Iran Election ‘Results’ Reveal ‘Irregularities’
13 June 2009 10:34 am by Taylor Marsh
The reported election results out of Iran are wholly unbelievable. Could Ahmadinejad have pulled off a victory? Sure, but not at the level the Iranian government is claiming.
“Communication disruptions” are being reported starting late on Friday. The rest is written by the Iranian government, which is actually controlled by the Supreme Leader, with a “2 to 1″ Ahmadinejad “win” something that is impossible to believe as far as I’m concerned given what I’ve learned over the last weeks from experts in the region, as well as from independent polling from Terror Free Tomorrow.
No doubt that Ahmadinejad had a loyal base of Iranians from which to amass his voting foundation. However, during the forum on pre-election polling I attended, one thing Ken Ballen of Terror Free Tomorrow said was that outside of Israel, Iran’s voting was really fairly democratic, though in the same breath he also said no incumbent president in Iran has ever lost re-election. It’s the reconciling of these two issues that’s so hard to do given the reported outcome, especially given how many young people were ready to vote in what was absolutely record turn out. It’s logical to believe that the poor and the rural, Ahmadinejad’s vote, could not outweigh the young, especially given the average age of Iranians. Put this all together and you don’t exactly have the foundation for a believable outcome that Ahmadinejad is the winner.
Mousavi’s website is now down, probably bombarded with hits.
This comes via Laura Rozen.
“Moussavi’s official website, http://www.ghalamnews.ir/, reported that when his supporters gathered around his headquarters to celebrate what they believed was his victory based on reports of his representatives at polling stations, police forces confronted them using pepper spray and violently dispersed them,” the human rights group earlier said in a press release.
The group’s Hadi Ghaemi said opposition forces believe there was massive fraud in the vote count but cannot yet prove where it occurred, perhaps pre-planned in advance. He said that they are frightened.
Iran hands have used words like “coup” to describe what they believe may be taking place.
Karim Sadjapour, analyst at carnegie endowment for international peace:
“I don’t think anyone anticipated this level of fraudulence. This was a selection, not an election. At least authoritarian regimes like Syria and Egypt have no democratic pretences. In retrospect it appears this entire campaign was a show: (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah (Ali) Khamenei wasn’t ever going to let Ahmadinejad lose.”
Trita Parsi, President of national Iranian American council:
“I’m in disbelief that this could be the case. It’s one thing if Ahmadinejad had won the first round with 51 or 55 per cent. But this number … just sounds tremendously strange in a way that doesn’t add up … It is difficult to feel comfortable that this occurred without any cheating.
“If there is a fight in Iran and there are accusations of fraud and Mousavi declares himself a winner and you have numerous leading clerics and other figures recognising Mousavi, you are going to have paralysis and significant infighting in Iran.
Christian Amanpour is in Iran, also reporting people gathering in the street and the general level of anger mounting. The Iran government says all uprisings will be “crushed.”
The revolution may have been delayed, but it’s coming.
