Harry's Place

What will happen is NOTHING. Ahmedinejad will continue as President after rigging the election outrageously. The police will prevent any civil unrest. Obama will wring his hands empathically. The EU will keep buying their oil. The Iranian people will continue to suffer.

Plus ca change…

They’ve stopped everything. It’s hard to get calls in or out of Iran. The universities are closed. Websites have been blocked. I suspect the IRI wants to stop people knowing about Mousavi’s claims. They have surrounded Mousavi’s camp. The streets are filled with protestors in small groups – my sister has been hit and is now inside.

This is a sham. If you were on the streets of Shiraz, there is no possible way that Ahmedinijad got 62%.

Yours,

Arash – stuck using proxies and helpless in a “democracy”.

There’s a lot of protesting downtown, clashes between rival supporters as well as with riot police.

One local journalist is saying one protester has been killed – though most reports just say violent suppression.

Foreign media has been blacked out there. Text messaging down apparently

http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=103914639264&h=wYgvx&u=OIe43&ref=nf

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=1106759228695&ref=nf

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=88232713578&ref=nf

Arash,

Are you in Iran right now? Could you shoot me an email mate?

And what happened to our BBC journalists who were enjoying themselves lecturing us about our “misconceptions” of the Iranian people as they assured us the Iranian opposition were about to sweep to victory?

Either this election was rigged. Seems most likely to me.

OR

This reflects the genuine will of the Iranian people.

Either way, it’s not very important because this is a theocratic system ruled over by a dictatorial cleric. The claimed “democracy” is mostly window dressing. If it’s someone like Ahmadinejad, who has the support of the dictator cleric rules, they then are going with the grain of the system. If a more oppositional figure were elected then they would find themselves blocked at every turn.

The equivalent of the Iranian system in the US would be if you had Congress elected but the President was an unelected dictator.

I must say however that the Iranian system is a clever charade and never fails to confuse simpletons in the West – remember how the hapless Jack Straw was made a complete fool of by the Iranians. The democratic appearance is v. useful in disarming critics.

Another element of confusion – I very much doubt that any of the candidates actually oppose acquisition of nuclear weapons. Hardly an unreasonable position when they’ve got Pakistan and India armed to the teeth, not to mention Israel as well. It is not an unreasonable policy per se (although we are of course right to oppose it as we know people like Ahmadinejad are quite capable of handing nuclear weaponry over to terrorist groups).

Vanak Square = Tiananmen Square+20?

From my contacts in Khuzestan, there was overwhelming opposition to Ahmadinejad, particularly within the large Arab population. In 2005, Karroubi topped the poll in the province, followed by Mousavi and Rezaii (an ethnic Bakhtiari from Khuzestan) with Ahmadinejad in fourth place with around 10%. Apparently, his support has declined from this poor position. Karroubi’s election organiser for the province is Jasem Shahdidzadeh Al-Tamimi, a hugely popular local Arab leader, and his support for ethnic minority rights – playing on his Lori ethnicity – has gone down extremely well in Khuzestan. Ethnic rights have been an issue in some provinces, which Ahmadinejad has refused to address with his supporters claiming that any such debate undermines national unity for the benefit of Iran’s enemies. It is a myth that Ahmadinejad’s support is dominant outside the urban centres and in the outlying provinces.

Jon, how do I know what your e-mail is?

The presidency of Iran is, like the presidency of Israel and the prime ministership in some countries, a largely symbolic or ceremonial position, with little or no real power to command or direct anything of consequence. Ahmadinejad may be the “face” of Iran for most of the world, but Grand Ayotollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader (note title) of Iran, who was installed (not elected) 20 years ago, holds the power commensurate with the title, as did his predecessor, Grand Ayotollah Khomenei. So in truth it matters little or not at all for most purposes, and especially ones of most concern to the rest of the world, whether Ahmadinejad continues as the president. The only possible significance to all this is whether there is enough pent up anger among the populace, especially in the major cities, that these election results will lead to widespread violence. A “counter-revolution” seems doubtful, but the rest of the world can hope for one.

Field, people like Ahmadinejad are quite capable of launching an attack themselves. Oh, wait: the BBC will tell us that we are being Iranophobic, and Gene will tell us that this is not important because Obama said so.

