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TechnoratiThe Iranian People Speak
The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.
While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.
Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.
Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.
The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.
Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected fearful respondents' reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.
Indeed, and consistently among all three of our surveys over the past two years, more than 70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment. And 77 percent of Iranians favored normal relations and trade with the United States, another result consistent with our previous findings.
Iranians view their support for a more democratic system, with normal relations with the United States, as consonant with their support for Ahmadinejad. They do not want him to continue his hard-line policies. Rather, Iranians apparently see Ahmadinejad as their toughest negotiator, the person best positioned to bring home a favorable deal -- rather like a Persian Nixon going to China.
Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world. Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, with the grave consequences such charges could bring, they should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.
35 Comments so far
Show AllPolls accuracy should be highly doubted in a country where free speech and fear of expressing opinion are major issues. Most iranian will not trust a caller on the phone to say anything but what they suspect the caller wants to hear. You can not simply apply the techniique which are widely used and trusted in the west or free countries , without accounting for social and political issues does not seem to be very scientific. I did not vote and thought voting in such ENV. is not right. You all know that all 4 candidates, passed a thight filter, right! No "real" opposition group was allowed to participate. Never-th e-less iranian go to voting booths to choose lesser of two evils. I suspected gov. miss-uses the turn out to its benefit. One other thought, poor peolple "often" vote against their own interest (i.e. hispanics voting for Bush or Arnold in CA)Even if Ah.Nejad has the majority you should be suspecting the results, they tried to avoid second round and not letting Moussavi's and Karrobies vote to mass against Ah.Nejad in the second round (in case no candidate having 50% majority).
Both very good points. My car died in a heavily hispanic part of East Los Angeles while I was heading south to ride out the 2004 elections in Mexico and then consider whether it was worth coming back as the polls came in. While sitting out front a bank, waiting for it to open so I could get a wire tranfer for the mechanic I sat there oggling at the number of Bush signs on cars. Alas, that burned through my cash and I was stuck in the up through 2006. I think there's a sort of distorted mirror effect going on with what Americans see in Iran. People have perceived an injustice and are responding to it in the way they wish they had.
Another aricle that brings in some actual decent analysis for the lot of people here to dub part of the vast agenda:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/06/iran_numbers/
As I've asserted here, the so-called "smoking gun" has not yet materialized, but that there are traces and tactics that point to possible foul play is irrefutable.
The tactic here seems a bit off. The fact is, no matter who wins the election ir how, US policy is not going to change on Iran. No one has brought any actual evidence forward for the assertion that protests and opposition candidates are being controlled externally.
Instead of bashing people in Iran who are acting out of their own convictions because you somehow think this is the best way to counter neo-con war rhetoric, why not focus on the simple fact: No matter how the election results came about, war, attempted violent regime change, would be a ludicrous, murderous act? Because if you're going to focus on demanding that Ahmadinijad won legitimately, you're in the exact debate that the pro-war crowd want you in. Because, you know what? They don't care.
My assertions remain the same, and as of now have been entirely unchallenged:
A) There are significant signs that raise serious concerns of vote fraud, which are worth criticizing, and by criticizing them no one is by any means inherently saying that anything about fraudulant U.S. elections.
B) The actions taking place in Iran are the legitimate expression of anger and uprising, and there is no reasonable evidence of outside influence.
C) One can both be in solidarity with the people on the streets of Iran demanding greater freedom while also supporting the rights of people everywhere else and challenging U.S. foreign policy of violent regime change.
- ta for now.
The far right is trying to claim that the unrest of the Iranian people from the fixed election is a result of the Bush/Cheney doctrine.
I dont know what drugs they are on , but I want some.
Its real simple folks, President Obamas speech encouraging a meeting of the minds by all these overly religous countrys, and we know who the players are, to find ways to peacably resolve our differnces, has given the Iranian people courge to take on its harsh leaders of lies and coruption.
Iranians want a different kind of leadership, not the same old war/fear mongering freaks. Sounds familiar.
