on Saturday, while Mwenda and Bichachi were ordered to return on Monday, according to local journalists...

Officers pressed the trio over the motive and production of an August 21 cartoon spoofing Museveni's controversial decision to reappoint members of the embattled electoral commission to supervise the 2011 general election. The Supreme Court ruled that in the 2005 election the electoral commission did not adhere to its own rules and allowed irregularities including bribery, ballot-stuffing, and voter disenfranchisement.

A formal sedition charge from 2005 already hangs over Mwenda, one of 21 criminal counts that Uganda's best-known political editor and 2008 CPJ awardee is battling in court.

The second spot on the list alludes to the treason charges against opposition leader Kizza Besigye, who was brought to trial in late 2005 at the same time he was the main candidate opposing Museveni's reelection. Olara Otunnu, a former U.N. official is thought to be another possible challenger in 2011.

The third item, Kiboko squads, refers to violent groups of men that attacked anti-government protesters in 2007 and were since linked to Museveni's government by the Uganda Human Rights Commission, among others. 

Museveni is expected to face a serious challenge in the 2011 elections if the opposition can unite behind a single candidate. My sources in Uganda say he personally was very angry about the cartoon, leading to the questioning.

But still, a cartoon?

Press intimidation is fairly frequent in Uganda, but most international donors tend to look the other way as Uganda is relatively stable overall. 

But seditious cartoons? Really? That can't be good for aid dollars. 

Full disclosure: I know all three editors well and worked at The Independent in 2008. Shortly before I arrived, a more dramatic incident occurred with government forces actually arresting several journalists at the magazine, raiding the office and seizing files and disks alleged to contain "seditious materials." No charges were filed. 

The Independent, Uganda

So says Joshua Foust, writing on the World Politics Review blog:

Democratic elections usually rest on a few basic principles: a free and fair vote, an uncoerced selection of candidates, and an agreement by all parties to abide by the results. Afghanistan doesn't quite qualify for any of these.

Though not disputing the strategic importance in determining who will be in charge of the government, Foust makes a pretty convincing case that the elections aren't shaping up to look much like what most democracy promoters would have hoped:

*Take the idea of a free and fair vote. Pajhwok, an internationally-funded independent Afghan news service, has an entire news page set aside for incidents of voter intimidation -- and I don't mean by the Taliban (more on them later). It runs the gamut from the government arresting supporters of Abdullah Abdullah, to police killing Nuristanis for asking for enough ballot boxes to cast their votes.

*The government is building up "tribal security" forces modeled on the arbakai, a traditional tribal militia. Only, these forces are going to be different from all the other forces that have come before, will be given better weapons, and will not be subject to the disarmament and de-mobilization programs that have stood down other informal militias. In other words, they are flooding the country with guns to try to create security for the election.

*Shortly before the registration deadline passed, Gul Agha Sherzai -- the former-warlord governor of Nangarhar Province who had taken to American newspapers to make the case for his impending presidency -- abruptly withdrew his own nomination amid rumors of a deal cut with Hamid Karzai.

*Speaking of deals, what's "free and fair" about Karzai de-exiling a man like Abdul Rashid Dostum -- the Uzbek warlord who faces allegations of America-sponsored mass killings in 2001 -- to deliver the Uzbek vote?

The sudden return of Dostum and his quick endorsement of Karzai did seem particularly dirty. Karzai's government, after all, had exiled Dostum, and he was one of the stronger competitors to Karzai--though still very far off--in the 2004 election. At this point though, there is little anyone can do to protest. The elections must go on. Right?

Assuming the elections are not disrupted by violence, a related question will be how much progress, if any, Afghanistan has made since 2004. Is it more democratic, if not a democracy? 

For more from Joshua Foust, watch him discuss U.S.-Afghanistan policy with New America fellow and AfPak Channel blogger Michael Cohen. 

BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

If you got it, flaunt it. At least that's what my grandmother used to say, and I imagine if she could see the campaign ads coming out of Germany this week, she'd probably laugh. And Vera Lengsfeld, who is running for a parliament seat in Germany's upcoming September elections, is banking on the fact that constituents will have a sense of humor.

The ad (shown above) pairs pictures of Lengsfeld and none other than Chancellor Angela Merkel, shoulder to shoulder showcasing the bountiful assets bestowed upon them by Mother Nature -- two very ample bosoms barely contained by two seriously wide and plunging necklines. The line that runs across reads: "We have more to offer."

No doubt, where there's more chest, there's more attention. Lengsfeld, who did not clear the ads with Merkel, reports that traffic to her blog has increased, getting as many as 17,000 visitors since this campaign went public.

Her takeaway on all this? 

If only a tenth of them also look at the content of my policies, then I will have reached many more people than I could have done with classic street canvassing."

It's an interesting acknowledgement on Lengsfeld's part, she's clearly aware that the show-stopping photos aren't appealing to the thinking minds of men and women, though it sounds as though she's hoping the ad's wit will trump the old T&A approach.

Many of those not laughing are likely to be women who find the posters, and the ploy behind them, cheap and offensive. The glass ceiling runs far and wide, thicker over some places than others, and apparently the profiles of men cast long shadows, even over the most powerful women in global politics. Truthfully, I'd like to see a man foolish enough to market his campaign "package" in the same fashion ... Or has Berlusconi kind of done that already?

MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images

The first ever mayor's race in Russia's Star City -- the cosmonaut training town which until recently was a military facility until recently but is still largely closed to outsiders -- did not go so well. For one thing, the winner is already under arrest:

The winning candidate, Nikolai Rybkin, a former deputy director of the cosmonaut training center, was arrested four days before the June 28 elections. Nevertheless, he won 82.6 percent of the vote, according to a tally on the Central Elections Commission’s web site.

Rybkin, a retired FSB colonel, ran as an independent candidate. Runner-up Nikolai Yumanov, an adviser to the United Russia mayor of Shchyolkovo, gained 11.4 percent of the votes. Oleg Sokovikov, who finished third with 2.6 percent, is an assistant of United Russia State Duma Deputy Vladimir Pekarev.

The arrest even boosted Rybkin’s voting tally, Vladimir Reznikov, a member of his campaign team, said by telephone from Star City. “The preliminary rating was a little bit lower,” he said.

Rybkin’s lawyer, Roman Smadich, said Monday that the elections were legal.[...]

Rybkin is being investigated on smuggling charges involving a ­company called Rosmoravia that allegedly smuggled Chinese goods into Russia via its northwestern borders. Investigators said he was among Rosmoravia’s founders.

 

Rybkin's legal difficulties notwithstanding, the dismal showing by Yumoanov and Sokovikov are also an embarassment for Vladimir Putin's United Russia party. If Rybkin is still unable to perform his duties after three months -- hard to do when you're in jail -- President Dmitry Medvedev can dismiss him.

Star City was founded in 1960 as a training center for cosmonauts. Though it's just 30 kilometers from Moscow, for years during the Soviet era, it didn't appear on any official maps. 

Now it may be giving Olympic city Shochi a run for it's money as the world's strangest mayor's race.

Photo: Radio Nederland Wereldomroep via Flickr. Used under Creative Commons License. 

I see that a number of people are still throwing up their hands, unsure if the Iranian election was really fraudulent.

Give me a break, folks. It's true that Ahmadinejad is popular. But he's just not that popular. There's no need to throw up our hands and say, "Aw shucks, it's all too complicated and we'll never know if he really got 24 million votes." This was fraud on a massive scale.

The Guardian is now reporting that many towns in Iran reported turnout figures in excess of their population:

In the most specific allegations of rigging yet to emerge, the centrist Ayandeh website – which stayed neutral during the campaign – reported that 26 provinces across the country showed participation figures so high they were either hitherto unheard of in democratic elections or in excess of the number of registered electors.

Taft, a town in the central province of Yazd, had a turnout of 141%, the site said, quoting an unnamed "political expert". Kouhrang, in Chahar Mahaal Bakhtiari province, recorded a 132% turnout while Chadegan, in Isfahan province, had 120%.

Ayandeh's source said at least 200 polling stations across Iran recorded participation rates of 95% or above. "This is generally considered scientifically impossible because out of every given cohort of 20 voters, there will be at least one who is either ill, out of the country, has recently died or is unable to participate for some other reasons," the source said. "It is also unprecedented in the history of Iran and all other democratic countries."

The claims are impossible to verify, but they are consistent with comments made by a former Iranian interior minister, Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour, who said on Tuesday that 70 polling stations returned more completed ballot papers than the number of locally eligible voters.

But even if we can't verify such reports, common sense ought to suffice to persuade us that Ahmadinejad and co. cheated. As one Iranian intellectual put it, "A president that has received 24 million votes doesn't need to imprison hundreds of people and cut all lines of communication."

Most Iranians seem to grasp this point intuitively. Hooman Majd, an Iranian-American journalist and author of The Ayatollah Begs to Differ, explained at an event yesterday why the rigging has Iranians so upset. "The vote is the one thing Iranians still had," he said, saying that presidential elections -- within the parameters set by the Guardian Council -- had generally been considered fair until now. "There's a rage that comes from that."

The big Iran news today is that the Guardian Council, the clerical body that oversees elections and is controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has agreed to recount certain ballots disputed by Mir Hossein Mousavi's campaign.

This is, of course, a ruse -- a delaying tactic meant to divide the opposition by peeling off its most moderate members. Mousavi wants a complete annulment of Friday's official results.

Also of note: Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani -- who has congratulated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on his "victory" -- blamed the interior ministry for the recent attacks on students at Tehran University.

Hossein Ali Montazeri -- Iran's most prominent "dissident ayatollah" -- is now telling the protesters to use peaceful means to express their grievances. I'm not sure how influential Montazeri, once thought to be Khomenei's heir, really is today, but his opinion surely carries some weight. There's still no word from Rafsanjani. [UPDATE: Translation of Montazeri's statement.]

Finally, I'm sad to learn that reformist cleric Mohammad Ali Abtahi has reportedly been arrested. I've been reading his blog sporadically for years, but it seems to be offline now. Abtahi, a former Khatami deputy who backed Karroubi in these elections, was frequently quoted in the Western press.

It will be interesting to see what happens during today's dueling demonstrations, and whether Mousavi's call for a general strike is being observed. State media has called on Iranians to protest against "outlaws," and Mousavi is reportedly telling his supporters not to demonstrate today. Still, that's what he said yesterday -- and people came out in droves anyway. It's not clear to what extent he controls this movement.

One ominous sign that Ahmadinejad thinks he has this situation under control? He went ahead with a planned trip to Russia despite the unrest back home. I see that he met with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Perhaps the two of them compared notes on how to steal an election?

VLADIMIR RODIONOV/AFP/Getty Images