Iranian Elections

**Viking** · 06-13-2009, 18:21

Haha - taking the fight back

**rotorgun** · 06-13-2009, 20:01

Originally Posted by Viking

Haha - taking the fight back

"Looks like this is the end!" It's time for Underdog to make his appearance, or maybe a Brad Pit type of maneuver as portrayed in Troy.

**Lemur** · 06-13-2009, 21:07

A valuable analysis:

But just as a first reaction, this post-election situation looks to me like a crime scene. And here is how I would reconstruct the crime.

As the real numbers started coming into the Interior Ministry late on Friday, it became clear that Mousavi was winning. Mousavi's spokesman abroad, filmmaker Mohsen Makhbalbaf, alleges that the ministry even contacted Mousavi's camp and said it would begin preparing the population for this victory.

The ministry must have informed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has had a feud with Mousavi for over 30 years, who found this outcome unsupportable. And, apparently, he and other top leaders had been so confident of an Ahmadinejad win that they had made no contingency plans for what to do if he looked as though he would lose.

They therefore sent blanket instructions to the Electoral Commission to falsify the vote counts.

This clumsy cover-up then produced the incredible result of an Ahmadinejad landlside in Tabriz and Isfahan and Tehran.

The reason for which Rezaie and Karoubi had to be assigned such implausibly low totals was to make sure Ahmadinejad got over 51% of the vote and thus avoid a run-off between him and Mousavi next Friday, which would have given the Mousavi camp a chance to attempt to rally the public and forestall further tampering with the election.

This scenario accounts for all known anomalies and is consistent with what we know of the major players.

**KukriKhan** · 06-13-2009, 22:03

So it's the Guardian Council (12 guys; 6 clerics + 6 lawyers) who decide the validity of the election?

Any word on their take yet? I've heard that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has pronounced Ahmadinejad the winner, but does his word count?

BBC-World reports noise in the streets still at 0130 in the morning.

**Hax** · 06-13-2009, 23:23

Things are going rough; Mehdi Karroubi (the other reformist guy), Mousavi have been placed under house arrest and the brother and sister-in-law of former president Mohammed Khatami have been arrested.

**CountArach** · 06-14-2009, 01:51

Originally Posted by Hax

Things are going rough; Mehdi Karroubi (the other reformist guy), Mousavi have been placed under house arrest and the brother and sister-in-law of former president Mohammed Khatami have been arrested.

Wow, this spiralled down pretty damn quickly.

**Lemur** · 06-14-2009, 02:21

Further analysis:

On the basis of what we know so far, here is the sequence of events starting on the afternoon of election day, Friday, June 12.

Near closing time of the polls, mobile text messaging was turned off nationwide
Security forces poured out into the streets in large numbers
The Ministry of Interior (election headquarters) was surrounded by concrete barriers and armed men
National television began broadcasting pre-recorded messages calling for everyone to unite behind the winner
The Mousavi campaign was informed officially that they had won the election, which perhaps served to temporarily lull them into complacency
But then the Ministry of Interior announced a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad
Unlike previous elections, there was no breakdown of the vote by province, which would have provided a way of judging its credibility
The voting patterns announced by the government were identical in all parts of the country, an impossibility (also see the comments of Juan Cole at the title link)
Less than 24 hours later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene`i publicly announced his congratulations to the winner, apparently confirming that the process was complete and irrevocable, contrary to constitutional requirements
Shortly thereafter, all mobile phones, Facebook, and other social networks were blocked, as well as major foreign news sources.

All of this had the appearance of a well orchestrated strike intended to take its opponents by surprise – the classic definition of a coup. Curiously, this was not a coup of an outside group against the ruling elite; it was a coup of the ruling elite against its own people.

Good video here.

**Hosakawa Tito** · 06-13-2009, 23:54

Originally Posted by KukriKhan

So it's the Guardian Council (12 guys; 6 clerics + 6 lawyers) who decide the validity of the election?

Any word on their take yet? I've heard that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has pronounced Ahmadinejad the winner, but does his word count?

BBC-World reports noise in the streets still at 0130 in the morning.

His word means any protestors will be fighting against the full might of the Iranian State.

This vote rigging, if true, sure was a clumsy affair. However, if done on the fly without time for much forethought certainly points to how out of touch the leadership is with their people. They'll bust some heads and that will be that.