In Social Movement literature there is a big debate between structuralists who highlight macro factors such as political opportunity structures, and constructionists who emphasize micro factors such as emotions. The former for instance contends that behaviors of a movement can be explained by main attributes and changes in the political context, while the latter argues that we cannot fully understand protestors if we neglect different emotions active in different stages of protest. In this paper, I argue that these two different accounts can be reconciled. My focus will be on elections as political opportunities within competitive authoritarian regimes. Paul Almeida has argued that elections provide a political opportunity in authoritarian context, inasmuch as they let social movements to build an organizational infrastructure. I argue that this is not the only mechanism at work. In some cases, elections just provide a space for activists for emotional mobilization. The emotional energy created in the campaign stage can later explode if it follows by a fraudulent election and lead to upheavals. Iranian Green Movement is a case that can show how macro and micro factors play together, and structuralist and constructivist approaches can be reconciled. My data consist of two parts. First, I will examine blog posts that both movement activists and rank and file supporters wrote at the time of the movement. Second, I will conduct interviews with both organizers and ordinary participants of the movement.