We here in America should be paying attention and stand up for the same reasons. Another million man march to Washington demanding war crimes trails should do it.
Lets support our Iranian brothers by saying, courage brothers, stand your ground, demand change, and find leaders that will push for peace, not confrontation with the USA or Israel.
Lord knows, dont give the chicken hawks reasons to start a new war.
War hurts everyone except for those making money on it.
A Conversation with Grandma After Iran's Election
Some 48 hours following the stress and distress of the Iranian election results, a chat with my most trusted news source for inter-Iranian affairs: my grandmother. The force of right-wing populism didn’t die with Bush the Second. (My translation from original Persian.)
What on earth is going on in Tehran?
It was pretty quiet until the election results came in. It’s true that everyone was riled up and engaged in shouting matches at the voting stations — your grandfather voted for Mousavi but it took him 2 or 3 tries, it was so crowded — but it was run fairly.
What about you?
Well, there were 180 candidates. I figured, why should only 4 be given a chance to run? I didn’t vote in this election. It was illegitimate in my eyes. You can be illegitimate and fair at the same time.
How did the debates affect the outcome of the election?
They had a huge effect. First of all, personally speaking, I’ve watched every single debate, talk and analysis in nearly every waking hour since this all started. I go to bed at 1am or 2 am most nights.
There was a before and after effect for a lot of people. Before the debates, Mousavi had a strong chance, at least in Tehran. But it was like a see-change. After the debates, a lot of people who were going to vote for Mousavi came out for Ahmadinejad. A lot of people.
Why?
Because of Mousavi’s Rafsanjani connection. And you have to understand something. [Ahmadinejad] sways people. He says certain things — he says certain truths. He is not a thief. He is a horrible, horrible person, but he is not a thief. He says things directly.
So did Ahmadinejad rig the election? Did he steal 15 million votes?
He didn’t steal them. Yes, Mousavi won Tehran. But what about the provinces? We don’t have too few of them. Ahmadinejad went to the provinces and reached out to the poor. People there still worry about buttering their bread. He went to every single one.
But some candidates didn’t even win their own districts.
Yes. [Candidate] Rezai is from Ahvaz. But he barely won there. That tells you something about how the campaigns were run.
You have to be wackily smart to pull this off.
[Ahmadinejad]’s extremely smart. But unfortunately not a thief. Iran is not Tehran, Tehran isn’t even the size of the eye of the needle.Every single countryside, province, Ahmadinejad had them. He was self-made in this election, he worked for four years holding babies and making visits to the countrside. You could have predicted these results.
There’s some interior cities that I haven’t even heard of. Zarak or Darak or something like that? He’d already been there.
What about all the communication breakdowns? Internet and cell phones…
There’s a certain amount of communication break anytime there’s a huge event or disappointment like this: All the telephone calls made outside and inside the country shut down the lines. If there was foul play different ministries could be to blame. Ahmadinejad is not omnipotent. It’s not like he has the power to shut everything down. He’s too damn smart to do that anyway.
From the outside, Mousavi seemed very popular for the past few weeks.
But how would a country bumpkin (dehati) know Mousavi? Ahmadinejad worked on himself for four years. His cranium’s been working since the beginning. I was really shocked anyone voted for him four years ago. But this year I wasn’t surprised at all, he showed himself as an honest, simple person, as incredible as that seems. The television images of his house show him growing greenery (sabzi) and tending chickens in his house.
Chickens!
http://southissouth.wordpress.com/2009/06/14/conversation-with-grandma-after-irans-elections/
via
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/
I'm having trouble opening Mohammad Abtahi's website at
webneveshteha.com/en/ this morning but that's probably just due enormous traffic. It's interesting the way he refer to Ahmadinejad as Ahmad Nejad, which might be something like refering to Bush as 'Duyba" but the situation is analagous. Mahmoud IS a very clever guy and knows how to reduce complex matters to soundbites that appeal to the "less sophisticated." This puts scrupulous reform candidates at a big disadvantage because most people have limited tolerance for long and convoluted arguments, but to be "correct', one has to do it.
