Hello and welcome to the Intelligence on Economist Radio. I'm your host, Jason Palmer.

Every weekday we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

Some of the trickiest cases of COVID-19 occur in patients who don't produce their own

antibodies to lock on to the coronavirus. Now an antibody therapy has been shown to save

those lives, suggesting that other seemingly failed drugs need revisiting.

And a style of folk music in Norway that had been in terminal decline is experiencing

something of a revival. It's not just people getting back to their cultural roots. The

pandemic has driven a sense of community that the tunes always provided.

But first, Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khananay is imploring citizens to go to the polls

tomorrow to vote for their next president. It might seem that they're being offered a

real choice, a say in the direction their country goes in. They know better. Hardline

clerics are in the ascendant. Moderator reform-minded types are in short supply on the ballot.

Mr. Khananay lambasted what he called the Satanic centers of power in the world as the

malign force in the election. But it's the consolidation of hardline

theocratic power that he himself is engineering that will keep voters at home.

There have never really been free elections in the Islamic Republic since the revolution

in 1979. Nicholas Palem is the economist's Middle East correspondent.

Clerics wield ultimate authority and candidates can be disqualified for the flimsyest of reasons.

Elections are highly orchestrated affairs. Even by these standards, though, tomorrow's

presidential election is shaping up as a fast.

How so how is this one worse than than previous ones?

Well, nearly 600 candidates applied to replace Hassan Rahani, the current president. The Guardian

...