Ahmadinejad wins re-election

brumsen said:
So let me try to understand this. Because of the reaction, at the time, of the US government to the democratic election of Hamas in Gaza , it cannot exert any diplomatic pressure when there are indications that an election anywhere was not in fact free and democratic?
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I think it depends on the nature of those 'indications'. What you absolutely don't want to do, is to interfere for reasons that to the average Iranian looks like "they didn't like the result".

Consider the possibility that 63% actually did vote for Ahmadinejad. What do you think the popular reaction would be if some other country turned up and said that they won't accept that result?
 
FireGarden said:
On the fraud issue:
Mobile polling in army centres with little oversight.
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I would definitely not rule out some fraud there, or some intimidation, etc. The problem is, these don't add up to a 63% against 34%.

Again, it's a bit like Greg Palast's case that the 2004 Bush reelection was stolen. He does find some real instances of wrongdoing. But by any conventional mathematics, they don't add up as having changed the overall outcome of the election.

Counting possibly suspiciously fast.
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I'd like to chip in on that one. First, the questions of how fast the counting really was, seems to have been the subject of some whispering rumours. First I heard something about an hour or so. Now somebody in this thread quoted something about results being out before polls closed.

Next question then is how fast the counting would be. We have paper ballots here in Sweden too, and we had an election recently (june 7). Here, too, results were in quite soon after the polling places had closed, I think it took about an hour. Not all results of course, but it took quite some time in Iran as well before all the votes were in.

Karoubi getting fewer votes than he has party members -- possible, but....
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Again, I would want to know where those claims are from. I must say I'd be quite impressed if he really has more than 300000 party members.

Personally, I'd be interested in seeing results broken down not just by region, but so that figures were given for each place where votes were counted. If those stats were made available (or they already are), then I can't imagine wholesale fraud being possible. Conspiracies that size just don't work.
 
If this crackdown continues, and grows worse as seems likely, then whether or not election if fraudalent might become a non issue. The issue will be the exact nature of the Iranian regime.
 
brumsen said:
Apart from the candidates: I believe that we should focus on condemnation of the way that the regime apparently chooses to deal with dissidents, and the discontent in the streets.
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I agree, but I don't see the de facto defenders of the regime in Iran doing that.
 
dudalb said:
If this crackdown continues, and grows worse as seems likely, then whether or not election if fraudalent might become a non issue. The issue will be the exact nature of the Iranian regime.
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Good point, and the problem is that the regime seems perfectly capable of beating down the student.

But still, even through it might not make much difference in Iran, I am still curius of wether there were fraud or not.
 
Ziggurat said:
The median age in Iran is 27 (compared to about 37 in the US). I don't think it's accurate to say that this is just students and not the masses. But it's not a revolution, or even an attempted revolution. Mousavi is part of the government.
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Just because people are young, doesn't mean they are students. But you're certainly right about Mousavi. He's an ex-prime minister. During his term in office, several thousands of truly oppositional activists were jailed and then executed.

I don't trust the guy for one second. The big upside with him is basically his condemnation of holocaust denial, and generally showing more aptitude for diplomacy than Ahmadinejad (but then again, only about 1 in a million humans suffer from rabies). Even if that's just words, this is a case where words matter.

Btw, I found a very enlightening analysis by an Indian diplomat who seems to be both well-informed and treating the issue in a dispassionate manner, which otherwise seems to be mutually exclusive among most commentators.
 
CapelDodger said:
That was dispelled by the TV debate in which A'jad made a complete arse of himself. The evidence for that is in the turnout.
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That doesn't really rhyme with what I heard, even from viewers sympathetic to Mousavi. They seem to have agreed generally that Ahmadinejad won most of the debates, in particular against Mousavi. He accused Mousavi of being tied to other unpopular politicians, in particular ex-president Rafsanjani, who is widely seen as a corrupt figure. That Mousavi and Rafsanjani really are allies was only made clearer when Rafsanjani responded to the criticism.

The only candidate who appears to have done well against Ahmadinejad was the conservative hawk Rezai, who lectured him on the economy.
 
