Supporters of the Iranian President gather in Tehran's Vali Asr Square to celebrate his re-election.
A few days before the Iranian election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held a big rally at the Mosallah Mosque--said to be the world's largest, if it is ever completed--in central Tehran. It was not very well organized. About 20,000 supporters of the President were inside the building, being entertained by a series of TV stars, athletes and religious singers. Many thousands more swirled outside. Inside, a TV host led the crowd in chanting "Death to Israel." "Squeeze your teeth and yell from the bottom of your heart," he implored. Later, the host said he had once asked Iran's President where he got the energy to travel to all the provinces. "My heart is powered by nuclear fuel," Ahmadinejad replied. The place was hot, and packed, and people were fainting. After several hours, the host announced that the President would not be speaking: he had gotten caught up in the crowds outside the mosque. And so Nahid Siamdoust, TIME's Tehran reporter, and I began a three-hour journey to get back to my hotel, which was only a few miles away.
We walked at first, then found a cab. But central Tehran had become an implacable traffic jam--and a gridlocked political debate. The Ahmadinejad supporters, many on motor scooters, skittered through the lines of automobiles, most of which were decked out with signs supporting the moderate challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi. There was good-natured banter between the two groups. "Chist, chist, chist," the Ahmadinejad supporters chanted, referring to Mousavi's awkward, constant use of that word--Farsi for "y'know"--during his debate with Ahmadinejad. The Mousavi supporters chanted, "Ahmadi--bye, bye." After about an hour, our cabdriver gave up, and Nahid and I set out on foot.
The streets were getting very crowded now--and there was a giddiness to the scene. It was the sort of crowd that might gather after a football victory. The Ahmadinejad supporters, dressed in the red, white and green of the Iranian flag, seemed to be enjoying the freedom as much as the more flamboyant Mousavi supporters, who were draped in green. At one point, an Ahmadinejad supporter stuck his head out the window of his car and sang a lullaby, "Mousavi--lai, lai," in response to the students chanting "Ahmadi--bye, bye." The students laughed. It was as if someone had opened a door and an entire country had spilled out. It was possible to believe, for a moment, that these genial young people, from both sides, might be creating a new, more open Iran for themselves.
And then, the door slammed shut again.
It has to be assumed that the Iranian presidential election was rigged, but it is impossible to know how heavily the government's thumb rested on the scales. It is entirely possible that Ahmadinejad would have won anyway, but narrowly, perhaps with less than 50% of the vote, setting up a runoff election he might have lost as the other candidates united against him. It is possible that his government, perhaps acting in concert with Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei, decided to take no chances.