Khamenei disappoints his countrymen

The much anticipated address by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei must surely have disappointed the hundreds of thousands of his countrymen and women who have been calling for a transparent and fair investigation into alleged poll fraud.

The 'where is my vote' campaign, a genuinely home-made grassroots movement, was portrayed by Khamenei as a foreign plot "targeting the legitimacy of the Islamic establishment" by disputing the outcome of the election. The young men and women who have taken to the streets for the past week must then be 'foreign agents' - a strange notion taking into account the massive number of those 'agents'.

But they are not. They are the future of Iran, and wanted their voices to be heard in a republic controlled by elderly clerics.

Their complaints are not baseless. In some districts - some 170 of them, according to defeated candidate Mohsen Rezai - official voter turnout was as high as 140 per cent.

The protests, however, have as much to do with the pursuit of freedom of expression and assembly as they have to do with the results of the elections, which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may well have won fair and square.

The hundreds of thousands of young Iranians expected a more conciliatory approach from their Supreme Leader. They most probably expected him to understand their grievances and promise that the state, which is in a standoff with much of the world, would take their concerns seriously.

Instead, Khamenei showed unmistakable bias towards Ahmadinejad, saying the president's views on foreign and domestic policy were closer to his own than those of Ahmadinejad's opponents. He also warned of a crackdown if Mir Hussain Mousavi's supporters continue to stage rallies.

Disappointing indeed. The next few days will show if the majority of Iranians agree with their Supreme Leader.