To guard against expected cheating in the second round, opposition activists dispatched observers to each of more than 11, 000 polling stations, who then text-messaged voting counts to their own collation centre in Dakar, using independent communications links run from a computer server outside the country.

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Since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005, he has consolidated power in Iran by utilizing the Basij militia to suppress opposition while embedding the Revolutionary Guard Corps in positions within the government and the bureaucracies.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

But early promises of openness and reform - hailed as the Damascus Spring - have failed to materialise, which analysts largely put down to opposition from stalwarts in his father's old guard.

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