Days after it was urged to investigate last week’s disputed presidential election, Iran’s authoritative Guardian Council said on Thursday that it had invited the three candidates challenging the official results to a meeting to discuss their grievances, state media reported.
While the exact motives, timing and conditions for the invitation from the Guardian Council remained unclear, it was the first public indication that the authorities were prepared for some form of dialogue to defuse the outrage over the election results, Iran’s worst political crisis since the 1979 revolution. But the opposition seemed likely to view it warily.
Playing for time? A genuine offer? A sign of weakness? Hard to say. But the Guardian reports that today’s demonstration in Tehran drew upwards of a million people.