Would be more helpful of a piece of it remained consistent about who won Tehran. The fact that the electoral commission had less than three hours to hand-count 81% of 39 million votes is positively a "divine assessment".
These are strange days indeed.
A million people take to the streets in Tehran, marching for democracy, demanding greater freedoms, more transparency in government(1), and what do we have at Common Dreams, the website that invites people to "join the movement. For the Greater Good"? People clutching onto a survey growing ever more discredited as more people actually read it. Not that the survey itself is off in and of itself, that we don't know as we haven't seen the methods behind it, aside from knowing that Iranians were called on the phone and asked by strangers who they planned to vote for. This in a country where supporting the opposition too publicly can carry a high cost. No, that's not it. It's that it's being flogged as saying something it most definitely is not: Advance proof of an Ahmadinijad landslide was not made (2, 3).
We have people here, people in the supposed U.S. progressive camp, clinging to something advanced by the Washington, D.C., lobby/think-tank Terror Free Tomorrow. So much so that because it first appeared in the Washington Post someone says "Well at least the Washington Post is not CIA controlled" apparently without irony. Yes, the Washington Post; that bastion of the anti-establishment.
And who does Terror Free Tomorrow consist of? It's not too difficult to figure out (4, 5).
At the top of its list of board of directors we have none other than John McCain, the man who needs no introduction, and made famous the chant "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Iran."
Moving on, we see Lee H. Hamilton, Thomas H. Kean and Slade Gorton (from my own stomping grounds of the Pacific Northwest), all people chosen by Bush (Cheney) to be on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (aka the 9/11 Commission). This organization, which on the face said there was no connection between 9/11 (though many members later jumped on the bandwagon to support the war later) did work tirelessly to make the connection to Iran.(6)
Gorton (and I'm ever so proud of this) is also a director of the Discovery Institute (http://www.discovery.org/) "the nation's leading think-tank challenging various aspects of evolutionary theory." So, you know, the credibility is there. He has a lot more in common with Ahmadinijad so I can see why he'd be proud of these survey results.
But let's move on. We have also on the board of directors one Mohammed Odeh Al-Rehaief. This is the guy who claims to have saved the life of Private Jessica Lynch by calling in the marines. They came in and "saved" Lynch, guns drawn and cameras blazing, from the doctors in Nassiriya who were taking care of her the best they could in the midst of an invasion.(7)
As a side note, Al-Rehaief got a job at the Livingston Group, where his colleague Lauri Fitz-Pegado promoted his book about saving private Lynch from the doctors. Fitz-Pegado is infamous for her work at Hill & Knowlton PR in 1990 coaching the Kuwaiti girl called "Nayirah" in her shocking but phony testimony on Congressional hill that she'd seen Iraqi soldiers murdering Kuwaiti babies.
So in one sense, I agree with Ken Ballen when he urges us to "consider all independent information." It's too bad that I don't see more people here doing likewise instead of patently taking for granted anything that comes along.
— ttfn
1. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-irans-day-of-destiny-1706010.html
2. http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/did-polling-predict-ahmadinejad-victory.html
3. http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/terror-free-tomorro-poll-did-not.html
4. http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2009/6/15/13154/6222
5. http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Terror_Free_Tomorrow
6. http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch7.htm
7. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/may/15/iraq.usa2
One of the troubles with the Net- the so-called "superhighway of information" is perhaps just that- a broad expanse of uniform pavement stretching to the horizon. The sources you sight arn't that much better than what we get from the Washington Post but, you're right about Common Dreams- it more or less just circulates articles available through conventional sources without ever really getting off the beaten track, or introducing independent research that doesn't already have the "good house-keeping seal of approval". Of course the same problem applies to Iran. Slogans circulating on facebook don't really accomplish anything.
True enough, the government website is there to illustrate that these people were trying to make the case being made that Iran is a threat. The other ones were to provide alternate looks at this dubious study and finally, I would say sourcewatch ranks as one of the most accurate sites out there on who is who in spin.
