A Few Thoughts on Iran's Rigged Election

By Alexander Le

With the current chaotic situation in Iran, which has sparked by just recent past troubled election, there are more at stake than what are being presented to the world and the country of Iran itself.

Rigged-election is the reason for turmoil and bloody protests, but that is only on the surface. Democracy and the deep hatred for the current regime are the perceptible reasons, and they are lurking beneath this transparent surface with potential explosive pressure and consequence.

Elections are not stranger to unfairness (intended on not) and with errors (planned or otherwise). Not to elaborate on such obvious causes and effects, we can all contemplate and reflect at our own “hanging-chad-election” in 2000, between Bush and Al Gore. Besides the “hang chads” problem, there were other unusual circumstances that were being questioned repeatedly by election officials, both candidates’ parties, and other government officials as well the press, at the time. The election was with a result that President Bush narrowly won with 271 electoral votes to Vice-President Gore’s 226, with the burden and controversial of Florida’s 25 electoral votes, which had to be recounted and awarded to President Bush. To add more suspicions and controversies into the mix, it’s an unusual victory with the winner obtained less popular votes than the loser (Bush @ 47.9% with 50,406,002 vs. Gore @ 48.4% with 50,999,879).

This goes to show… elections are never perfect and rarely conform to plans or expectations. Iranian elections are of no exception to this rule. The official reported 11 million votes in difference between the top two candidates, which is a hard to believe result that can be questioned and should be so, as we have seen through out last week. Not because this is a record landslide in Iran’s election history, but rather the impossibility of aggregate circumstances for its occurrence and end results (which has been announced and supported by the government authority). To arrive at this questionable outcome, perfect circumstances have to be realized and various factors need to be in place, as follows:

1. With a claim of all 30 provinces in Iran overwhelmingly voted for the incumbent, President Ahmadinejad, a record of being the president with most votes in Iran’s election history; he, in effect, won all votes of all social and age categories. A record of 62% of the vote claimed by Ahmadinejad is just simply not credible. Even his three closest rival candidates, who are all dignitaries of the regime, lost at their own hometowns. A feast that is practically unheard of in Iran.

2. There is a question of “time” by Time magazine, i.e. the speed of which Ahmadinejad was pronounced the winner, which is less than a day. Iran has no voting machine and instead utilizing paper ballots, by which the method of counting would be by hand. And, with a record turnout at the polls, it’s apparent that it would be impossible to announce a definitive result so soon after the polls closed. The Interior Ministry “is supposed to wait three days after voting before it certifies the result to allow time for disputes to be examine”, Time said.

3. Although, Ahmadinejad is with strong support among the poor, particularly in rural areas, could have made him the top vote getter among the rivals, it’s very unlikely that he could have captured an outright majority to avoid a second-round election between the top two candidates.

4. Question of odd irregularities such as: why candidates were not allowed to have representation at polling stations, or even supervision of counting of the ballots at the polling places? Why the Minister of the Interior announced that he would oversee the final count in his office, at the ministry, with only two aides present?

5. To publicly present a clear and fair result in such elections, usually each district announced their own results at the end so that local people could follow up and make judgment on the validity of the figures, as have done so in previous elections. An example can be cited here is in the 2005 election, there was one district with about 100,000 eligible voters, and the end result was announced with a total vote of 150,000. This time around, there was no information released on each particular district.

6. Around the country, there were about 45,000 polling places, with approximately 14,000 mobile ones - which can be moved from place to place. The purpose for these mobile polling places was to be used in hospitals and so on. However, during this election, they were used in armed forces locations such as police stations, army bases, and various military compounds. At these locations, even with only 500 extra votes per box, seven million votes can be illegally added.

7. As Middle East expert Juan Cole wrote: “It is claimed that cleric Mehdi Karroubi, the other reformist candidate, received 320,000 votes, and that he did poorly in Iran’s western provinces, even losing in Luristan. He is a Lur and is popular in the west, including in Kurdistan. Karroubi received 17 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in 2005. While it is possible that his support has substantially declined since then, it is hard to believe that he would get less than 1 percent of the vote.”

8. The question is then: Why would Ahmadinejad and Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei risk such an obvious and crude manipulation of the voting results? A logical answer would be to avoid a second-round runoff election against Mousavi, which is not in their favor to do so. During the last days before the June 12 election, Mousavi’s backers mobilized demonstrations of hundreds of thousands, not just in the capital city of Tehran, but in provincial cities as well. Ahmadinejad likely feared that even bigger protests would unfold in a second round, Mousavi would be victorious. The calculated move was that it would be more advantageous to declare a first-round victory and completely shut down any further challenge. And, in trying to restore order over civil unrest, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly endorsed the election results with further backing of Ahmadinejad, and it has backfired with more calamities and loss of civilian lives.

9. Out of the population of 72 million, a total of 46 million eligible voters, and some 40 million voted in this election (an upward of 80%). A significant segment of them are against the draconian doctrine and policies of the Islamic republic, the economic hardships (double-digit inflation and endemic unemployment) of Ahmadinejad's domestic policies, and his belligerent positions on a range of issues, from the inanities of his denial of the Holocaust to his vacuous and flamboyant positions on a number of regional issues.

The country is in an uproar for inevitable changes. Will the demand of the people be forceful enough for a real change within this regime during this difficult period, or will it be just another Tienanmen Square we saw two decades earlier?


Sources:
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2000
2. http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=30683&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0615
3. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=105394802
4. http://www.newsocialist.org/index.php?id=1891