Iran Election June 09

[JAD_333]

Yes I believe there've been a huge vote rigging.
Guardian Council announced that so far they have found irregularities in 50 different districts with 3 million votes, that is 7% of entire ballots.
At the other hand the number of fraud don't really matter, it facilitates a ground to question the whole electoral process.

Let's be objective here.

The 3 million votes were the total involved in the 50 districts. The Council did not say all were fraudulent.

New election? Isolated fraud even in a US election, would not necessarily void the election. It might reduce the vote count. If the count dropped to near even, then a new election might be called.

This leads me to the suspicion that the reason Amadinejad "won" by 11 million votes was because it was planned that way to give him a margin that would overwhelm any votes he might lose as a result of serious relevations of fraud.

I became suspicious when Ayatolloh Ali Khamenei showed up at Friday prayers June 19 during the height of the protests and made this odd statement. (Recall Ahmadinejad got more than 24 million out of 34 million votes cast.):

"Eleven million votes difference? Sometimes there's a margin of 100,000, 200,000, or 1 million maximum. Then one can doubt maybe there has been some rigging or manipulation or irregularities. But there's a difference of 11 million votes. How can vote rigging happen?" he asked

Now imagine he said that BEFORE the election when he was huddled with his cronies discussing how to ensure Amadinejad would win even if some fraud was conveniently "discovered" and the margin of victory had to be lowered.

Fast forward to after the election. He is dismayed by the protests. He blurts out the same rationale in public to defuse the protests. It made sense to him before and it still made sense to him after. He is not the brightest candle on the cake.

Here's another possibility: The plotters were influenced by pre-election polls that showed A-jad not getting 50% of the vote which meant there would have to be a runoff of the top 2 vote getters which he could lose. So, they loaded up the ballot boxes expecting to push him just over 50%, but lo and behold he does better than expected. Now the stuffing pushes him to an implausible margin. Opps. Can they now say, "sorry folks, we did stuff the ballot boxes, but it doesn't matter; he got enough legitimate votes to win?" Obviously not.

It would be ironic indeed if A-jad did poll more than 50 percent of the vote legitmately. That would make the ballot box stuffing, if it happened, the cause of the protests. Bad planning, guys. Time to retire.

[zraver]

Z,
True! But IRGC is not the intended ideologically pumped guardians of revolution and supreme leader any more. They are now elite businessmen holding 20% of Iran's GDP.
IMHO they will follow the commerce, where ever that will be, need to be seen.

It looks like the Supreme Leader may have thrown in with the Guards becoming their figure head- a silent but deadly coup. I'd love to know what threats if any that Rafsanjani/Monterzeri and their backers got from the Guards. The next big test and probably confirmation will be the appointment of Khamenie's son as the next Supreme Leader and the beginning of a political dynasty.

[Merlin]

This cleric offers no compromise.

On the other hand, the Guardian Council asked the two opposition candidates to send represernative to witness a new 10% recounting.

Iranian cleric says protesters wage war against God

27 June [Boston] TEHRAN - An influential Iranian cleric told worshipers yesterday that those stirring unrest in connection with the recent election should be punished “ruthlessly and savagely’’ and convicted for waging war against God, a crime that under Shi’ite Islamic law is punishable by death. ....

In a sermon at Tehran University broadcast live to the nation, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami amplified the ominous tone that the state has adopted this week toward the tens of thousands of demonstrators who have massed in the streets to question the results of the June 12 presidential balloting. The government has deemed the gatherings illegal. ....

Iran’s judiciary said Tuesday that a special court would be set up to make an example out of “rioters’’ arrested during the demonstrations. According to Iranian state media, more than 450 have been arrested. International human rights groups say the number is higher and includes both demonstrators and well-known dissidents who have called for years for more political freedom in Iran.

A spokesman for the Guardian Council, Iran’s electoral watchdog, reiterated yesterday that the council has found no fraud or significant problems with vote-rigging in the disputed election, in which Ahmadinejad is said to have beaten challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi by nearly 2 to 1. ...

