Iran Elections

[Snorri1234]

Well I was wondering why noone was talking about this so I decided to make a thread myself.

Now, this election was pretty important not so much because the new president would have much power but because people were very excited about voting and basically getting some more democracy in the system.

It seems that the election has turned out to be a massive fraud and people are going crazy in the streets of Teheran.

The government released vote-results and a rather strange pattern emerged.
Ahmadinejad was declared winner by his own government and all the other candidates and a whole bunch of normal folks said it was bullshit.

So thoughts?

(will give some links next post.

[GrimReaper.]

it was rigged... what else can i say?

[Snorri1234]

it was rigged... what else can i say?

Obviously, but there are huge riots going on in the city over this. Not just the simple protests by people who are mad that their candidate didn't win, but huge protests over the massive and obvious fraud the gov pulled.

Iran’s Interior Ministry has declared President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the winner of yesterday’s election. This has been rejected by all the three opponents of Mr. Ahmadinejad, Messrs Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mahdi Karroubi, and Mohsen Rezaaee.


The best evidence for the validity of the arguments of the three opponents of the President for rejecting the results declared by the Interior Ministry is the data the Ministry itself has issued. In the chart below, compiled based on the data released by the Ministry and announced by Iran’s national television, a perfect linear relation between the votes received by the President and Mir Hossein Mousavi has been maintained, and the President’s vote is always half of the President’s. The vertical axis (y) shows Mr. Mousavi’s votes, and the horizontal (x) the President’s. R^2 shows the correlation coefficient: the closer it is to 1.0, the more perfect is the fit, and it is 0.9995, as close to 1.0 as possible for any type of data.


Statistically and mathematically, it is impossible to maintain such perfect linear relations between the votes of any two candidates in any election — and at all stages of vote counting. This is particularly true about Iran, a large country with a variety of ethnic groups who usually vote for a candidate who is ethnically one of their own. For example, in the present elections, Mr. Mousavi is an Azeri and speaks Turkish. The Azeries make up 1/4 of all the eligible voters in Iran and in his trips to Azerbaijan province, where most of the Azeri population lives, Mr. Mousavi had been greeted by huge rallies in support of his campaign. Likewise, Mr. Karroubi, the other reformist candidate, is a Lor. But according to the data released by Iran’s Interior Ministry, in both cases, Mr. Ahmadinejad has far outdone both candidates in their own provinces of birth and among their own ethnic populations.

http://tehranbureau.com/2009/06/13/faulty-election-data/(not sure if this one works

[StiffMittens]

A couple of good articles on the subject:

http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/stealin ... ction.html
http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/class-v ... anian.html

[StiffMittens]

also these:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009614135353845916.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/06/2009613121740611636.html

[pimpdave]

Has a lot of good video:

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2 ... n-fire.php

Also, this is getting updated regularly.

http://tehranlive.org/

[radiojake]

Well I was wondering why noone was talking about this so I decided to make a thread myself.

Because most people here are ignorant shit-wipers who couldn't give two shits about a middle eastern country. Their flag doesn't even have the stars and stripes for god sakes!

[SultanOfSurreal]

shit's getting real heavy. the office of election oversight declared ahmenijad's victory invalid and there are rumors that the ayatollah's residence is surrounded by police. iran is blocking foreign news feeds too.

[StiffMittens]

shit's getting real heavy. the office of election oversight declared ahmenijad's victory invalid and there are rumors that the ayatollah's residence is surrounded by police. iran is blocking foreign news feeds too.

That's Ayatollah Sanei, not Khamenei, right?

[SultanOfSurreal]

shit's getting real heavy. the office of election oversight declared ahmenijad's victory invalid and there are rumors that the ayatollah's residence is surrounded by police. iran is blocking foreign news feeds too.

That's Ayatollah Sanei, not Khamenei, right?

yes, the one who declared the election invalid.

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/an-ayatollah-dissents.html

[Night Strike]

Some of us follow the news a lot more than we post here.

That is an interesting graph. I would normally suspect a conspiracy theory, but dictatorial regimes are typically none for conspiracies. I had heard one report yesterday that the main challenger did not even win his hometown. Was that confirmed or changed?

[Snorri1234]

Some of us follow the news a lot more than we post here.

That is an interesting graph. I would normally suspect a conspiracy theory, but dictatorial regimes are typically none for conspiracies. I had heard one report yesterday that the main challenger did not even win his hometown. Was that confirmed or changed?

Last I heard that was confirmed. Not only his hometown but he lost among the ethnic group he's a part off.

I mean, how fucked up is that? They're not even trying hard to pretend this election isn't a fraud. A guy loses in his own hometown among his own ethnic group to the current leader?

[StiffMittens]

Some of us follow the news a lot more than we post here.

That is an interesting graph. I would normally suspect a conspiracy theory, but dictatorial regimes are typically none for conspiracies. I had heard one report yesterday that the main challenger did not even win his hometown. Was that confirmed or changed?

Last I heard that was confirmed. Not only his hometown but he lost among the ethnic group he's a part off.

I mean, how fucked up is that? They're not even trying hard to pretend this election isn't a fraud. A guy loses in his own hometown among his own ethnic group to the current leader?

Not just that, but this particular ethnic group historically has voted along ethnic lines even for candidates that had little chance of succeeding nationally. Couple that with the arrests of political allies of Mousavi and the media blackouts it all appears outwardly as a coup rather than simple election fraud.

[oVo]

Ahmadinejad is obviously more popular than people realised.
NOT!