Merko said:
Btw, I found a very enlightening analysis by an Indian diplomat who seems to be both well-informed and treating the issue in a dispassionate manner, which otherwise seems to be mutually exclusive among most commentators.
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Wow. One of the best articles I've read on this - anywhere. Thanks so much for posting!
 
Merko said:
Btw, I found a very enlightening analysis by an Indian diplomat who seems to be both well-informed and treating the issue in a dispassionate manner, which otherwise seems to be mutually exclusive among most commentators.
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While this is an engaging look at the Khameini-Rafsajani power politics behind the Ahmadinejad-Mousavi election, the author seems to be assuming the legitimacy of the electoral results. Or perhaps I am misreading him?
 
marksman said:
While this is an engaging look at the Khameini-Rafsajani power politics behind the Ahmadinejad-Mousavi election, the author seems to be assuming the legitimacy of the electoral results.
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Yes, he is. But I think one can get a lot of valuable information from the article even if one is not willing to accept that premise.

Also, I think it's valuable to get a perspective from someone who understands the issues and who does not consider the result to be 'impossible'. Like I've tried to argue in this thread, there is a possibility here that a lot of people in the west are engaging in a sort of wishful thinking. We don't want Ahmadinejad to be popular, and therefore it is hard for us to accept the possibility that he may in fact be popular.

Of course, even if he is popular, that does not mean that Iran is a free country, that it doesn't engage in human rights violations, etc. However, it does change the appropriate response quite a lot I think. One must confront a popular tyrant in a different way than one would confront a generally hated tyrant.
 
I agree. I just didn't want people to think that the author is providing a complete picture of events. he's not dealing with the meat of the present issue: was the election fair? He is assuming it was, and he may be right, but I think there's plenty of reasonable doubt about it at this point.

I, too, have been saying that the West engaged in a lot of wishful thinking. But nor am I ruling out the possibility of a massive election fraud.
 
Merko said:
Also, I think it's valuable to get a perspective from someone who understands the issues and who does not consider the result to be 'impossible'. Like I've tried to argue in this thread, there is a possibility here that a lot of people in the west are engaging in a sort of wishful thinking. We don't want Ahmadinejad to be popular, and therefore it is hard for us to accept the possibility that he may in fact be popular.

Of course, even if he is popular, that does not mean that Iran is a free country, that it doesn't engage in human rights violations, etc. However, it does change the appropriate response quite a lot I think. One must confront a popular tyrant in a different way than one would confront a generally hated tyrant.
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http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,630935,00.html

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Barati, 19 million votes for Mir Hossein Mousavi, 13 million votes for Mehdi Karroubi: Those are figures you cite as a member of the Iranian opposition to claim that the reform camp clearly defeated President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Where are you getting those figures from?

Barati: They come from religious people inside the Interior Ministry who also believe in the truth. And they were also passed on in the same way to Mousavi after the election. I also know that he told Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf, who is known in the West and has direct contact with Mousavi, on the night of the election that he wouldn't immediately go public with his election victory. Shortly afterwards, 20 thugs occupied his office, and a short time later it was totally surrounded. Eventually, the Interior Ministry declared Ahmadinejad the election victor. Apparently after the votes were counted, the Revolutionary Guard and spiritual leader Ali Khamenei intervened.
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What the heck is this new avatar, Oliver? You've changed your mind again? You're anti-Obama now?
 
Merko said:
Btw, I found a very enlightening analysis by an Indian diplomat who seems to be both well-informed and treating the issue in a dispassionate manner, which otherwise seems to be mutually exclusive among most commentators.
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The problem I have with that is that it seems awfully certian that Khameini has fairly solid control over the Revolutionary Guards and isn't being played the other way.
 
Pardalis said:
What the heck is this new avatar, Oliver? You've changed your mind again? You're anti-Obama now?
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I gave up on trying to understand Oliver;s thought processes a long time ago except for his general dislike for America.
 
Pardalis said:
What the heck is this new avatar, Oliver? You've changed your mind again? You're anti-Obama now?
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Nope, just tweaking the Republican Noses as usual. :)
As for Ahmadinejad, he's quite silent these days, is he not?
 
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