Friday for Effect

9 January 2026 (I got the year right)

Go Green for Iran

In the run-up to the June 12, 2009, Iranian presidential election, incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad consistently led the second-place candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, in pre-election polling.

That had a lot to do with the fact that the anti-Ahmadinejad vote was scattered among three opposition campaigns, or simply planning to just sit out as a result of being disillusioned by the results of past elections.

However, in mid-May, voters who may have preferred one of the other challengers began shifting their support to Mousavi because they believed he had the best chance of either forcing a second round of voting or even winning outright.

A poster in support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi

Mousavi’s numbers surged, and those loyal to the former prime minister adopted green as the campaign’s signature color.

In the final week before the election, the Mousavi campaign was organizing massive “Green Wave” rallies across Tehran, attracting large crowds of men and women from all classes of society.

On June 8, Mousavi supporters formed a human chain along Tehran’s 18 km Vali Asr Avenue, an event that demonstrated his campaign was actually legit. He’d gone from “also ran” status to a truly viable contender.