I suppose the current government really wants to remain in control badly and while I don't find the voter fraud that surprising --even the USA had suspect inconsistancies when Bush won in 2000-- the widespread and very public beatings of citizens in the streets --as seen in the news-- is surprising to me.

I've been watching this develop and am very curious about where it will go from here. Can this government's coup squash the protests and procede as if nothing serious has occurred OR will this questioning of authority initiate some form of drastic change in Iran? A possible a nudge towards democracy or the return of a dictatorship.

[Neoteny]

Hopefully this will turn into a good thing. It's good to hear people are pissed off about this.

[danfrank]

I didnt read the thread just the opening point. I agree this was a huge election. Things could have changed diplomatically in the region. Instead it was a fraud as you stated. But to be expected with a tyrant. Also if i was a person in iran.. Why do i have to stick my ballot in a box?? With all the technology that alone would indicate a fraud...

[SultanOfSurreal]

Some of us follow the news a lot more than we post here.

That is an interesting graph. I would normally suspect a conspiracy theory, but dictatorial regimes are typically none for conspiracies. I had heard one report yesterday that the main challenger did not even win his hometown. Was that confirmed or changed?

Last I heard that was confirmed. Not only his hometown but he lost among the ethnic group he's a part off.

I mean, how fucked up is that? They're not even trying hard to pretend this election isn't a fraud. A guy loses in his own hometown among his own ethnic group to the current leader?

i've heard there were rural regions where mousavi got less votes than there were campaign staff for him in the area

[Snorri1234]

I didnt read the thread just the opening point. I agree this was a huge election. Things could have changed diplomatically in the region. Instead it was a fraud as you stated. But to be expected with a tyrant. Also if i was a person in iran.. Why do i have to stick my ballot in a box?? With all the technology that alone would indicate a fraud...

Actually technology or paper-voting doesn't really matter that much.


And it's not that the election was such a fraud, but that the Iranians themselves were so outraged about it. The tyrant was actually hugely unpopular and people went to the street en masse to protest. Zimbabwe had a pretty fraudulent election too, but it didn't get so much negative response from the people who voted.

[pimpdave]

Hopefully this will turn into a good thing. It's good to hear people are pissed off about this.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/neil_durki ... he_balance

Some gems from the blog:


"Indeed... it's got shades of Bush v Gore in 2000, with perhaps the restive province of Sistan-Baluchistan standing in for the nail-biting recounts in Florida."

"However, while the Florida drama gave us "hanging chads", here we've got ... well, just hanging actually. A lot of it."

"Iran has a four-times higher rate of state executions relative to its population than China, a country with a notorious international reputation for its extensive use of the death penalty."

"Most recently there was the case of Delara Darabi, a 22-year-old executed without warning on the morning of Friday 1 May. The prison authorities apparently gloated over the phone to Dalara's mother, saying "we're going to hang your daughter and there's nothing you can do about it". "

[pimpdave]

English language twitter from an Iranian university:

http://twitter.com/Change_for_Iran

Snorri already posted a link to Andrew Sullivan's coverage, but here's a bunch of tweets he's compiled:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/t ... ution.html

[Woodruff]

Some of us follow the news a lot more than we post here.

That is an interesting graph. I would normally suspect a conspiracy theory, but dictatorial regimes are typically none for conspiracies. I had heard one report yesterday that the main challenger did not even win his hometown. Was that confirmed or changed?

Last I heard that was confirmed. Not only his hometown but he lost among the ethnic group he's a part off.

I mean, how fucked up is that? They're not even trying hard to pretend this election isn't a fraud.

Yeah, that was my wife's comment..."if you're going to lie, at least make it a BELIEVABLE lie."

[Nobunaga]

... I don't get all the hubub over this election, most probably due to my lack of knowledge on how Iran works, politically.

... Who here knows the authority and responsibility of the office of president in Iran? It was my belief that the president in that nation is pretty much a mouth piece for Ali Khamenei, with very little actual or true authority vested in the office.

... Somebody who knows something about this chime in please.

...

[Night Strike]

What will be even worse is when Obama's administration chooses to sit down and talk to him, which will just legitimize his illegal keeping of the Iranian Presidency. I hope Obama steps up and calls Iran out for the frauds they've committed. I'm not holding my breath though.

[StiffMittens]

... I don't get all the hubub over this election, most probably due to my lack of knowledge on how Iran works, politically.

... Who here knows the authority and responsibility of the office of president in Iran? It was my belief that the president in that nation is pretty much a mouth piece for Ali Khamenei, with very little actual or true authority vested in the office.

... Somebody who knows something about this chime in please.

...

In reading about these developments, this is what I've come to understand: Indeed the supreme ruler is the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei, however Ahmadinejad (much like Bush) has spent much of his time in office increasing and consolidating the power of his office. This provided additional incentive for Khamenei to quickly validate Ahmadinejad's victory since Moussavi and Khamenei have been political rivals for many years and Khamenei would not want to hand over any significant power to Moussavi. If the office was entirely meaningless, then why go to all this trouble to make sure Ahmadinejad retained it? If Moussavi won, he'd just be a pawn of Khamenei anyway?

[StiffMittens]

What will be even worse is when Obama's administration chooses to sit down and talk to him, which will just legitimize his illegal keeping of the Iranian Presidency. I hope Obama steps up and calls Iran out for the frauds they've committed. I'm not holding my breath though.

On the other hand, part of Ahmadinejad's support is built upon the idea of the US as a looming threat. Bush's stance toward Iran aided this perception. If Obama pursues diplomacy with Iran, this may actually further undermine Ahmadinejad's position.