One irony bomb from the Iranian elections: Rabid Right Republican Radio (R4) is complaining that Obama should denounce the Iranian election results due to election fraud.
Let me restate that: The Republicans want the Democrats to denounce the election of a conservative candidate due to election fraud.
I never thought that would happen under any circumstances.
The vote count is now almost beside the point. The problem is for Moussavi who, though bringing his supporters out into the streets in defiance of the warnings of the interor ministry and thus calling their bluff- - still has to maintain their presence in an orderly fashion so as not to give the revolutionary guard and 'religious police'- a pretext for retaliation, allowing further deteriortion of the situation. A failure to do so would undercut his neo-liberal support in the conservative factions on the Guardian Council.
Or rather, his neo-liberal,"trickle-down" supporters in the Council would become alienated and unable get traction for their policies with the Supreme Leader.
For his starry-eyed bourgeois supporters in the professional and student classes of Tehran it is the problem of demonstrating sufficient strength, solidarity and 'reforming" rather than "revolutionary" control to gain substantial relief from supervision of their petty, day-today morals by the 'lumpens" in the President's political cadres or 'religious police', and be better able to meet their consumer demands ( e.g. cheaper tomatoes, more "hip" rock bands and google stuff).
Genuine reformists like Khatami are quite concerned that if Moussavi , the Council and the Supreme Leader cannot engineer a compromise along these lines and knock the president down at least a notch or two young people will become disillussioned, become cynical and/or try more actively to emigrate thus undercuting the political base for useful reforms in the long run. They have been having an endless series of meetings and consultations. Nobody is sleeping.Everyone is in a state of shock which began during that last round of debates during which Mousavi seemed incapable of countering the President's "abusive torrent of lies".
Democracy in action, boys.
"Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election. "
This can't be accurate because it did not show the US-backed candidate winning.
The US-backed candidate is always supposed to win.
Call it the Obama-effect.
Go read Juan Cole for the analysis of a true American intellectual.
camus13
Our boy Mousavi was involved in the Iran Contra deal.
I'll say one thing I didn't see one million or two million? people out when Bush stold 2000 and 204.
Mousavi represented the neo-liberal line on the "conservative" side of the political spectrum in Iran, with certain 'soft-line ' trappings to attract interest from the petit bourgeois types. . Thus, he criticized the President's "give-aways" to the poor and advocated a "trickle-down", privatization-type fiscal policy as "a remedy" to inflation. He represented the rich-merchant and banker class, as well as university students and graduates looking for "golden opportunities" irrespective of the interests of the "teeming masses" Thus the protest is very similiar to what occurred at Tianamen Square. No doubt there are some hard-line provacateurs working the crowd, shrieking "allah Akbar"and down with the tyrant from the rooftops, trying to invoke the days of the Revolution and, of course, the BBC etc completely falls for the charade.
The political struggle is on the right, just as in America where democrats and republicans vie for the support of the wealthiest classes of potential campaign contributors and seek to limit the functions of government in a way that serves the "big guys" with commercial subsidies and tax breaks.
The constitutional struggle arises as the result of the ambiguity off Khomeini's original prscriptions. While asserting the ultimate authority of the Parliament to govern both civil and religious affairs, he assented to the establishment of the Guardian Council and Supreme Leader as a defensive measure against the continued hostility, military interventions and economic sanctions from the west.The Supreme leader wants to keep his powers but has alot of sympathy for the blue-collar "thugs" and revolutionary guards who are the Presidents natural constituency.
Workers and peasants in Iran are not fooled like they were in China, thanks to the President. Never-the-less, in the convoluted political maneuvering that's going on he could be taken down a peg or two.
One really doesn't need a poll. The election results will do just fine. "Manipulations are "standard fare" just like in America- delays, inconvenient polling stations, intimidations of various sorts, probably some ballot-box stuffing where procedures are only lightly monitored etc. etc. et al!
What you do need is some information about Iran that is a little more accurate , less slanted towards the interest of the ruling elite in America than you can get in the media here. Like going down to the library and reading a few books instead of hanging out staring dumbly into your computer screen!
