Iranians may be ready to vote Ahmadinejad out of power

I figured it would be best if I hadn't voted.

 

I'm not so sure anymore if there is a bright future in Iran's future. It seems like this present regime is very resiliant. It's really sad...
I hope I'm wrong. Let's see what happens when the sun rises tomorrow in Iran.

 

I think what people are failing to acknowledge is that the incumbent has a tremendous amount of support in Iran. He has overwhelming support amongst the rural population including the rural youth and the lower classes. These two segments make up most of Iranian society from what I know. I also learned that each candidate had a rep at every polling station in the country to monitor the results. Those of you saying it was rigged either need to provide some evidence or stop trying to deligitimize the election because the guy you wanted didn't win. Same thing happened with the elections in Palestine when HAMAS won and in the elections where Chavez has been victorious in Venezuela. It's like blaming the refs when the other team beats you in a game. It's really a slap in the face of the Iranian people.

 

Many of Mousavi's reps were booted from polling stations before voting was concluded. Additionally the voting totals in several regions simply do not make sense. We're talking about areas that voted overwhelmingly for Khatami, Rafsanjani, etc.. in the past and are all of a sudden voting for Ahmadinajad overwhelmingly. Areas with different ethnic and cultural backgrounds have historically voted in completely different ways, yet for the first time they all voted for the same candidate?

Imagine if the South all of a sudden voted Democrat in a presidential election when no exit polls or polls before the election indicated that was possible? Sure there's no direct proof (how can you have direct proof if Iran bans international monitors and then boots out Mausavi's monitors during the election from many stations), but you can't pretend that massive electoral anomalies from this election didnt exist.

No one has ever questioned the integrity of the Palestinian election? The US was simply mad Hamas won but never did they claim that the entire election was fraudulent. (especially considering the PLO was running the election) The same goes with Chavez.

Instead of falsely connecting anecdotes, justify the odd electoral shifts that happened because no one has so far and until that gets explained, this election has no credibility in my mind.

 

Uh..turnout was about 85%, that was a record. The record was because previously, anti-Ahmedinajad/moderate/urban voters stayed home and boycotted the election (50%). THis time they turned out.

Yet, with this record turnout, largely a record because of the anti-Ahmedinijad voters, and the result is even a bigger landslide than when Ahmedinijad won last time?

Adding to this, the result was the complete opposite of pre-election polls, which had Ahmadinajad at about 30-40% - yet he magically gets 60%?

One would have to be very dense to not see that there is serious grounds for questioning these results (and evidently, from the rioting in the streets, many others better situated than us believe it as well)

 

While I am not questioning the results of the election because it's not my place, I find the reactions of the Iranian urbanites this year to be worth watching.

 

It appears to be a coup:

Election Liveblogging – Saturday
6:14 update: Through Facebook we have received news that Mir Hossein
Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Gholamhossein Karbaschi are under house arrest.

 

Khatami's brother as well. This is pretty ridiculous.

 

Let's hope this is the beginning of the end for that crappy Mullah run government.

Free the Iranian people, they have suffered enough....let them walk through the streets holding hands with their girlfriend of boyfriend.

Free the oppressed.

DD

 

I hope so but it's more likely the beginning of increased repression and a major step backward in Iran. The positive is that Ahmadinejad will be completely delegitimized in the eyes of the free world & within Iran and this election will be seen as a complete farce. Perhaps many who voted for him will also be disgusted by what's happened.

 

The same doesn't go with Chavez. People were claiming it was rigged, fraudulent, etc... I'm not familiar with regional voting patterns in Iran like you apparently are. Can you post some links to backup what you're saying? I'm genuinely interested in understanding it more. Also, can you post some links to the evidence about Mousavi's monitors being booted? I'm not so sure why it's hard for people to believe that 6 out of 10 Iranians support Ahmadinejad. He defeated Rafsanjani last election who was overwhelmingly favored. So it's obvious he has popular support. I'm not endorsing anyone here, but I'm just trying to understand why people are saying it was a fraud. I guarantee if the other guy had won the same way, nobody would be saying any of this. In my opinion, it's just a classic case of people blaming the refs when they lose. The incumbent has overwhelming support from the rural population and the lower classes and they makeup the majority of Iranian society from what I've read. Most of Iranian society are also deeply religious Muslims and as a whole are conservative, which means they would support the current president over any challengers. Thus, Ahmadinejad had a broader base of support, so again, it's not difficult then to believe that 6 out of 10 people support him.