Arash – beg your pardon, thought it was on my name.

it’s newsinfo2007@gmail.com

What are we to do when the BBC headlines its reports

“Ahmadinejad wins election”.

Well that conveys entirely the wrong message. It first of all implies that there was an election as we know it with candidates free to put themselves forward. It was not. Only those approved by the religious dictatorship were free to stand.

Secondly “wins” implies it was a legitimate process. They could have put “steals” it they wished. Or they could have said he “claims win”.

But no – the BBC chooses to give the impression he has won a genuine election fair and square.

Arash– Thanks. Best wishes to you and your sister. Please keep us informed as much as you can.

This is a sign that the regime is weakening I think. Here’s me crossing my fingers for….well……a miracle of some kind

Another stolen election.

In all probability the government will resort to even harsher repression measures if there are sustained demonstrations as the Jerusalem Post reported on its website.

“Riots break out in Teheran as Ahmadinejad wins elections”

By SABINA AMIDI, SPECIAL TO THE JERUSALEM POST
TEHERAN, Iran

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1244371084492&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

We can hope for a kind of Rumanian revolution, though that is unlikely in the short run.

Generally speaking, if the West doesn’t like somebody, they’re almost certainly deserving of our support, at least for the time being.

So i think Ahmadinejad’s a nice fella.
deformed worker | 13 Jun, 16:43 | #

Oh dear.

Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

Someone’s been spending too much time at Seymour’s place. Time to lay off the leninology.

A senior State Department official said the United States would not be surprised if there was a run-off.

“It’s anyone’s guess what is going to transpire. If you were a betting person you would probably look at some sort of run-off,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

There will be a run-off on June 19 between the two front-runners if none of the four candidates wins 50 percent of the votes in the first round.

I find it hard to believe that the people who queued to vote, resulting in the polling hours being extended for 4 hours, did so to vote for the status quo.
The fact that they managed to count 60% of the votes in 4 hours is suspicious.
The fact that almost all electronic traffic from Iran is dead leads me to suspect as ‘coup’.

Ahmadinejad returns were probably in the 30% region, terrifying the Revolutionary Guard. the plug was pulled.

I do hope the clerics are hanging from the lamp-posts in the near future.

Whatever happens, this is the beginning of the end for the IRI.

Since everything about Iranian election is controlled and contrived, why is anybody surprised by a contolled and contrived result?

“I don’t think anyone anticipated this level of fraudulence,” Reuters cited the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Karim Sadjadpour. “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.”

“I’m in disbelief that this could be the case,” Reuters cited Trita Parsi. “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.”

Police attacks on demonstrators were reported, and fears of a larger police crackdown on opposition leaders and their supporters have been heightened. (Several protests and clashes have appeared on Youtube, Facebook. See Vanak Square 4pm, and this from the BBC.)

“Mousavi appealed directly to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but the country’s supreme leader today threw his weight behind Ahmadinejad, urging the other candidates to support the president,” the Guardian reported.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/

It reminds me of BBC & general western media coverage of Russia where I lived for a long time- a great and entirely misleading emphasis on the activities of middle class liberal intellectuals and entirely marginal ‘liberal’ parties, totally ignoring the fact that Putin’s authoritarian, nationalist approach was genuinely popular. It’s a form of resistance porn for western newspaper readers, leading them to believe that said tyrant is not in fact genuinely popular and about to be toppled any moment. Total nonsense, and so I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out the Mousavi stuff was totally overdone- the vast majority of foreign correspondents will be living in nice apartments in Tehran talking to Westernised, secular dissidents and nobody else if my experience of these twazzocks in Moscow is anything to go by.

At the same time, Putin- although genuinely popular, always makes sure he has the vote by any means necessary. no need to take any risks. A-jad no doubt feels the same way.

This situation can’t last forever. If Ahmadinejad only obtained around 30% of the vote, then his regime has to collapse at some point. The only thing left is external force, but I’m sure there are elements within the security aparatus itself who.ve had enough of the charade.

On the other hand, though, Iranians have come close to open revolt on several occassion and each time the dissent was brutally crushed.