I would suggest starting with "The Ayattollah Begs to Differ; The Paradox of Modern Iran" by Hooman Majd, even Robin Wright's "The Last Great Revolution" and working your way back to the horse's mouth. Most everything Khomeini ever said or wrote is available in English.
Did anybody note John Kerry's statement and letter to the President just a couple of day's ago categorizing the accusation that Iran is developing nuclear weapons as "absolutely ridiculous", completely contradicted by the asessements of every intellience agency put to the problem for THE LAST TEN YEARS! WHY IN HELL DO WE KEEP HEARING ABOUT THIS ISSUE?
Then write your representatives in washington and recommend they go to hell!
Thank you for your unquestioning trust that electon results are just fine. A lot of people said the same thing in 2000. It worked out marvy for the U.S. and the rest of the world. Please do continue to just trust the results.
You know what it's really going to take to screw this country's head on straight? Follow Robspierre's suggestion about the King. Grab Bush and Cheney, run em up the the scaffold and cut their heads off. Put them on trial? Have an investigation, what baloney! If this country had any brains they would even be able to peek their noses out of their closets!
And you sit around arguing "eruditely about a poll conducted by the Washington Post, some of the biggest criminals in the country!
And again, anyone who disagrees it is inferred here, has to be a stooge for the right. I'm still awaiting to see the science behind the survey.
Juan Cole has answered this piece at http://www.juancole.com/2009/06/terror-free-tomorro-poll-did-not.html.
I'm curious to know more about the organization but it's own site is devoid of a lot of detail behind the survey. However, I think it's widely agreed that looking at "all independent information" is an appropriate rule of thumb.
Some of what Juan has to say at the above link with regards to this is apparent to anyone who actually gives a look at the survey results:
Excerpt:
"I have enormous respect for Ballen, PFTFT and Doherty & the New America Foundation.
But as a mere social historian I would say that the poll actually tends to confirm some of my doubts about the announced electoral tallies.
The poll did not find that Ahmadinejad had majority support. It found that the level of support for the incumbent was 34%, with Mousavi at 14%.
27% said that they were undecided. (Some 22% of respondents are not accounted for by any of the 4 candidates or by the undecided category, and I cannot find an explanation for this. Did they plan to write in for other candidates? A little over a quarter of respondents did say they wanted more choice than they were being given. Update: Some of this 22% refused to answer, others said they did not like any of the candidates. Ahmadinejad is unlikely to have picked up the latter, and Mousavi supporters were more likely to refuse to answer.)
Here's the important point: 60% of the 27% who said they were undecided favored political reform. As Ballen wrote at that time:
' A close examination of our survey results reveals that the race may actually be closer than a first look at the numbers would indicate. More than 60 percent of those who state they don’t know who they will vote for in the Presidential elections reflect individuals who favor political reform and change in the current system.'"
I don't read Informed Comment so much anymore, Juan Cole insists 9-11 was kosher....which it was, but not how he means. Asiatimes is much better for ME reporting now.
But I read Juan Cole's piece a day or two ago stating with essential certainty that the election could NOT have been won by Ahmadinejad, Made Ze-ro Sense. Im-possible. On that note, Bye Juan!
reading people who you disagree with on some points, however important to you, may be somewhat annoying...
still, are you sure you want to only read stuff adhering to a worldview you absolutely agree with?
I guess most of us have a sort of tendency to do this - so, by all means, let's try to counteract this, not enshrine it...
Besides, do you want people like juan cole never to stick their necks out? Plus, he actually took up some of the replies he got on the website which mentioned PTFT and provided counter-criticism (also admitting that he is not a statistician)
If the level of discussion is still not high enough for you, you might want to work on it, not walk away from it...
Sorry you couldn't make sense of it. Thanks for not providing any reasons why.
Mumbo-Jumbo Malarchy.