What is sad is that the losing camp here and people in general are not condeming the rioting and violence that is breaking out. Hezbollah and their supporters didn't riot and cause violence when they lost in Lebnanon even though there were accusations of candidates and votes being bought. Nobody in this thread has condemned the rioting and violence, but most will probably condemn the Iranian response to it.

Here is maybe the evidence you're pointing to:

http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/stealing-iranian-election.html

Professor Cole makes some good points, but his logic that candidates should've won certain areas based on their ethnicity is difficult for me to accept. Even he admits that his post is full of speculation and guesses. I don't see anything to lead me to believe that 6 out of 10 Iranians didn't come out and support Ahmadinejad.

It looks like you're offering up your analysis as to why the voter turnout was so high, but if the majority of Iran is made up of lower class poor people who are strong Ahmadinejad supporters, maybe they were the ones that decided to come out in full force and drove the turnout to 85%. According to the wikipedia entry on the elections, the polling data is unreliable due to methodological problems and a few other reasons. The media in the West focused a lot on rallies and public support for the challenger, but didn't do the same for Ahmadinejad. While Mousavi had a good amount of support as indicated by around a 100,000 people or so showing up at rallies, it paled in comparison to the number of people that would come out to see Ahmadinejad (according to the article I posted earlier). He regularly had hundreds of thousands of people show up at various rallies across the country. Not even Obama, in his wildest dreams, could have crowds like the incumbent did. I found one video that shows this. It's obviously bias, but the pictures don't lie:

<object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6PCaN2KBXnc&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6PCaN2KBXnc&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>

Again, I know it might be difficult for some, but I don't see why it's hard to believe that 6 out of 10 Iranians support Ahmadinejad.

 

Aside from those in Qom, Iranians are not deeply religious.

 

I think it is important to remember that a lot of disinformation will be spread around these next 24 hours, and the truth may not be evident.

 

And a lot of Iranians will not be able to read the truth because their internet is blocked by their oppressive government.

DD

 

Also very true. It really is a shame what is going on this weekend.

 

So basically you are saying that Ahmed won because........he won - nice circular reasoning - why don't you present some demographic data to support this?

LOL, well here's the poll I've got...

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/TFT-NAF Iran Survey Report .pdf

what do you have? Please present some evidence...you asked for evidence, we gave it to you. You have no evidence that Ahmedinajad was ahead, you are just making an anonymous wiki claim that any data that contradicts you is unreliable (and by the way, I'm about to log on to the Wiki entry and change it - why not? I can....). In a word - lame.

You started this little crusade for hard data - it's only fair to ask you for some.

Actually what's harder to believe is why you chose this issue to be a contrarian on. I mean I guess nobody else would...but...

...And by the way - a massive pet peeve of mine, but people should NOT try to use the word "bias" as an adjective - it's a noun. You want to say "biased"

 

Iranians may NOT be ready to vote Ahmadinejad out of power.

...Blocked!.

 

[rquoter]
Spokesman: Political Coup

In an interview, Mr. Mohsen Makhbalbaf, the distinguish movie director and spokesman for Mr. Mir Hossein Mousavi, has declared that there has been a coup in Iran whereby the elections have been rigged, and people’s vote have been altered on a vast scale, in order to declare President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the “victor.”

According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, in the early hours after voting had ended, the Interior Ministry had called Mr. Mousavi’s campaign headquarters to inform them that Mr. Mousavi would be the winner and, therefore, Mr. Mousavi must prepare a victory statement. Mr. Mousavi was, however, asked by the Ministry not to boast too much, in order not to upset Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters. Many of the president’s supporters are among the ranks of the Basij militia, and thus armed.

According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was also informed of the developments. He also recommended a “good management” of the victory statement, meaning not boasting greatly about the victory, because that would be in Iran’s national interests and stability.

At the same time, the reformist newspapers were also informed that they can prepare their Saturday edition to declare Mr. Mousavi the winner, but were not allowed to use the word pirouzi (victory) in their articles, in order not to upset Mr. Ahmadinejad’s supporters. One reformist newspaper prepared its front page with the title, “People took back the flag of their country [from Mr. Ahmadinejad].”

