Inside Story

Queenslander's will have a chance to pass judgment on the Bligh-Beattie Labor government at the polls on 21 March - and to respond to the newly minted, hybrid conservative Liberal National Party led by Lawrence Springborg, out for his third trot around the paddock seeking the Sunshine State premiership. If she can hold off the LNP challenge during a global financial crisis while presiding over a chronic deficit in state-wide infrastructure, Anna Bligh would become the first woman elected to office as a state premier. How different is Queensland from the rest of Australia in 2009? And how divided between south-eastern urbanites and more traditional rural and regional voters?



Brian Costar, Professor of Victorian Parliamentary Democracy and director of the Democratic Audit of Australia at the Institute for Social Research at Swinburne University, tells Peter Clarke even with an aggregate 8 percent swing required to change government, it could be a close-run thing.



This podcast is part of the "Inside Story" series.

Iran goes to the polls on 12 June 2009 to elect a president of that Islamic Republic, and surprisingly the outcome is in some doubt. The ultra-conservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is seeking re-election for a second four year term, but the drop in oil prices and the faltering Iranian economy have left him weakened. And the new Obama administration in the United States has put significant pressure on all the presidential candidates to be clear about how they would manage this new era of potential detente between the US and the Muslim world generally, and between the hardline Iranian regime and the "great Satan" specifically.

Ali Ansari is professor of Iranian history and Director of the Iranian Institute at the University of St Andrews in Scotland. Via Skype from his home in St Andrews, he describes to Peter Clarke how the political momentum has sidelined the powerful Guardian Council, the economic downturn has changed the social and political dynamics, and the result could be a change of presidency.



This podcast is part of the "Inside Story" series.