But the council later announced the formation of a “special committee’’ to review the election process and invited Mousavi and another opposition candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, to send representatives to it. The council gave the two candidates 24 hours to name their representatives. It said 10 percent of the ballot boxes would be recounted in the presence of the committee, which would then issue a report about the election. ....

[Aryajet]

Let's be objective here.

JAD,
Some time I go back and read my own posts and realize there are plenty of emotion and knee jerking related foot prints embedded in them. Hard to maintain proper composure I guess.:(

[Aryajet]

Z,

It looks like the Supreme Leader may have thrown in with the Guards becoming their figure head- a silent but deadly coup. I'd love to know what threats if any that Rafsanjani/Monterzeri and their backers got from the Guards. The next big test and probably confirmation will be the appointment of Khamenie's son as the next Supreme Leader and the beginning of a political dynasty.

Just like no-bid ultra lucrative contracts, there won't be a challenger to IRGC's bid for the position after the demise of Big Al.
Per capita their authority and direct control of Iranian politico-economic affair have already exceeded of those with PLA & Pakistan Army.
The appointment of next S.L will facilitate the complete & long awaited take over by IRGC.
May be they deserve that status, they have been working on it for so long.

I luv the avatar BTW, the 1 in the I.D as well. Thank you

[Chunder]

Made interesting reading this thread now; so I thought I'd contribute an unimportant opinion.

It has been remarkably interesting for me to see how this has played out over the past 2 weeks.

In diplomacy circles, it has been an absolute disaster for Iran. The chronological play of events seem to have bought, I suppose, what will be termed as the "Iranian Issue" into a very bright light, and a lot of people (count me as one) have probably fundamentally altered their view on Iran, and how & what treatment and trust it deserves.

For one, "Sitting at the table as equal partners" whilst sounding reasonable a few weeks ago to try and give a new beggining & international involvement for Iran, doesn't sound so good anymore.

Whatever your opinion of the Current U.S Administration - the Diplomacy tact early on has bought foward a number of regional issues/crisis to a head. This holds benefit for future direction taking, as the lines in the sand has been drawn. Pakistan has taken clear action against the Taliban, Lebanon has undergone a stark political turn around (although to what extent exactly remains to be seen) Israel has at last been recieving clear pressure on the settlements issue (are you or arn't you going to do something) from most countries that have supported it.

The most important for me, is that a New Administration has entered with a clean slate, and been slapped in the face by accusations from Iran. Nobody likes to be slapped in the face, and nobody likes to see good overtures seen put down. What is remarkable, is that the idiots with the control of the strings in Iran, expect to gain any sort of sympathy from a world sick of ME bickering and fighting. Most people have come away with a feeling that the actions by the hardliners in Iran have been brutal, misguided, fundamentaly and stupidly corrupt to the point of disbelief, most important of all, murderous. I wanted to see them being given a fair go - because they played the victim, and during this election they have played the bully. Stacked the cards in their favor, used criminal force to protect the result, interned and tortured their own citizens to extract confessions that they were influenced by western media and spies. It's all played out furthermore, despite western media being banned.

So the existing offer of meeting on a level playing field without preconditions will probably be altered. Which is good. "Okay no more stuffing around with that tact, whats the next one?"

Where does it leave Iran? "You want to live in an Islamic State. But without the vote" Is quite obviously whats happening here - The Clerics want their Power. Thier power so far, has relied upon blaming others for thier failures, particularly the U.S. Whilst quite obnoxious, what they really want is thier power, if they didn't have the option of blaming the U.S for everything, maybe their own conditions would improve? How can what amounts to a semi-retarded, un-educated clerical heirachy be educated on placating thier populations, when thier sole interests is little more than a caveman lust for the power to control a nation with an ideology means that for their failings they must find a scapegoat, because they simply are unnacountable and fundamentally incapable of making informed decisions about a state? Tuning into the news yesterday to hear "Any wise person that saw the death of that woman would conclude it was the protestors that killed her" IE. We told you not to protst, you protested, she got shot and killed, if you hadn't have protested, we wouldn't have shot her. Over a fundamentally corrupt election.