But, just a few hours later, a center that had been set up by Mr. Mousavi in Gheytarieh (in northern Tehran) for monitoring the election and vote counting, was attacked by armed security agents. They ransacked the center, destroyed computers, and attacked the staff. Supporters of Mr. Mousavi intervened and arrested 8 security agents. The police was called to take them to prison, but the police released the attackers.

According to Mr. Makhbalbaf, the central headquaters of Mr. Mousavi’s campaign was also surrounded by security forces, as was the Interior Ministry building. Then, new data began to be released by the Ministry, indicating that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won the elections decisively.

Mr. Makhbalbaf then declared that, “I have been authorized by Mr. Mousavi’s campaign to officially declare that a political coup has taken place, in order to declare Mr. Ahmadinejad the victor.”

In other developments, in an attempt to put an end to the scandal, the Supreme Leader issued a statement, congratulating Mr. Ahmadinejad for his “victory.” He also warned that he would punish anybody who disputed the results. The official site of Mr. Mousavi, http://ghalamnews.ir/ has been filtered and is inaccessible in Iran. There are also reports that the homes of Mr. Karroubi and former president and powerful politician, Mr. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had written a letter to the Supreme Leader on Wednesday to warn him against irregularities, have been surrounded by security forces.

In its first official reaction to the election results, the United States declared that it has serious doubt about the accuracy of the election data. Fox News reported that a spokesman said that, “Our analysts find the declared votes for Mr. Karroubi hard to believe, or that Mr. Mousavi received less votes in his hometown than Mr. Ahmadinejad.”

[/rquoter]

source

Its about 7:30 AM in Tehran, so I would imagine things will start to happen again in the next couple of hours.

It sounds like the Revolutionary Guard hardcore muckety-mucks were caught by suprise by the Mousavi victory, which would account for the sloppy execution of the manipulation.

 

The article I posted earlier offered up an explanation of why Ahmadinejad won so comofortably:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jun/13/iranian-election

Also, during the last presidential election in 2005, it was basically between two conservative candidates (one from the modern right in Rafsanajani and one from the traditional right in Ahamdinejad), which split the conservative vote. The incumbent was the only viable conservative candidate this election. Mousavi was not campaigning as a conservative. By all accounts, he was trying to do his best impersonation of Obama. Maybe I should've articulated it better, but there is nothing circular about a unified conservative vote for a conservative candidate in a place that is a conservative Muslim country producing this type of result. The lower classes and rural Iranians (from what I've read) make up most of the country's population. If there is no candidate to divide their vote, it makes sense that they would throw all their support behind Ahmadinejad, which would lead to an easy victory for him.

I can understand why you wouldn't consider wikipedia a valid source and it's very fair for you to ask for evidence from me as well. Terror Free Tomorrow, certainly no friend of the Iranian government, did a poll in Iran before the election. It showed that Ahmadinejad was favored to win and that a plurality of Iranians supported his re-election bid. They also said that over 80% of Iranians would participate in the election. One piece of information in the poll that disproves what Professor Cole has been saying is an indication of fraud is that Ahmadinejad led Mousavi by a margin of 2.4:1 overall and amongst Azeris (Mousavi's ethnic group) Ahmedinajad led 2:1. That ethnic group was considered a very strong source of support for the challenger. If Ahmadinejad had a 2 to 1 edge there, I can only imagine the type of support he had in the rest of the country.

http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/TFT Iran Survey Report 0609.pdf

For a few reasons:

First, I hurt myself at the gym a while back so I've had extra time to follow this and the other election in Lebanon.

Second, I get tired of people in the West trying to deligitimize elections when their preferred candidate or the pro-western guy doesn't win. It's like blaming the refs after a loss. I don't think there would have been any uproar if the results in this case were reversed. I've seen the same thing in other places. It gets tiresome and is a slap in the face of the people living in the country in question.

Third, I'm trying to explain, albeit with my limited knowledge of Iran, how and why things transpired the way that they did.

Last, I enjoy debating politics sometimes. There are a lot of bright posters on here including yourself that are very knowledgeable and offer up insightful analysis when it comes to this sort of stuff.

Thanks for the heads up. I try to proofread my posts, but sometimes I screw up with spelling and grammar.

 

Looks like we used the same data, but with obviously different interpretations.