Voting day: waiting for the storm clouds to clear

Thursday, June 11, evening.

Another freak thunderstorm tonight. A snarling black cloud hung over our hotel, sending down endless spears of lightening.

Iranians say this is unusual for this time of year. On the eve of voting day, it may well be seen by some as an omen.

A day before I flew here, a week ago now, I did what I always do before travelling: I checked the weather forecast online.

But when I entered "Tehran" at my favourite website, it insisted no such location could be found.

I tried again. Different spellings. As far as this website was concerned, the sprawling capital of more than 13 million people simply didn't exist.

I don't know whether Tehran's absence from the site was deliberate, politically motivated, or just a technical glitch. Still, it made me wonder what it's like to live in a country shunned by the international community.

Following the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. in 2001, Iran was dubbed a charter member of George W. Bush's "Axis of Evil."

Though relations between the two countries were already tense from the Islamic Revolution three decades ago, a period in which over 50 Americans were held hostage for almost a year and a half.

In recent years, Tehran's relationship with others in the West has also been in decline.

A prime cause of this has been Iran's nuclear ambitions and its refusal to abide fully by international safeguards (leading to UN sanctions).

But there has also been the matter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's denials of the Holocaust and the vitriol he has directed at Israel and the U.S.  

Still, as the election loomed, the country's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on Iranians to elect a president who is anti-West.

But many Iranians we haven spoken to over the past week — especially young people — say they want the opposite. They've had enough of feeling isolated.

Voting Day. Friday, June 12, morning.

I heard the same sentiments again in the long lineup at the ornate Husseinia Ershad mosque Friday morning, as people waited to cast their ballots.

"Nobody agrees with this condition," said Mehri, a 30-year old sheltering in the shade as she waited her turn to vote.

"Iranians are very warm people and most of them want this to change."

Mehri told me she often meets people from other countries while she is chatting on the internet and that it is in those conversations that she really notices the impact of Iran's isolation.

"They don't know anything about Iran," she says. "They think we are about camels and deserts. It's very strange for me."

A few metres down the line, I met Salma. She too sensed the alienation, while studying computer science abroad.

"I am proud of being Iranian," she said in perfect French. "But our representation internationally really depends on the president and I hope that (Mir Hussein) Mousavi will do a lot better than we have done so far."

Sensing the public mood — and perhaps partly in response to Barack Obama's conciliatory video message to Iranians last month — some of the candidates in this election have pressed this point.

They have been criticizing Ahmadinejad's approach and promising a different kind of conversation with the U.S. and the rest of the world.

"You have damaged the nation's dignity," Mousavi, a former prime minister who also was in office during a period of (post-Revolution) international sanctions, said to Ahmadinejad last week, during a particularly bitter televised debate.

"Shame has been brought on Iran. You have created tension with other countries."

For his part, even the outspoken Ahmadinejad recently has been sounding a softer note.

But does that mean that Iran will come in from the cold after Friday's vote?

No matter who becomes president, foreign policy is still determined by an unelected body of ruling clerics and the final word belongs to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Everyone here, including the president, is subordinate to that authority.

That probably means that change, if any, will come very slowly.

Still, the vote matters. It will determine who will represent Iran to the rest of the world, and who that is could mean a world of difference.

In case you wondered, last night's storms made way for a warm, beautiful election day. No way to tell, though, whether any more unexpected storms are on the horizon.