Iranian democracy

vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Damn, my money was on Rezai. I guess Ahmedinejad serves a purpose.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being declared the winner of Iran’s presidential election with nearly 35% margin over nearest competitor Mir Hossein Mousavi, with Karrubi and Rezaie receiving only 2% of the vote. The numbers do not add up. All the indications pointed to a very tight race between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Winning with 35% margin over Mousavi was unimaginable.

The questions is, if the government wanted to rig the votes in favor of Ahmadinejad, why did it need to show a margin of 35%. It would have been more believable if the margin was fixed at 1 or 2%. Here we might be witnessing not only an act of fraud on the part of the government, but a deliberate move to openly challenge and agitate the political opponents and the millions of ordinary young people who came out in droves on the city streets of Iran to register their unhappiness with the current situation.

The government seems to be challenging the opponents to come out again in anger in order to clamp down hard on them. The danger is for the IRGC and the Basij to raise their arms against the people in the coming hours and days.

To this analyst, the government’s move has all the hallmarks of a coup. The ruling group was loosing its control and has gone out in force to suppress the people’s aspirations. The opponents, especially Mousavi, Karrubi and Rezaie, need to find ways to register their refusal of the results of the election without risking a bloodbath on the streets of Iran.

A massive strike in the coming days might be a prudent approach. Such strike will have solid international support.
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http://uskowioniran.blogspot.com/2009/06/massive-fraud-suspected-in-iran.html
 
C

crackerjack

Well-known member
Obviously mass gerrymandering isn't beyond the ethics of the Mullahs.

but would the huge turnout, which everyone said would favour Mousavi, actually have helped Ahamdinejad? Some liberals who abstained when it was Ahmad. v Rafsanjani now came out for Mousavi, But traditionally big turnouts means more poor people voting, and more poor people voting was supposedly gonna be good for the midget in the cheap jacket, non?

That's just me thinking aloud, btw - no doubt fraud was an issue. The passage quoted above sounds a bit conspiratorial to me - maybe they just took fright and overcompensated.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Could be, I suppose, but I don't really see the popular vote as a major issue. That's asking too much of Iranian democracy. I think that Ukowski (normally quite a "pro-Iranian" -- as in, not at all a neocon -- military analyst) is reading the situation in the right way, in that the president is a strategic choice by the Council of Guardians. Now, maybe Ukowski is not calling that strategy entirely correctly, perhaps too conspiratorially, as you suggest, but surely Ahmedinejad would not have won had the Council of Guardians not wanted him to win. The key question, then, is why.
 
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vimothy

vimothy

yurp
Wishful thinking?
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Could be, but as I wasn't expecting Mousavi to win.

Because A. is fairly popular with the lower classes?
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Could be again, but as I said, I don't think that the popular vote is decisive in Iran.

Anyway, can we also call this "the Obama effect"?
 
3

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
vimothy said:
Could be, but as I wasn't expecting Mousavi to win.
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I didn't mean to say you did, sorry that I expressed myself ambiguously.

vimothy said:
Anyway, can we also call this "the Obama effect"?
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Why?

vimothy said:
Could be again, but as I said, I don't think that the popular vote is decisive in Iran.
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As far as I can see the popular vote is decicive (but can be overruled by the supreme leader, which hasn't happened so far; in addition, candidates have to be approved by the Guardian Council to be able to stand in the election).
 
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scottdisco

rip this joint please
3 Body No Problem said:
candidates have to be approved by the Guardian Council to be able to stand in the election).
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this is a crucial observation.

this time round, three male candidates were selected to oppose the incumbent, whilst 470 others (including 42 women) were rejected.

Craner owns that old thread i linked to earlier, BTW.
 
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scottdisco

rip this joint please
i suppose all that remains to be said is platitudes about let us hope the rural poor and pious Iranians who look toward the nattily dressed anti-semite fellow are better served by him economically this time around and that it does not go badly in the streets
 
3

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
vimothy said:
Just being ironic, re Polystyle's comments in the thread discussing the outcomes of the Lebanese election.
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OK, I though you might have been referring to something like the Obama effect being described here.

Anyway, the pro-war right in the west will be happy! If A. had lost, the Obama government could have simply said, "look, the main problem is gone" and proceeded to engage more with Iran.
 
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3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
scottdisco said:
this is a crucial observation.

this time round, three male candidates were selected to oppose the incumbent, whilst 470 others (including 42 women) were rejected.
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Sure, but the competition between these three seems genuine, so Iran is a lot more democratic than all the neighbouring Oil states. Irak has changed only recently, let's see what form of government will stabilise there in the medium term.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
3 Body No Problem said:
OK, I though you might have been referring to something like the Obama effect being described here.
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Well, I kind of was. If you can put the fact that M14 won in Lebanon down to Obama's speech in Cairo, why not the fact that reformists lost in Iran?

Anyway, the pro-war right in the west will be happy! If A. had lost, the Obama government could have simply said, "look, the main problem is gone" and proceeded to engage more with Iran.
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Is anyone really pro-war with Iran? That seems insane. Also, I'm not sure that the election of Mousavi have changed much. Iran would still have a nuclear programme, would still give aid to Hezb, etc. And the president is hardly the most powerful person in the country. Surely western policy makers aren't operating according to the belief that he is.
 
3

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
vimothy said:
Is anyone really pro-war with Iran? That seems insane.
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I do feel that the same crowd that talked the west into a war with Irak is now trying the same with Iran. Having a clearcut enemy is politically very potent.

vimothy said:
Also, I'm not sure that the election of Mousavi have changed much. Iran would still have a nuclear programme, would still give aid to Hezb, etc. And the president is hardly the most powerful person in the country. Surely western policy makers aren't operating according to the belief that he is.
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I agree with this, in fact Mussawi may well be more conservative than Ahmadinedschad, my point was from a western point of view: the forces in the west that want to engage with Iran, e.g. the Obama administration, will find it more difficult now, because Ahmadinedschad has been constructed so carefully as evil in (parts of) the mainstream western media.
 
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scottdisco

rip this joint please
i am pleased it has taken a relatively mere four pages for this thread to start living up to board precedent.
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
A rigged vote is as old as democracy.

Further reading: analysts react, and Foreign Affairs has good coverage (especially here and here).

MilaniHomepage.gif
 
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scottdisco

rip this joint please
obviously, may be a nonsense rumour

Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was arrested Saturday shortly after he was defeated at the polls by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an unofficial source reported.

According to the source, the presidential hopeful was arrested en route to the home of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that were a number of contradictory reports from Iran on Saturday, in a large part due to the heavy restrictions imposed on the media in the Islamic Republic, in particular on foreign reporters.
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