What will the collective tolerance now be towards Iran?

[JOHN CHUCKMAN]

Ahmadinejad won indeed and the real source of interference in iran’s election is like

June 27, 2009

AHMADINEJAD WON INDEED AND THE REAL SOURCE OF INTERFERENCE IN IRAN’S ELECTION IS LIKELY THE UNITED STATES

John Chuckman

A recent article called “Ahmadinejad Won, Get Over It” by Flynt and Hillary Leverett is not the only source with serious credentials offering reasonable, non-sensational explanations for events around Iran’s presidential election.

Kaveh Afrasiabi, a scholar who once taught at Tehran University and is the author of several books, says many of the same things.

Close analysis of the election results gives absolutely no objective basis for making charges of a rigged election. Mousavi’s expected win – expected, that is, by the Western press and by Mousavi himself - never had any basis in fact.

Afrasiabi also tells us that Ahmadinejad is extremely popular with the poor in Iran, a very large constituency, and he tells us further that Ahmadinejad spent a great deal of time traveling through the country during his first term listening to them. Ahmadinejad is himself a man of fairly humble origins with a good deal of genuine sympathy for the poor.

Of course, the public in the West has been treated to a barrage of propaganda about Ahmadinejad, conditioned by countless disingenuous stories and editorials to regard him as the essence of evil, ready to stir up trouble at a moment’s notice. These perceptions, too, have no basis in fact.

Ahmadinejad is a highly educated man, ready and willing to communicate with leaders in the West, although given to poking fun at some of the shibboleths we hold to. His office as president is not a powerful one in an Iran where power is divided amongst several groups, just as it is in the United States. He has no war-making power.

Even his infamous statement about Israel – mistranslated consistently to make it sound terrible – was nothing more than the same kind of statement made by the CIA in its secret study predicting the peaceful end of today’s Israel in twenty years or the statement by Libya’s leader, Gaddafi, saying Israel would be drowned in a sea of Arabs. Unpleasant undoubtedly for some, the statement was neither criminal nor threatening when properly understood.

The post-election troubles in Iran definitely reflect the interference of security services from at least the United States and Britain. We have several serious pieces of evidence.

First, Iran discovered and arrested just recently a group with sophisticated bomb equipment from Britain. They were caught red-handed, although our press has chosen to be pretty much silent on the matter. Of course, we all recall the arrest of a group of fifteen British sailors a couple of years ago, an event treated in our press as the snatching of innocents on the high seas when in fact they were on a secret mission in disputed waters claimed by Iran.

Robert Fisk recently wrote an excellent piece about photocopies of what purported to be a confidential official government report to the head of state, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, regarding the election results. It attributed a ridiculously small share of the vote to Ahmadinejad and was somehow being waved by Mousavi’s followers all over the streets. It seems clearly invented as a provocation, much in the fashion of the famous “yellow cake” document before America’s invasion of Iraq.

We know that Bush committed several hundred million dollars towards a program creating instability in Iran and that Obama has never renounced the operation.
Iran, surrounded by threatening enemies and the daily recipient of dire threats from Israel and the United States, has absolutely no history of aggression: it has started no conflicts in its entire modern era, but naturally enough it becomes concerned about its security when threatened by nuclear-armed states.

Such threats from the United States are not regarded idly by anyone, coming as they do, from a nation occupying two nations of Western and Central Asia, a nation whose invasions have caused upwards of a million deaths and sent at least two million into exile as refugees.

It is a nation moreover that definitely threatened, behind the scenes, to use nuclear weapons against Afghanistan immediately after 9/11, helping end that threat being one of the main reasons for Britain’s joining the pointless invasion in the first place.

In assessing the genuine threats in the world, please remember what we all too often forget: the United States is the only nation ever actually to use nuclear weapons, twice, on civilians. It also came close to using them again in the early 1950s hysteria over communism – twice, once against China and once in a pre-emptive strike at the Soviet Union - and again later considered using them in Vietnam.

