Smells like a revolution in Iran

Suprisingly it smells of revolution in Iran, in presidential elections coming up tomorrow Friday, June 12, 2009. The news cables have indicated that the race is very tight and that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trails behind ex prime minister Mousavi.

Should President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad loose the Presidency this could mean a serious blow for the inestability of the region and a step towards rationalization in politics and true democracy in Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also gone on the media declaring that should the people crowd the streets in protest, the Revolutionary Guard will crush any attempts for a "velvet revolution"...

Tomorrow is a big day in Iran!

The "Velvet Revolution" or "Gentle Revolution" (November 16 – December 29, 1989) refers to a non-violent revolution in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government. It is seen as one of the most important of the Revolutions of 1989.

On November 17, 1989, a Friday, riot police suppressed a peaceful student demonstration in Prague. That event sparked a series of popular demonstrations from November 19 to late December. By November 20 the number of peaceful protesters assembled in Prague had swollen from 200,000 the previous day to an estimated half-million. A two-hour general strike, involving all citizens of Czechoslovakia, was held on November 27.

With the collapse of other Communist governments and increasing street protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced on November 28 that it would relinquish power and dismantle the single-party state. Barbed wire and other obstructions were removed from the border with West Germany and Austria in early December. On December 10, President Gustáv Husák appointed the first largely non-Communist government in Czechoslovakia since 1948, and resigned. Alexander Dubček was elected speaker of the federal parliament on December 28 and Václav Havel the President of Czechoslovakia on December 29, 1989.

In June 1990 Czechoslovakia held its first democratic elections since 1946.

The term "Velvet Revolution" was used internationally to describe the revolution, although the Czech side also used the term internally. After the dissolution of the nation in 1993, Slovakia used the term "Gentle Revolution", the term that Slovaks used for the revolution from the beginning. The Czech Republic continues to refer to the event as the "Velvet Revolution".