By Saturday morning, the most often repeated exclamation in Tehran was: “It’s not possible!”…
A group of young men said they had talked to their families in the provinces, including Kurdish Kermanshah, Azeri Oroumiyeh and Ardeblil. Mohsen, 23, said, “Everyone in Tabriz [Mousavi's hometown] voted for Mousavi. The official count says a majority for Ahmadinejad. That’s not possible.” Mehdi, 27, chimed in, “Even if just Karroubi’s family in Lorestan had voted for him, he would have won more than 300,000 votes.”
More serious allegations came from officials involved in the various reformist candidates’ campaigns. Mohammad-Ali Abtahi, part of opposition figure Mehdi Karroubi’s campaign, pointed out that the government “announced a wholesale figure of 70% for Ahmadinejad last night, as opposed to breaking it down province by province as they usually do.” The first figures were announced shortly after voting closed, he added. A breakdown of how people in each city and province voted has not been released yet.
At the Mousavi headquarters, former Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour protested that Mousavi observers had not gained access to many of the polling centers. He also said that in Tabriz, Mousavi’s birthplace, many of the polling stations had run out of ballots only two hours after opening, even though about 59 million ballots had been printed by the government, about 13 million more than the number of eligible voters.
Two interesting points on Iranian election:
1. After election results were announced, the election committee must wait for three days to accept any grievances for any irregularity before certify the results.
2. The results of election needs to be certified by the Council of Experts before it goes to the Leader for final approval
Today neither of these two rules were followed and the Leader in his speech approved the results of the election and asked all parties involved to work with Ahmadinejad.
And the post above me, that's an assload who didn't vote for ahmy, and an assload who did vote for Mousavi.
I find it funny all the people who were drawing comparisons to Bush's second term and the non election of ahmadinejad. You really can't take things at face value.
Also there are reports of the city of Tehran power being cut, may be hearsay. Police are scouring the city looking for satellites, and other forms of communication to stomp out. Right now news is being issued from Sports journalists but they are sure to be clamped down upon sooner or later.
Up to 100 members of major Iranian reformist groups have been arrested, accused of orchestrating violence after the disputed presidential election.
Backers of defeated reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi were rounded up overnight, reports said, including the brother of ex-President Khatami.
Mr Mousavi's whereabouts are unknown but he is thought remain free.
Crowds took to the streets of Tehran on Saturday to protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.
Because it is breaking the original here will not have much info - but I wonder how much further the protests will go without leaders. Also I'm counting down till the Iran's higher ups blame western media/CIA for the protests.
Reports are that 3 are confirmed dead, no idea who. But with the other reports of 50 -100 dead I don't know if this is additional deaths from violent protests with Police.
EDIT: Update #1
Iran Analyst: Reformers "Widely Assumed" To Be Planning To Depose Ayatollah Khamenei...
Also, Ahmadinejad is planning on a Sunday "Victory Rally".
Less than 24 hours later, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamene`i publicly announced his congratulations to the winner, apparently confirming that the process was complete and irrevocable, contrary to constitutional requirements
Shortly thereafter, all mobile phones, Facebook, and other social networks were blocked, as well as major foreign news sources.
I honestly can't say I understand much about politics in Iran or revolts in general, but it seems to me if your going to try to have a coup. Why are they not going after the leaders of the opposing party? I understand they seem to be mostly young adults, but even 20 something have to understand a peaceful protest won't accomplish much. I mean that's the whole reason your out there after all. Your government does not care what you think. Any protest is better then none, but it seems very ineffective the way they are going about it.
If lets say Bush was like " nah fuck you all I'm not leaving, and I'm still president". I don't think I would walk around D.C protesting any old place. You go after the people in power and the symbols of power. I understand its easier said then done but fuck . Why are they taking over police stations ? If your going to go that far there must be a Iranian equivalent of the white house or congress you can take. Seems this green party needs to organize there Resistance a little better
This seems very very unlikely. Nothing of this difference could have been overturned, the difference would be simply too big to try and fraud it by any means. It's that 85% of the people did not vote for Ahmadi-nejad, that's simply too much and even to fraud it, it would take an enormous mobilization of way too many people who should work for Ahmadi-nejad. Beside, if that difference would be any near real then we're going to see over 50% of iranians going on the street against the goverment, which will lastly quit.
Also, damn that's one high turnout rate.
Can someone who knows iran and their system better explain me what do Ayatollah have to do in this story? Are they involved in politics or? I always thought of them like religious leaders.
Etherone wrote: some of you forgot Martin Luther King, and that peaceful protest can go a long way, although a much harder road to walk, it is a more righteous one, and one with less blood.
Yes, MLK's way is great, now all we need is someone willing to sacrifice himself and become a martyr. That's been the issue all along, the muslim world doesn't use martyrdom enough.
MamiyaOtaru wrote: That's democracy for you. The winner is the one with the most supporters, not the one whose supporters are more vocal, or university educated, or better connected with the West or whatever the case may be.
QFT, and that's why democracy is as retarded as monarchy, tyranny, dictatorship, republic and most other rules of government.
Nope, I'm serious, I hate democracy.
sith wrote: No kidding. I'm calling bullshit on the boycott of this thread based on that quote. It isn't even something fox news said, it's something THEY got from the government. And they really aren't THAT bad, despite how the internet hates them.
And THAT's where I stopped reading anything YOU write. ^^
The thing that has been circled, and what you should pay attention to, is the vote of the third party candidate Rezai.
That screenshot clearly shows that the vote for Rezai actually went backwards as the count was coming in, from 633048 votes to 587913 votes. Very strange indeed.
