On June 12 Iran held presidential elections with a record number of voters participating. Within hours after the polls closed the Iranian government dubiously declared a re-election victory for incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claiming he had won with 24 million votes. Main opposition leader Mir Hosein Mousavi was declared the loser with 13 million votes. Immediately, supporters of Mr. Mousavi began questioning the suspicious vote count and by June 15, over a million Iranians took to the streets of Tehran to protest what was believed to be a rigged election.
The Islamic Republic came into existence in February 1979 during Iran’s upheaval and revolution coinciding with the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returning from exile in France, just after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi had fled the country.
Astrologers observe that Pluto is transiting the Midheaven of the Iranian mundane horoscope and the theocratic regime is facing the greatest threat to its power and control in 30 years. Iran has also just had its first Saturn return since its 1979 revolution, and the extent of the challenge to the authority of its ruling clerics is seen in its progressed Sun applying to an opposition with Saturn.
Will protests over the disputed presidential election continue to intensify and is another revolution fomenting in Iran? The progressed Venus-Jupiter opposition shows the women of Iran as being pivotal in this political process and evidence points to unrest continuing to escalate as the Iranian progressed Moon applies to an opposition with its national Uranus, becoming exact on August 31, just days before the Sun perfects its progressed opposition to Saturn on September 4.
Theocratic regimes are ruled by Jupiter and remarkably, the total solar eclipse of July 22 in 29° Cancer will exactly conjoin the Iranian progressed Jupiter. This will be the longest total eclipse of the 21st century and coinciding with this powerful event is the ingress of the Iranian progressed ruler, Venus, into 00°00 Aquarius, right as the North Node also transits that degree. With Venus ingressing into the zodiacal sign of “people power,” it appears the clerical regime will now fall.
After several violent demonstrations in the streets of Tehran and other cities in which the police and militia forces loyal to the government have used guns, batons, tear gas and water cannons to quell the protestors, resulting in the deaths of 13 Iranians on Saturday alone, now the daughter of former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been arrested for supporting Mr. Mousavi. A rift has also been exposed in the inner circle of the ruling clerics, further weakening the grip on power of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has declared the protests illegal.
Mr. Mousavi appears to be a man of destiny as Saturn conjoins his progressed North Node right as the July 22 solar eclipse conjoins the Iranian progressed Jupiter. In a remarkable display of individual alignment with a larger political movement, his progressed Venus has also just ingressed into Aquarius and the transit North Node will conjoin it on the day of the total eclipse.
When the time of birth is unknown, your correspondent uses a noon nativity for politicians and world leaders. The progressed angles of these 12:00 p.m. horoscopes never cease to amaze him and this is the case with Mr. Mousavi. Astrologers will observe that his progressed Ascendant is in 26°Aquarius, the exact degree of the Jupiter-Chiron-Neptune conjunction in late May. As if that was not enough to make the soft-spoken former prime minister the leader of a revolution, the direct station of Uranus on December 1 in 22°42′ Pisces will fall precisely on his South Node.
With Mr. Mousavi’s pre-natal solar eclipse exactly conjunct his Neptune, it is unknown at this time whether he will become a martyr for the freedom movement in Iran or if he will get to live and go on to become installed as an inspirational president after a new election takes place. Saturn transits his pre-natal solar eclipse degree on October 10 and astrologers will wait and watch for further developments to unfold in Iran during this turbulent chapter of the country’s history.
© 2009 Robert P. Blaschke