results were flawed. it was a huge movement brutally repressed. and now what we re seeing is an attempt by the iranian authorities to make sure that nothing like either one of those happens again. they don t want a reform candidate to win, and they certainly do not want to see the kind of mess that happened after the last election, which was broadcast around the world when people were, as i say, brutally repressed, people were killed, people were imprisoned, indeed many bloggers and journalists are in prison right now ahead of the elections, so there isn t the same kind of expression as there was last time. and of course, the man ultimately in charge of that the ayatollah. we just heard reza profiling him. there s only been two supreme leaders since the revolution. obviously he s older. what would happen if there were a transition? well, look, he is in power until he dies. that is the way of the constitution and of the religious theocracy there.
the central character, the most important character is not actually running for office. that is the country s supreme leader ayatollah howmaini. he has more sway in this country than any of the nominees. reza, the ayatollah, i saw one woman she had basically a necklace around her neck with the two supreme leaders since the revolution saying vote for them. the supreme leader is so central to this election. how much sway does he have over it? reporter: he s got a lot of sway. iranians are going to be voting for a president tomorrow, but looming very large over this entire process is the supreme leader ayatollah howmaini. very few things gets done without his approval. analysts say that includes the outcome of tomorrow s vote. in the race for iran s presidency, the one vote that matters more than any other, analysts say, is this man s
thing that has happened here. thank you very much to reza. christiane amanpour joins me now. of course, she s iranian by birth and has covered every election in this country since 1995. christiane, when you look at the elections that you ve covered, what makes this one different for you? the two that stick out in my mind, 1997, is when muhammad mahatma was elected. we movered that. that was an enormous surprise, both internally in iran and around the world. and for eight years of his presidency, there was a real change in iran and with iran s relations with the rest of the world. then i covered the 2009 election, which was when ahmadinejad was going for reelection. that, as we all know, resulted in the green movement, resulted in people saying that the results were flawed. it was a huge movement brutally repressed. and now what we re seeing is an attempt by the iranian authorities to make sure that nothing like either one of those
reza, the ayatollah, i saw one woman she had basically a necklace around her neck with the two supreme leaders since the revolution saying vote for them. the supreme leader is so central to this election. how much sway does he have over it? reporter: he s got a lot of sway. iranians are going to be voting for a president tomorrow, but looming very large over this entire process is the supreme leader ayatollah howmaini. very few things gets done without his approval. analysts say that includes the outcome of tomorrow s vote. in the race for iran s presidency, the one vote that matters more than any other, analysts say, is this man s iran s supreme lead e. ayatollah ali humani. it s going to be difficult for any candidate whoksn t approved by the supreme leader to be elected president. reporter: he s the highest political and religious