Who says international Leftist solidarity is dead?

http://www.rferl.org/content/Chavez_Sends_His_Blessing/1753292.html

Andrew Sullivan offers a very interesting graph:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2009/06/the-results-as-they-came-in.html

That is quite amazing Mesquito.

Judging by the gradient of that graph it seems they really wanted to make sure that Mousavi got well under 50%.

If I’m ever in any doubt as to which riot is a good riot in defense of liberty and which is a bad riot carried out by pro-fascist thugs I know I have only to visit Harry’s Place to be informed of The Truth.

The Sullivan graph *seems* like fake data, but the interval unit is 1,000,000. I don’t know much about polling data, but if there was a general bias for one candidate in the population, I’m not sure that one would expect the proportion to change very much, over time, when grabbing such big numbers. I’d like to see an example of other election results to really understand what to make of it.

Schmuel, I think Sullovan’s point is that as returns are tabulated in very different precincts, canidates gain a lose relative to each other. You would expect a Republican, for example, to gain when Tulsa is counted, and lose when Harlem is counted. A flat line is like this one is extraordinary and unlikely.

Yeah, I get that. But there are only six data points drawn over 9 million votes in a country whose demographics I don’t understand. And does Tehran even represent one of the data points, or are they all from the outer provinces? I’d need to know more before I accepted that graph as proof of fraud.

” I’d need to know more before I accepted that graph as proof of fraud.”

Naturally. I cite it as suspicious, not definitive.

The total population of Iran is 70,000,000. So if those 9 million votes were all grabbed from rural areas outside of Tehran, I’m not sure if it would be so weird necessarily that the proportion remained so consistent. I just don’t know.

The other possibility is that officials *selectively* released *real* data to tell the story they wanted to be told over time, but that the data represents real votes.

Vern –

Putin has never been re-elected in a fair election. And neither has Ahmadinejad.

Talking about their popularity is irrelevant until you have free and fair elections.

There will be riots, there will be a bloodbath, hundreds will be rounded up and put on trial and many will be executed and any rebellion will be brutally subdued. It’s happened before and it will happen again. Only sustained industrial strike action and withdrawal of support by the bazaaris will make any difference and there is no sign that will happen. Ahmadinejad will be in power for the next four years and Mousavi, Rafsanjani, Rezaii and others will patiently wait it out. They are part of the establishment and there is no way they will do anything that could threaten the political system. The big ruse is that the “reformists” – who can be bought off easily – can make any difference at all. Khatami did not. So long as the Wilayat-e-Faqih remains, Iran will continue to live under a fascist regime.

Electoral shenanigans can be rather hard to cover up so we will probably get the truth (or part of it) shortly.

It must be depressing to Khomeini to know that so many of the young are blatant ’splitters’ and ‘counterrevolutionaries’!

All the kids chanting ‘freedom, freedom’ is also a bit of a kick in the balls to our Islamist/SWP friends closer to home.

I suspect Chavez likes the incumbent because Mahmoud says some of the things Hugo thinks. Hugo only had the guts to say that Christ Killers ran the media, but Mahmoud has the real cojones.

Also, there will CiF article within 24 hours hinting at the involvement of…

Mossad 2:1 odds

CIA a cheeky flutter at 5:2

The dark horses of The Rotary Club at 50:1

The FCO, an outsider at 100:1, but they form when it comes to Iran!

If I’m ever in any doubt as to which riot is a good riot in defense of liberty and which is a bad riot carried out by pro-fascist thugs I know I have only to visit Harry’s Place to be informed of The Truth.

If you had any innate intelligence then you could figure it out for yourself… Unfortunately you will have to rely on us.

No doubt, Field but every serious analyst of Russia acknowledges that Putin could win without electoral management, and everyone who has ventured beyond the salons of Moscow’s ‘Garden Ring’ knows that the so-called liberals and reformers are despised around the country, as all of them bar a nutjob like Limonov and Kasparov were parts of Yelstin’s kleptocracy. But we’re wandering off topic. My point is that foreign correspondents generally associate with people like them and who share their values and feed their egos/preconceptions. On the other hand, who knows? A-jead is a tool of the highest order, and the declaration of victory after four hours stinks to high heaven.

Ahmadinejad is a holocaust denying demagogue, who likes making friends with neo-nazis and white supremacists (David Duke, etc)

So what exactly is there to like about him?

Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was arrested Saturday shortly after he was defeated at the polls by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an unofficial source reported.

According to the source, the presidential hopeful was arrested en route to the home of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that were a number of contradictory reports from Iran on Saturday, in a large part due to the heavy restrictions imposed on the media in the Islamic Republic, in particular on foreign reporters.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1092304.html

mesquito and Shmuel, here’s an interesting comment on the significance of that graph:

http://tehranbureau.com/2009/06/13/faulty-election-data/

Vern –

“Every serious analyst” doesn’t know what would happen in a free and fair election campaign.

Pathetic reaction from Millibandejad:

“This is a matter for Iran.”

He should have said: “We stand four square with the democrats in Iran and will support them in their struggle to win freedom. They have been cheated out of a genuine election victory. Ahmadinejad now has no legitimacy. “

The dilemma of any totalitarian regime, what to do with your opponents. The great Machiavelli said it best: “For it must be noted, that men must either be caressed or else annihilated; they will revenge themselves for small injuries, but cannot do so for great ones; the injury therefore that we do to a man must be such that we need not fear his revenge.”

Will the Mullahs clamp down or have they lost their nerve? Or is it already too late – is the genie out of the bottle?

“Report: Defeated Ahmadinejad rival arrested in Iran ”

By Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondent, and News Agencies

“Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was reportedly arrested Saturday following the reformist’s defeat at the polls by hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Supporters of Mousavi, the main challenger to Ahmadinejad, responded to the election with the most serious unrest in Tehran in a decade and charged that the result was the work of a dictatorship.

Mousavi’s arrest was reported by an unofficial source, according to whom the presidential hopeful was arrested en route to the home of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei….”

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1092304.html

Fascinated by that graph vis mesquito. The R squared value of .998 is a measure of correlation, where a value of 1 is complete correlation between two events. 0.998 therefore suggests that as results came in from different constituencies the same proportion voted exactly the same way for each of the candidates. The probability of this happeneing must be close to zero.

It was always going to be very easy for the mullahs to get the result they wanted, as a report on the Washington Institute site pointed out a couple of days before the election:

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3068

What may have happened, it seems, is that the mullahs pushed their luck too far. If they’d contented themselves with a first-round lead for their boy but without an absolute majority, to be followed by a 55%-45% victory in the run-off vote, they might have got away with it without too much fuss. But it looks now as though they cheated too shamelessly and on too large a scale.

Demonstrators gunned down in the streets of Tehran? Has this been confirmed? Violent repression of that kind may herald a much broader crackdown and a return to overtly authoritarian rule, putting an end to any freedoms seen as a potential threat to the ayatollahs’ supremacy.

Alcuin –

The Mullahs “clamped down” a long time ago – about 1300 years ago in the case of Iran.

That’s the way I see it.

They are quite prepared to murder, torture, and lie – do whatever is necessary – to cling to power.

Please don’t think otherwise.

From a commenter at NYT’s Lede blog:

If one reads the specifics of the vote results (i.e. Ahmadinejad supposedly won in Tehran and Tabriz), how the count progressed and combine it with what people on the ground are saying, there is no way you would believe that this election was fair and square. There was blatant fraud. They didn’t even try to hide the fact that they were rigging the election. They didn’t even try to make the numbers look believable. — Sarvi

NYT Lede Blog on elelction

Gives credence to Juan Coles analysis.

Vern – the analogy between Putin and Ahmedinejad falls down because A-jad presided over economic decay despite record Oil and Gas prices, whilst Putin at least managed not to not get in the way of the same factors working a pretty strong economic turnaround in Russia.

If you could read Persian, (which takes me forever to read, but fortunately I have people around me who are native speakers) you would know that the rule of Ahmadinejad is not the will of the Iranian people whether they live in North Tehran or in the villages. He has his supporters. I will grant you that.

Members of Iran’s electoral commission told Mousavi that they were preparing the country for his victory. That’s how clear the vote count was. People in Ahwaz were saying that Mousavi got almost 70% of the vote there.

The results are simply ridiculous. They are completely unbelievable.

This is a COUP de Corps (How’s my French?). Let’s wish the body well.