A non-reply warrants no comment. Terror Free Tomorrow is not exactly nonpartisan group it portrays itself to be. Take a look at the board of directors. Partisans and propagandists linked to those making cases for the current Iraq mess and the previous one. On another note, to look at some decent analysis on this polls, look at http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/06/did-polling-predict-ahmadinejad-victory.html.
"Polling Predicted Intimidation -- and Not Necessarily Ahmadinejad's Victory"
"Unfortunately, while the poll itself may be valid, Ballen and Doherty's characterization of it is misleading. Rather than giving one more confidence in the official results, the poll raises more questions than it resolves."
"Well, indeed, Ahmadinejad has more than twice as much of the vote as his next-closest rival, Mir Hossein Mousavi. But he also only has 33.8 percent of the total vote. Between them, indeed, Ahmadinejad and Mousavi only have 47.4 percent of the vote. Where does the rest of the vote go?
Not to the other candidates, Karroubi and Rezai. The poll -- correctly, apparently -- predicted that they would only account for a small fraction of the vote."
"Ballen and Doherty's point would be worthwhile -- if support for Ahmadinejad was as robust as they were claiming. But instead, the presidential preferences of almost half of their survey cohort are unaccounted for -- 42.5 percent either refused to answer the question or said they were undecided, and another 7.6 percent said they weren't planning to vote at all."
More to come. :-)
and yet, even this is speculative at best knowing very well the polls even a month out do not always reflect the election turnout. One needs polling conducted within days of the election, and within days after the election to find corresponding data.
Have you looked at the recent number released by Iranian Interior Ministry? Mousavi wins several towns and cities but doesn't hold enough votes overall. City of Tehran goes to Mousavi, but Ahmadinejad wins surrounding area. ..
link is very hot right now, and may not load right away....
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/98177.htm?sectionid=351020101
And yet, we have the situation where suddenly, they change thier entire procedures for counting and releasing results. Why is this?
What?
You want to present a link that states what you're saying?
I continue to do this even when almost no one else here actually offers any sort of supporting documentation to prove anything they are saying, so it's a bit funny. As has been universally reported inside and outside Iran (in farsi and english, and yes, I am related to farsi speaking people who I am in regular contact with), and even acknowledged by the government itself, and the reports which I have linked to elsewhere in this site's comments, the government rushed out its results the next day after elections instead of using the typical three-day verification process.
Sigh.
Why I do this, I'm not sure. No matter what you click on, you'll either say something along the lines of A) that source is somehow CIA funded or part of this or that grand conspiracy; B) the What about the US (Peru, El Salvadoe, whatever country you wish to name that the US has done horrible things to); C) that somehow if we say that the protests are legitmate or that the election might have had problems we're somehow advocating some sort of violent intervention, which would be ridiculous.
Now that reporters in Iran are banned from actually covering anything, this request will start working out better for you, I'm sure. I think it's amazing how quickly people here start sounding like the morons from the Bush camp after the 2000 election. I guess it's not ereally about the results, but about which line of propaganda your backing.
I'm not going to repost ever link I've posted elswhere here as that's really not what comment areas are about, and it's a bit boring. You can look around and find them. Here are some links, though.
1) A screengrab off of official Iran television network IRIB, which shows (third place candidate) Rezai's votes actually decreasing throughout election day: http://tinyurl.com/npppmq
2) Guardian: "Last week, a group of interior ministry employees wrote to senior officials, including the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claiming that the statistics for eligible electors had been deliberately understated at 46.3m rather than 51.2m. The ministry then printed 58m ballot papers, the letter alleged, paving the way for possible fraud." URL: http://tinyurl.com/n2vz7y
3) Fivethrityeight has had some of the best statistical analysis going up to date, pointing out flaws and good points in various analysis, as well as doing some of their own, so far with a good dose of cautious skepticism. A good place to start is the post "Iran does have some fishy numbers," and "if he did it" is worth the look as well to see how likely the scenereo that the victory did turn out exactly the way the government says it did. URL: http://tinyurl.com/ma2kuu
As I have also said previously, these are signs of a problem, calling out for much greater probing, not in and of themselves a "smoking gun." Still, I'd give them more credit than some telephone poll conducted by a D.C. lobby group that has John McCain at the head of its board of directors.