As for the other regular source of threats against, Israel, it is a nation which has attacked every neighbor that it has at one time or another. In the last two years alone, it has killed more people in Lebanon and Gaza than the number who perished in 9/11. It is also a secret nuclear power, having broken every rule and international law to obtain and assist in proliferating nuclear weapons.

Of course, there are many middle class people in Iran who would like a change of government. Such yearnings are no secret and exist everywhere in the world where liberal government is missing, including millions of Americans under years of George Bush and his motivating demon, Dick Cheney.

But saying that is not the same thing as saying that a majority of Iran’s people want a change in government or that the election was a fraud.

And remember, too, Iran had a democratic government more than half a century ago, that of Mohammed Mosaddeq, but it was overthrown in 1953 and the bloody Shah installed in its place by the very same governments now meddling in Iran, the United States and Britain.

[Merlin]

I quoted this excerpt below in a link in post #363.

... But the council later announced the formation of a “special committee’’ to review the election process and invited Mousavi and another opposition candidate, Mehdi Karroubi, to send representatives to it. The council gave the two candidates 24 hours to name their representatives. It said 10 percent of the ballot boxes would be recounted in the presence of the committee, which would then issue a report about the election. ...

This below is about the reply to this invitation to the two opposition candidates.

Iran opposition rejects recount, demands probe

28 JUne [DW] Iran's opposition leaders have rejected a panel set up to conduct a partial recount of the country's disputed presidential poll and demanded instead an independent probe of the election outcome.

Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's strongest rivals in the June 12 vote, have insisted that the election be annulled, while demanding an independent probe into allegations of fraud.

Iran's ruling clergy have declared Ahmadinejad the winner and ruled out holding a new election.

The country's top electoral body, the Guardian Council, headed by Ahmed Jannati, has proposed a recount of ten percent of the ballots. Bildunterschrift: Großansicht des Bildes mit der Bildunterschrift: The opposition is up against a triumvirate of power
Mousavi said on Sunday that "the most suitable solution to restore public confidence" would be a nullification of the results and a new round of polling.

Karroubi has called for a panel to probe irregularities, saying "if an independent panel is set up by the Guardian Council with full responsibility to investigate all aspects of the election, I will welcome it and later nominate my representative." ...

[Officer of Engineers]

Ahmadinejad is a highly educated man, ready and willing to communicate with leaders in the West, although given to poking fun at some of the shibboleths we hold to. His office as president is not a powerful one in an Iran where power is divided amongst several groups, just as it is in the United States. He has no war-making power.

Even his infamous statement about Israel – mistranslated consistently to make it sound terrible – was nothing more than the same kind of statement made by the CIA in its secret study predicting the peaceful end of today’s Israel in twenty years or the statement by Libya’s leader, Gaddafi, saying Israel would be drowned in a sea of Arabs. Unpleasant undoubtedly for some, the statement was neither criminal nor threatening when properly understood.


...

Such threats from the United States are not regarded idly by anyone, coming as they do, from a nation occupying two nations of Western and Central Asia, a nation whose invasions have caused upwards of a million deaths and sent at least two million into exile as refugees.

It is a nation moreover that definitely threatened, behind the scenes, to use nuclear weapons against Afghanistan immediately after 9/11, helping end that threat being one of the main reasons for Britain’s joining the pointless invasion in the first place.

In assessing the genuine threats in the world, please remember what we all too often forget: the United States is the only nation ever actually to use nuclear weapons, twice, on civilians. It also came close to using them again in the early 1950s hysteria over communism – twice, once against China and once in a pre-emptive strike at the Soviet Union - and again later considered using them in Vietnam.

As for the other regular source of threats against, Israel, it is a nation which has attacked every neighbor that it has at one time or another. In the last two years alone, it has killed more people in Lebanon and Gaza than the number who perished in 9/11.

Hmmm yeah, sure, wow

HORSE PUCKEY!

[Traps]

8 British Embassy staff arrested

UK Fury at arrest of Embassy staff

On the 12th June 2009 during Iranian Presidential elections incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with what was claimed to be 63% of the vote. His challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi called for result to be annulled as a result of electoral fraud which was refused by the Supreme Leader and the Guardian Council.