Now before we jump to conclusions, this isn't necessarily conclusive proof of fraud, but it is certainly an irregularity in the television coverage. While I have seen states in US elections and also electorates down here in Australia called too early for one candidate or the other, I have never seen a candidate's vote go DOWN in either case, except in the case of a recount. And you'd be hard pressed to see a vote go backwards like that.
Clearly, we have a few possibilities here. The first is that someone miscounted Rezai's votes when they were inputting it into the television. Which is certainly possible.
The other option is a bit more sinister - they were just making the numbers up, and someone was silly enough to make them up the wrong way.
For my friend's part, they think that the election was rigged, because none of the major candidates even won their own districts, which seems incredibly odd to any rational person.
Also apparently the Ayatollah's own daughter is under house arrest.
Stealth, all your information is coming from totally biased conservative american sources (aka Huffington post).. Even CNN's coverage is just not right. For example let me quote you something from a news on CNN:
"When the ballots were counted, the government declared Ahmadinejad the winner -- with 62.63 percent of the vote. Moussavi, the man many analysts had expected to win, received 33.75 percent." .
Sorry but that's just not right. These people at CNN only started covering the election about 1-2 weeks prior. They only stayed in major cities like Tehran, and even then, they were only in the Northern part of Tehran. Nobody with much of a brain thought Moussavi was going to win. Maybe it would be a close election, but there was little chance for him to win. In 10 presidential elections in Iran, the incumbent has NEVER lost. The odds were so far against Moussavi, the fact that he was able to get 12 MILLION votes is pretty amazing, and speaks to his ability to campaign.
Ahmadinejad enjoyed the advantages of an incumbent. He spent many months traveling throughout Iran, going to almost every province and city. He handed out bread and money to the poor people in the cities, he appeals to them, and they believe he represents a strong image of Iran that they aspire to.
Moussavi's support comes mainly from the North of Tehran (aka the upper/middle class educated and wealthy area). All of southern Tehran which is mostly poor is wildly supportive of Ahmadinejad. I have family throughout Iran; Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, Urumieh, etc. Most people support Ahmadinejad.
If we have people like Stealth, who arguably don't know anything about Iran or Iranian politics, posting one-sided and biased little clips of information it's going to skew everyone's opinions. Funny how nobody on TL cared at all about this until the day of the election. I've literally been following the campaign for a year. I wrote my thesis on Iran, I've read at least 60 books about contemporary Iran and politics, and I've been talking to a lot of my family there. Unless you know a lot of the facts and can see both sides then you should reserve your judgement.
Now again. I think that people are going too far talking about election rigging. It's hard to rig 12 million votes (I believe the numbers were something like ~24 million for Ahmadinejad and ~12 million for Moussavi). What I think people should take from this is that Moussavi was able to actually get 12 million votes. This actually sounds pretty accurate. Here's why:
1) The number of votes for Karroubi and Rezai (both got between 300-600k) seem pretty fair. Historically, incumbents have always done really well in elections, especially since Iranian politics doesn't see the same kind of campaigning as in the United States so incumbents have even MORE of an advantage than here.
2) Moussavi likely would have gotten a similar amount of votes as the other two if it wasn't for his campaigning.
3) Ahmadinejad probably would have gotten 85%+ of the vote if it wasn't for the amazing campaign of Moussavi.
4) Moussavi getting 12 million votes is really something to be proud of.
But really, what do people expect? Incumbent's have never lost in Iran. Despite what many believe, Ahmadinejad is wildly popular, not only in Iran but throughout the Middle East as well (among people).
On June 15 2009 02:19 Xeris wrote: Stealth, all your information is coming from totally biased conservative american sources (aka Huffington post).. Even CNN's coverage is just not right. For example let me quote you something from a news on CNN:
"When the ballots were counted, the government declared Ahmadinejad the winner -- with 62.63 percent of the vote. Moussavi, the man many analysts had expected to win, received 33.75 percent." .
Sorry but that's just not right. These people at CNN only started covering the election about 1-2 weeks prior. They only stayed in major cities like Tehran, and even then, they were only in the Northern part of Tehran. Nobody with much of a brain thought Moussavi was going to win. Maybe it would be a close election, but there was little chance for him to win. In 10 presidential elections in Iran, the incumbent has NEVER lost. The odds were so far against Moussavi, the fact that he was able to get 12 MILLION votes is pretty amazing, and speaks to his ability to campaign.
For the record, Huffington Post is probably the most liberal American news source to date, right up there with the DailyKoS. That being said, there are people who have been following for far longer. There is something strange when votes start to go backwards though. It is fishy how they rushed to get the results out when in the past they've waited before certification.
6. The Electoral Commission is supposed to wait three days before certifying the results of the election, at which point they are to inform Khamenei of the results, and he signs off on the process. The three-day delay is intended to allow charges of irregularities to be adjudicated. In this case, Khamenei immediately approved the alleged results.
Well not all the links/sources are from Huffington post. Some are from Twitter, YouTube, BBC, Al Jazeera, and so forth. I think most of the unrest comes from the actual numbers and so forth, as well as the violent crackdown that started almost as soon as the polls closed.
Robert Fisk, a journalist with the UK's Independent newspaper, told Al Jazeera that Ahmadinejad was repeating the point that the high turnout proved that he was in the majority.
"But many of the people that did vote believe that the vote was switched," he said.
"So it was not the turnout that proved that Ahmadinejad is a popular president. It is what the figures actually were. And that of course is what is still being disputed.
Fisk said one Mousavi supporter had pointed out to him that "if the figures were being counted properly on Friday night, five million votes would have had to have been counted in two hours".
Winning the popular vote etc. is one thing it's whole different story when Cell Phones, Power, and media outlets are cut off. And the foreign press is told they should be prepared to leave the country, as well as the mass arrest of opposition officials.
EPT![[image loading]](http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/144/iranianprotestelectionr.jpg)
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