Finally, to answer the question of "Why the concern about possible fraud in Iran?" which has been asked here overtly and implicitly: Why not? Why not care about any place where people do have their human rights trampled on? Why not care about it in America, in Iran, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, in Palestine, all over Africa, South America, etc.? Personally it's because my wife has family there. Our son has aunts and uncles and scads of cousins there. We have friends living there and others living abroad with friends and family there. Almost all have at least one or two relatives who have been imprisoned under regimes run by Shah and later the Ayatollah. People who have lived under wars in which the U.S. backed and funded both governments against one another. On a bigger picture, it's because if you want to express any sort of consistent outlook that everyone deserves the same opportunties, chances and freedoms, you should care about it.
Before actually discounting everyone on the streets in Iran expressing disatisfaction, take the time to look at them and listen to them before you decide they're on some payroll: http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/16/hundreds_of_thousands_protest_in_tehran
we know that special ops have been in iran for several years giving out weapons and cash to any lunatic they can find in hopes of destabilizng the iranian government - sy hersh broke that story
i wonder how many of these "protesters" in iran are on the cia payroll as agitators
maybe brother obama will seize this moment to help bring freedom and democracy to iran
it worked so well in iraq and afghanistan
when i first read the headline about election theft and vote stealing my intial reaction was: don't tell me we are gonna rehash to 2000 election over again
then i thought - maybe the 2004 elelction
the united states bitchin about voter theft and election fraud
wow - the classic pot calling the kettle black
At least all one million of them. Obviously no one outside the Us is capable of thinking for themselves and they need the US government to tell them how to protest. Such US-centric bias even in your protest of the US. As so many people ask me, I now return the favor: where is your evidence?
Where exactly does the U.S. get off criticizing other countries elections. After 2000 and 2004, we should worry more about cleaning up our own system.
And their polling was done by phone something many rural and poor Iranians of Amadinejad's base do not possess.
Well at least the Washington Post is not CIA controled.
I hope this gets all you easily brainwashed posters to end your false assumptions.
There's been a lot of talk about the Ahmadinijad victory being greatly to the thanks of rural voters. That may be. Rural voters may have voted in greater numbers for him. But it's not a sure thing that any of the folling happened:
A) they did vote as the government reported
B) that there was enough of a turnout
C) That their votes were actually counted
Fivethirtyeight.com looks at the rural area statistics: http://tinyurl.com/rural-vote-theft
SNIP:
"You have probably heard it asserted that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad principal strength is in rural areas, whereas Mir-Hossein Mousavi did relatively better in Iran's cities. However, it is not clear that this is true. Moreover, in 2005, it is demonstrably false."
SNIP
"This means that at least one of two things must be true. Either the urban-rural dynamics of Iran have changed significantly over the last four years -- at least insofar as it they affected perceptions of a candidate like Ahmadinejad. Or, alternatively, the election was rigged, and those who rigged it for some reason decided that rural votes were easier to steal."
As Eric Hooglund writes here: "I just heard a CNN reporter in Tehran say that Ahmadinejad’s support base was rural. Is it possible that rural Iran, where less than 35 percent of the country’s population lives, provided Ahmadinejad the 63 percent of the vote he claims to have won? That would contradict my own research in Iran’s villages over the past 30 years, including just recently. I do not carry out research in Iran’s cities, as do foreign reporters who otherwise live in the metropolises of Europe and North America, and so I wonder how they can make such bold assertions about the allegedly extensive rural support for Ahmadinejad."
LINK: http://tinyurl.com/35-percent
- enjoy
Yes, but the Washington Post is AIPAC and corporate controlled.
Every now and then they have to publish the truth in order to maintain credibility.
It falls under the 'every now and then even a blind squirrel finds a nut' category.
Let the back-peddling begin! Good to see some factual reporting on this subject.
Chee, where is Kermit Rossevelt when we need him?