(2009-06-14) Iran Election Mess

Iran had its Presidential election on Jun12. Incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner. But most (all?) voting was done by paper ballot, and the announcement was made only a few hours after the polls closed, so it looks very suspicious, gamed by Supreme Leader AyatollahAli Khamenei. Challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi protested the results right away. Public protests started right away.

Censorship of both MSM and the Internet was used heavily. The Internet, of course, was harder to lock down, leaving CNN with the process of "reporting" what it was reading online. Twitter seems to have been particularly important.

Jul19 update: Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei spoke about the previous protests during his scheduled television appearance. In it he has blamed the European nations for having influence over the people and the election. He has also reiterated that the election was not rigged and that the results were fair and true and he would not give in to "illegal pressures". "Street challenge is not acceptable" (reported by the BBC). He instructed the protesters to pursue their complaints through legal channels while questioning "How can 11 million votes be replaced or changed?"

Jun20: a Statistics hint at fraud.

Jun23: Iran's most powerful oversight council announced on Monday that the number of votes recorded in 50 cities exceeded the number of eligible voters there by three million... it insisted that the overall vote was valid. At the same time, security forces stepped up their threats to treat protesters as criminals seeking to destabilize the country... How did the government manage to count enough of the 40 million paper ballots to be able to announce results within two hours of the polls closing? How is it that Mr. Ahmadinejad's margin of victory remained constant throughout the ballot count? Why did the government order polls closed at 10 p.m. when they often stay open until midnight for presidential races? Why were some ballot boxes sealed before candidates' inspectors could validate they were empty? Why were votes counted centrally, by the Interior Ministry, instead of locally, as in the past? Why did some polling places lock their doors at 6 p.m. after running out of ballots?

Jun29: by now the general belief is that nothing will change for now. But "it took 10 years of revolt to dump the Shah Of Iran", so nothing is settled permanently. (Hrm. Note that Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile 1964-1978. A variety of anti-Shah/West ideaologies arose while he was away. Was the Oil Boom-created Inflation and Income Inequality really the cause? Real demonstrations started Oct'1977.)