Outraged by this denial as well as patent electoral irregularities Iranians took to the streets of Iran in their millions. Street protests resulted in 17 people being killed, foreign media being restricted, sportsmen having to retire, people being dragged from hospital beds by the police and a clampdown on opposition leaders.

What was clearly emerging however – despite Iranian best-efforts to prevent it leaking out – was that it was not only the people and opposition leaders who were outraged by what was going on but senior Iranian clergy as well. The country was clearly divided by what had transpired during this dubious election and the government was concerned about a possible counter-revolution.

As a result the Revolutionary Guard has been called out to crush any protestors and calls have been made by Ayatollas to execute certain opposition leaders.

In addition and in a clear attempt to deflect blame from the government of Iran the powers that be are blaming Britain, calling them evil, the BBC, Voice of America, the USA and even the CIA - who they suggest were responsible for the death of Neda the young Iranian woman who has proved to be a rallying point for the opposition - for causing the unrest.

This week a spokesman for the British Foreign Office has confirmed that Iranian authorities have been arresting anyone with a U.K connection. This has now extended to 8 staff members at the British Embassy in Tehran.

British Foreign Secretary David Milliband has called for their immediate release calling the arrests ‘quite unacceptable’

"This is harassment and intimidation of a kind that is quite unacceptable," he told reporters at an international conference in Corfu. "We want to see (them) released unharmed."

What is clear is that Iran is using traditional differences between Iran, the USA and the United Kingdom as a means to an end. This is to cover up the enormous divisions residing within their own society and clamp down hard on dissent while propagating that the unrest was occasioned by foreign interference rather than the real cause internal unhappiness.

With Iranians being shot, tortured, denied access to the media and refused their right to challenge what is clearly a dubious election result the United Nations might be compelled to intervene.

UK FURIOUS AS EMBASSY STAFF ARRESTED IN IRAN : RICHMARK SENTINEL

[Roosveltrepub]

Britain blasts arrest of embassy staffers in Iran - CNN.com
They have not really evolved since 79'. I'd say any chance they had at any kind of reproach with the west just went out the window. I will be surprised if their nuclear facilities aren't bombed with in the year regardless of the fact they situated them in densely populated areas for the civilian shielding.

[diablo49]

Would anyone happen to know if these people were taken from embassy soil or caught around the city? It is bad enough they arrested british government employees, if that was on embassy soil wouldn't that be tantamount to a declaration of war?

[Aryajet]

Chuckman

Of course Kaveh Afrasiabi will support the outcome of such a rigged election.
He is a big time Amajibijob supporter and may be under a payroll from office of the IRI prez. too.

Here is his reaction when was asked by Don Lemon if he supported Amadi-J:

LEMON: Hey, Mister. . .

AFRASIABI: And. . .

LEMON: Mr. Afrasiabi, I want to get. . .

AFRASIABI: Go ahead.

LEMON: ... a couple of things in here to make sure that we hear from you. Do you support the president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?

AFRASIABI: On balance, I do, and I think that he's done a tremendous job in terms of strengthening Iran. Iran today is a regional powerhouse with considerable international influence. He has defended Iran's nuclear right, and he has also made conciliatory gestures towards the United States and has offered to enter into dialogue.

"Kaveh Afrasiabi Interviewed by Don Lemon: Ahmadinejad Supporter Speaks"

[Aryajet]

Would anyone happen to know if these people were taken from embassy soil or caught around the city? It is bad enough they arrested british government employees, if that was on embassy soil wouldn't that be tantamount to a declaration of war?

They did this in 1979 and got away with it.
IMHO In the aftermath of 15 UK Seamen being detained illegally by Islamists in Iran, if UK has acted appropriately then they wouldn't be facing this dilemma.

[Skywatcher]

Perhaps the business with the UK diplomats is the result of power struggles among the leadership spilling over into foreign affairs? After all, if Khamenei really did have gotten control of the situation, the first thing that he would do is sight tight and consolidate by purging the opposition, not engaging in pointless adventures.