Yes, Council of Guardians; I was thinking of elders.
The Council of Guardians approves all the candidates. So typically only a few real opposition people are able to run in the election.
It's also important to note that in the case of Ahmadinejad, when he won the election, it wasn't because people were supporting him for his religious and political views necessarily, but there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the prior government in terms of being able to address the basic issues of living every day in Iran. The general state of affairs for people--jobs, etc.--was not good. He is a populist. He appeals to people by using that rhetoric, and it has been successful in that regard.
I think one of the challenges the international community has to address and take care in is the fact that action against Iran by the international community isn't just going to be interpreted by the political leadership in a particular way; the population itself also responds to that. In some cases where the international community would be seen to be unfair in its criticism of Iran, or criticism of Iran but not someone else, this can result in growing support not because people want to support the government but because everybody sees themselves in the same boat. So that's where the international community will have to take careful thought in terms of how it approaches the problem, I think, over the next while.
Certainly at this moment, I think the powers that be within Iran, all the way from the supreme leader down, understand that the situation...there is dissatisfaction. I think the increasing repression is reflective of that. They are trying to close down every vehicle that's out there that would get messages out to the broader public, the Internet being one of them.
The other factor in here, though, is that there still is a very large number of people living in rural areas who have no access to this, and the lack of information and being under control of local leadership does prevent them from engaging in the political life of the country in the same way as those living in the urban areas like Tehran. So it's very complex.