Iranian Elections

[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.

[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.

[Hosakawa Tito]

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.

[CountArach]

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]

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.

[CountArach]

Dunno about that. It sure as hell looks rigged.

While I don't now doubt that the votes were rigged, at least to a certain degree (The coup would hint at that), however Nate has disspelled that graph by showing the US had an almost exact correlation.

[Marshal Murat]

So is it a good thing that Iraq is rebuilding instead of trying to invade Iran?

On a personal note: My Iranian friend's parents are seriously pissed about the election and everything.

[seireikhaan]

How disappointing. I was really hoping that such an inflammatory figure as Achmadinijad would be allowed to be defeated if such was the will of the people. Clearly, the Supreme Leader had other plans.

[KarlXII]

The simple fact that Mousavi got 33% of Iranian support is an achievement in itself. President Ahmed. has to be worried. This election cycle, it's 33%, next elections, he may not be so lucky.

Therefore, I find that the Pres has 2 options,

1. Liberalise Iran to keep the ever growing reformist populace happy, and face growing rejection by the powerful clerics, or
2. Keep up the anti-Western, authoritarian rhetoric, push more Iranians to the reformists, and face a possible Green Revolution.

Not surprisingly, a number of reformists have been imprisoned, exiled or killed. However, it is clear the reformists still believe highly in their ideals. I support them to the fullest extent, and hope that this potential "Green Revolution" sweeps Ahmed. out of power.

[Beskar]

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.co...ier-posts.html

Yes, the president of Iran's own election monitoring commission has declared the result invalid and called for a do-over. That is huge news: when a regime's own electoral monitors beak ranks, what chance does the regime have of persuading anyone in the world or Iran that it has democratic legitimacy? Second:
Stratfor is reporting that Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, head of the Expediency Council, has resigned. Though unconfirmed, the report is saying that Rafsanjani is resigning from his position as head of the Expediencey Council, NOT his position as the leader of the Assembly of Experts, which has oversight responsibility over the office of the Supreme Leader and would be responsible for naming Ayatollah Khamenei’s successor.

Looks like a 2nd Revolution of Iranian might be halted for the Great Reform.

[Lemur]

Nate has disspelled that graph by showing the US had an almost exact correlation.

Well, I'm not going to argue with Nate Silver, a guy who has probably forgotten more about statistical math than I ever learned. So apologies for reproducing a misleading graph; my bad.

But the vote was rigged.

[CountArach]

But the vote was rigged.

Yeah I don't think there is too much doubt about that at this point. It will be interesting to see how the Iranian people themselves deal with this - it seems most reformists and the youth are willing to be quite vocally opposed to the whole 'coup' for the moment. I doubt these tensions will be dispelled quickly.

[Crazed Rabbit]

While I don't now doubt that the votes were rigged, at least to a certain degree (The coup would hint at that), however Nate has disspelled that graph by showing the US had an almost exact correlation.

Or not. He's comparing the graph of Iranian results to a graph of results from random US states - not the order the states and their tallies were reported.

I'm not sure exactly what Iran used to determine the votes they reported in successive waves. But it seems quite unlikely they would report them in the same manner Mr. Silver used. So he didn't really show the US had exact correlation, because he used random states.

Of course, this analysis uses poll closing times and does have an almost exact correlation.

But I don't know about Iranian regional politics; perhaps there are reasons that regional waves of votes would not be like the US. After all, the first wave of closing times for our election included New England and the Southeast states, which are rather varied. Perhaps in Iran the regions reporting votes at the same time would not be like a random sample. So in this, being like the US reveals it as fraud. Though that's speculation.

In more interesting news: Tweets from Iran.

Andrew Sullivan has lots of info.

CR

[CountArach]

Thanks for those links CR.

Lots of video and photos here:
http://iranelection.posterous.com/

EDIT: Police beating protestors:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=40c_1244915876 - This sickens me.

[rasoforos]

Ok now that we provided enough unfounded and circumstantial evidence to convince ourselves that the vote was rigged ( 'Evidence' apply to and that could easily be used to support that almost every election in western countries was rigged)...


...perhaps we should consider something more sinister. Have we been falling victims of our own demagoguing practices? Can you disprove that the western media, through planed action (improbable) or sheer wishful thinking (quite possible), have given us an overly wrong and misshapen idea or current Iranian politics?

I for once laugh at the irony that we are so critical of Iran while, its neighbouring countries (good friends of the west) are on par or much worse both on political and religious grounds.

If Iran was 'the good guys' and Saudi,UAE,Pakistan,Iraq,Jordan were the 'bad guys' then we would probably be talking about how they should follow Iran's example and set up democratic process (as rigged as it may be)

Iran had a reformist government and we killed it by isolating it. Now good old Mahmood is achieving results through brute force politics. I am not surprised he won the elections.

