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Iran’s economy is facing at least three large imbalances. The most acute is in the balance of payments.

Already some candidates are whispering that they favor lowering the exchange rate (increasing the value of the rial relative to other currencies) in order to fight inflation. These candidates would lead voters to believe that they can have their cake and eat it too

In these times of frozen international credit markets and economic sanctions against Iran, the second option of foreign borrowing is less likely than it was in the 1990s, but the risk of state-owned enterprises racking up foreign debts using short-term credit from eager overseas suppliers is not altogether gone. This is precisely what they did in the early 1990s, which deepened the post-oil boom slump and halted Rafsanjani’s reforms. Anticipating devaluation and government bailout, these enterprises incurred $10 billion in new short term debt alone between 1991 and 1993. Their actions forced the highly anticipated devaluation of the rial by a factor of 27 during the same period and forced the government to accept this debt as its own.

On the basis of what we know so far, here is the sequence of events starting on the afternoon of election day, Friday, June 12. Near closing time of the polls, mobile text messaging was turned off nationwide Security forces poured out into the streets in large numbers The Ministry of Interior (election headquarters) was surrounded by concrete barriers and armed men National television began broadcasting pre-recorded messages calling for everyone to unite behind the winner The Mousavi campaign was informed officially that they had won the election, which perhaps served to temporarily lull  them into complacency But then the Ministry of Interior announced a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad Unlike previous elections, there was no breakdown of the vote by province, which would have provided a way of judging its credibility The voting patterns announced by the government were identical in all parts of the country, an impossibility (also see the comments of Juan Cole at the title link) Less than 24 hours later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene`i  publicly announced his congratulations to the winner, apparently confirming that the process was complete and irrevocable, contrary to constitutional requirements Shortly thereafter, all mobile phones, Facebook, and other social networks were blocked, as well as major foreign news sources.

The willingness of the regime simply to ignore reality and fabricate election results without the slightest effort to conceal the fraud represents a historic shift in Iran’s Islamic revolution. All previous leaders at least paid lip service to the voice of the Iranian people. This suggests that Iran’s leaders are aware of the fact that they have lost credibility in the eyes of many (most?) of their countrymen, so they are dispensing with even the pretense of popular legitimacy in favor of raw power. The Iranian opposition, which includes some very powerful individuals and institutions, has an agonizing decision to make. If they are intimidated and silenced by the show of force (as they have been in the past), they will lose all credibility in the future with even their most devoted followers. But if they choose to confront their ruthless colleagues forcefully, not only is it likely to be messy but it could risk running out of control and potentially bring down the entire existing power structure, of which they are participants and beneficiaries.

Amid talk that the recent election was a silent coup carried out by elements of the hardline Revolutionary Guard after eight years of reformist rule, Western embassies have been scrambling to understand what the Hojjatieh stands for and to what extent the influence of its teachings will be felt in the new government's domestic and foreign policies.

The Islamic society he belonged to at Alm-u Sanat University where he attended was an extreme traditional and fundamentalist group that contained a large number of students from the provinces and maintained grass-roots links with the Hojjatieh. The society's anti-leftism also chimes with reports that Ahmadinejad was pushing for a takeover of the Soviet Embassy alongside or instead of the US compound in Tehran during the 1979 revolution.

Haqqani theological school