AFP Photographer Patrick Baz captured this photograph of an Iranian girl dressed in white amidst women in black preparing to vote in Iran's presidential elections last week.

The women were queued up outside a polling station in the Shiite holy shrine of Mahsoumeh.

Iranians began voting for a new president on Friday.

U.S. President Bush denounced the election a day before voting, saying it was designed to maintain power in the hands of an unelected few who denied ballot access to more than 1,000 potential candidates.

"Unknowingly, (Bush) pushed Iranians to vote so that they can prove their loyalty to the regime ---- even if they are in disagreement with it," said Hamed al-Abdullah, a political science professor at Kuwait University.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei hailed the 63 percent turnout as a slap to "ignorant enemy" President Bush.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeated Bush's criticism Sunday, noting that women were not allowed on the ballot.

I just don't see the Iranian elections as being a serious attempt to move Iran closer to a democratic future," she said on ABC's "This Week."

A leading Iranian human rights lawyer and Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi said, "Whoever wants to become a candidate should have the right to become a candidate, including women." Ebadi refused to vote.

She said through a translator:

The most important issue is that people are not free to chose the election candidates.

The candidates need to be approved first by the Guardian Council.

Ms. Ebadi is one of just a few Iranians brave enough to speak out against the regime.

None of the seven candidates received the necessary 51 percent to win outright. The result is a runoff.

It is the first runoff since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

No Iranian presidential election has ever gone to a runoff before.

Hard-line candidate and mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was unexpectedly victorious in the first round of Iran's presidential election.

Ahmadinejad is in a run-off with pragmatic cleric and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad each received approximately a fifth of the vote.

First-Round Results

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - 21%
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - 19.5%
Mehdi Karroubi - 17.3%
Source: Iranian interior ministry

Few had predicted Mr. Ahmadinejad would be the one facing Mr. Rafsanjani.

The AFP News Agency reported that the former president has urged Iranians to support him against "extremists" who had "tarnished" the first round of the election.

At the same time, traditionalist conservatives have been urged to put their full weight behind Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Several candidates who did not make it to the second round have made allegations of vote-rigging and fraud.

They say Mr. Ahmadinejad's supporters ordered Islamic paramilitary forces to vote for him.

Some called Ahmadinejad "a dangerous military and anti-democratic force in the country".

Two of the most significant reformist organizations - the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organization and the Islamic Iran Participation Front - issued statements saying they opposed fascism and the involvement of the army in politics.

For further perspectives, go to:

Vote-Rigging Feared in Iran Election

The Power & Interest News Report:

PINR - The Coming World Realignment

The runoff will likely take place this Friday. Here's hoping that the election will be an accurate representation of the will of the Iranian people.

Thank you Patrick Baz for inspiring me -- through your one photograph -- to write this post.

Inspire & Be Inspired.

Here's to healthy, adventuresome, soulful, "free and fair" living!

~ Jennifer Carolyn King, Rugged Elegance, LLC