Live Blog Post, 5:45: Iranian Demographics and Updates, pt. 1

Now up to this point, it appears that the majority of the votes are provincial votes. The provinces in Iran refers mainly to the countryside and rural areas (yes cities are obviously in provinces too, but thats what we call our favorite villagers). Reformists rarely gain inroads here and while it is hard for me to actually find numbers to back up most of the following, understand that demographics in Iran is basically guestimation for election results.

Some key facts about Iran (Primarily from the CIA world fact book):

• Iran is arguably the most highly diverse country in its region. Non-Arab, it is commonly viewed as Persian. However, this is not truly fair either. Only 51% of Iran is Persian (Persian/Median descent). The rest is composed of 24% Azeris (same ethnicity as the Azeri turks in Azerbaijan), 8% Gilaki and Mazandaranis (our lovely Caspian tribes that give us our summer cabins), 7% Kurds (same people in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, relatively less oppression one could say), 3% Arabs (south by Iraq mainly), 2% Balouch, 2% Lurs, 2% Turkmen, and 1% other.
• Religion wise, its pretty not diverse. 90% Shi'a Muslim, 8% Sunni Muslim (the southeast and Kurdistan), 2% Non-Muslim (Notably, Zoroastrian, Jew, Christian, and Baha'i although Baha'i is illegal)
• 67% of the population is urbanized

So now for a very crude break down of the provincial votes:

• Ahmadinijad completely dominates this portion of the country, with bribes and oil money gifts keeping villagers loyal to them
• Insulting as this may sound, the villagers never have been much for critically looking at the benefits they got from the Islamic republic. Instead they were praised under Khomeini's time as the model for the future of Iran. Ahmadinijad with his populism and religious values basically locked down these regions.
• Ethnicity wise, Ahmadinijad controls the Persian villagers and probably most of the Arabs, Balouchi, and Lurs (the southern portion of the provinces)
  
• Mousavi has support most likely with the Kurds, Azeris, Mazandaranis, Gilekis and some elements of the Persian villagers hurt worst by terrible inflation. His leads however are not nearly as high here and support is only for economic reasons
  
• Winner of the provinces therefore falls to Ahmadinijad, which was the majority of the votes announced in my previous post.

New election data:

• Ahmadinijad (Hard-liner, incumbent): 14,011,664/66.19%
• Mousavi (Reformist, primary challenger): 6,575,844/31.06%
• Rezaee (Hard-liner): 397,177/1.88%
• Karroubi (Reformist): 185,578/0.88%
  
  Total counted votes: Disputed. (I can't find a single figure that seems to be accurate on the total number so we are just going to have to wait it out for now)