[CountArach]

Ok now that we provided enough unfounded and circumstantial evidence to convince ourselves that the vote was rigged ( 'Evidence' apply to and that could easily be used to support that almost every election in western countries was rigged)...

You mean the link provided earlier about the head of Iran's electoral oversight commission declaring the result invalid isn't proof enough?

[rasoforos]

You mean the link provided earlier about the head of Iran's electoral oversight commission declaring the result invalid isn't proof enough?

A small online search will show you how misleading this small blog entry is about Iran. Firstly the expediency council does not monitor the elections but councils the Supreme Leader.

Secondly you will find that Mr Rafsanjani (famous for other 'truthful' statements such as 'only 20.000 Jews died in WWII) has contested and lost the Presidency against Ahmadinejad and has been criticising him ever since.

So we basically have a politician with a long time feud against Ahmadinejad that claims the elections were rigged. Surprise Surprise...

Let me remind you that:

a) In the west we do not declare the elections void every time an opposing politician claims foul play...

b) This chap does not have juristiction to elect the result invalid. He just stated his oppinion, which the blogger later hacked to death to produce the above mentioned article.

c) Check what major news sites say about this and you will see of how low quality the link is...


Finally let me clarify that I do not have an opinion about whether the elections were rigged or not. I just dispute the current 'evidence'. Moreover I never saw where the confidence that he will lose came from. I find the fact that he won by a landslide quite normal.

[Lemur]

In more interesting news: Tweets from Iran.

Andrew Sullivan has lots of info.

Yeah, the MSM is really dropping the ball on this one. And Drudge has a headline up about Obama and bulldozers (remember when he drove the news?).

Check out HuffPo's coverage, they're surprisingly on the ball this time.

-edit-

LiveLeak is doing itself proud as well. More video of what's going on in Iran than I've seen anywhere else.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Yeah, the MSM is really dropping the ball on this one. And Drudge has a headline up about Obama and bulldozers (remember when he drove the news?).

Check out HuffPo's coverage, they're surprisingly on the ball this time.

-edit-

LiveLeak is doing itself proud as well. More video of what's going on in Iran than I've seen anywhere else.

Ya, Drudge is disappointing. Good on HuffPo and Sullivan.

It seems like a revolution may be going on. Let's hope they're successful.

CR

[Beskar]

While I don't now doubt that the votes were rigged, at least to a certain degree (The coup would hint at that), however Nate has disspelled that graph by showing the US had an almost exact correlation.

Does that mean the U.S. election was rigged too?

Can I say yes, please?

There was always the fact that Al Gore won the 2000 election as well, but didn't get it.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Can I say yes, please?

Um - You mean you think Obama didn't win?

Anyways, from Sullivan a fascinating video of a protesting crowd overturning a police motorcycle and then giving water to a weary young riot policeman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSECAvBTanQ

CR

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

There was always the fact that Al Gore won the 2001 election as well, but didn't get it.

He didn't win. Please lefties, get over it. We don't like Bush either, but he won fair and square.

[Beskar]

He didn't win. Please lefties, get over it. We don't like Bush either, but he won fair and square.

Actually, the Florida issue was never resolved, Bush only won as Gore withdrew, not because he actually won the state.

[Hooahguy]

give it a rest.
i have a saying: stop being a about the past and start being a about the future.

[Beskar]

I originally meant my original comment as a joke. Then just continued it to tease people who took it seriously.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Actually, the Florida issue was never resolved, Bush only won as Gore withdrew, not because he actually won the state.

So if a candidate withdraws and concedes victory, what happens then?

[Marshal Murat]

I finally understand the frustration that all those STAND activists felt after I read some HuffPost stuff (especially those who don't want US involvement because it was a "democratic" and "fair" election!)

[Crazed Rabbit]

A video from a BBC reporter, featuring Iranians chanting "We Want Freedom"

More youtube videos: https://www.youtube.com/profile?user...46&view=videos

It seems like the people aren't going to take this lying down.

CR

[Lord Winter]

If anything, the protests disprove the theory that democracy is incompatible with an Islamic state.

[CountArach]

If anything, the protests disprove the theory that democracy is incompatible with an Islamic state.

Yeah, it shows that they cherish it jsut as much as the west. I wouldn't be surprised if some Ahm. supporters are out there as well.

EDIT:
Oh great, paramilitaries forces get involved:

All weekend, late into the night, squads of 30 or 40 riot police tore round the capital on motorbikes, roaring along pavements when the roads were blocked, and waded into crowds of chanting Mousavi supporters with their batons. Others charged up streets on foot, or rode around in black Toyota Land Cruisers. They used teargas, rubber bullets and stun grenades, and by Saturday night they had been joined by marauding bands of basiji — volunteer paramilitaries — waving the national flag and chanting Ahmadinejad slogans.