Ahmadinejad Wins Rigged Iranian Election

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The Iranian elections are over. For the most part they were quiet boring but then in the final weeks, things got very interesting.

We have never seen such a campaign in the 30 year history of the Iranian Islamic Republic. Usually elections are carefully choreographed from start to finish. The candidates are vetted and chosen by the powerful 12 member Guardian Council (which is not an elected body itself). There is a lot of the usual rhetoric in ads but no debates and at finally, at voting time, the majority of the public either stays at home or casts an empty protest vote.

This election however was different. In the final weeks, Tehran and other major cities took on a carnival feel with the youth using the pretense of campaigning for their chosen candidate to raise a little hell. They stayed up all night, played music, paraded through the streets showing off themselves and their banners on foot, on bikes and in cars.

This election had the first televised debate between the 4 carefully vetted candidates in the 30 year history of ‘Islamic democracy’. Everyone was expecting the usual soporific hour of national television but what they got instead was a total drag out, hard knuckle fight with many punches thrown below the belt.

Ahmadinejad crossed many socially unacceptable lines and named names. Iranian propaganda portrays the government as spotless. But Ahmjadinejad pointed out that his main opponent, Mousavi, was backed by Rafsanjani. He went on to accused his former rival of massive corruption. He dragged Rafsanjani’s sons into the fray saying that they have also amassed large fortunes by fraud. He dragged Mousavi’s wife into the debate by claiming that her academic degrees are meaningless. He accused his opponents of belonging to a cabal that wants to stop him because they want to be in power and steal from the national coffers.

Things got so heated that Rafsanjani, a very powerful power broker now operating mostly from the periphery, wrote a sternly worded letter of protest to Khamenei (the Supreme Leader) asking for his intervention.

If you were watching the final days with your friends through the Western media, you got the sense that some real change was afoot. There were raucous groups of youth wrapped in green ribbons (the color of Mousavi’s campaign – he is a Siyyid) chanting “Ahmadi-Bye-Bye”. You also discovered which of your friends is gullible.

What those expecting change missed is that northern Tehran is not the whole country. Ahmadinejad had toured through all of Iran handing out cold hard cash to poor families throughout his years as president. The rural vote in Iran always trumps the urban elite.

Oh and there’s another little thing that guaranteed Ahmadinejad would continue the two terms streak all previous presidents have enjoyed: the vote was rigged.

Using the official results released from the Iranian Interior Ministry, Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic shows just how a bald faced a lie the results are:

Official Iranian Election Results

Since Iran is a diverse nation, the normal pattern of votes would have the results sway back and forth as regional results came in. Especially considering that the four candidates came from different part of the country. Mousavi, an Azari (who speaks Turkish fluently and has a clumsy grasp of Farsi), was a clear home town favourite in Azerbaijan (25% of the Iranian population are Azaris). There are no reliable statistics (the Interior Ministry said 85%) but there is much anecdotal evidence that this election had an extremely high voter turnout.

But the ‘official’ results would have us believe that Ahmadinejad beat Mousavi with the same 2-1 margin everywhere, including his opponent’s home province! and maintained this margin at each interval of vote counting!

All Iranian election results have been suspect but this latest farce is so transparent that it demonstrates just how comfortable the clerical ruling class has become. They do not even attempt to hide their control of the election. They have totally thrown off any previous dedication to the appearance of legitimacy. As you might expect, there are some who are protesting the results but expect the Revolutionary Guards (who were already put on high alert) to ruthless crush any uprisings as they have in the past.

You can see more pictures and videos of the unrest here.

If it wasn’t before, it is all too evident now that all Iranians are now prisoners in a totalitarian state. As I’ve said many times before, it is my ardent wish that fellow Baha’is in Iran realize the danger that they especially are in and leave so that they and their children can enjoy civilization.

There is a burst of activity in MSM, blogs (sites like youtube, facebook, etc. are blocked) but foreign journalists are stopped and their equipment confiscated.

Breaking news and analysis will be added to the bottom of this list to keep you updated:

Related posts:

  1. Arrested Iranian Baha’is Face Islamic Court
  2. Iranian Baha’is letter to IRI
  3. Ahmadinejad Asked About Baha’is In Iran
  4. Persecution of Iranian Baha’is Linked to Hojatieh
  5. Video Contest for Iranian Baha’i Rights

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  • fubar

    Craig,

    Thanks again for the most excellent observations.

    When you say “Karma is a bitch”, I'm assuming that you mean that the way that western culture exhibits arrogance and hubris to the rest of the world is an unenlightened response to some fairly random historical circumstances (e.g., as explained by Jared Diamond) that allowed western culture to develop economic, scientific and military dominance?

    And that such arrogance breeds decadence, complacency, weakness and a blindness to rapidly emerging competitive threats and new paradigms?

  • fubar

    Perhaps, but without REAL data (which of course the Iranian govt will not release), I still smell something potentially fishy.

    It is completely understandable that the supporters of the opposition desperaetly need the actual election results to factually support the corruption of the current powers.

    In a perfect universe, the reformost/progressive forces in Iran would always be right.

    Unfortunately it may not be easy to “prove” such.

    For instance, perhaps the dominant faction of mullas saw that they would “only” win by 51%, and stupidly decided to skew the electoral results more strongly in their favor in hopes of putting the ordeal behind them?

    Everyone here has an understandable bias of wanting reforms and progress. A realistic view may be that Iranian culture has not yet reached the “tipping point”. In which case, forcing reforms and progress could actually backfire, which unfortunately has happened over and over in these kinds of circumstances.

    As Ken Wilber (and many others) have explained, “Revolution” means that power is simply “revolved” to another set of players on the same circular/paradigmatic level.

    This is NOT the same thing as the evolutionary, upward movement of a society to a new paradigmatic level, where the “felt requirements” of the highest state of culture are legally protected against the formces of paradigm regression.

    It is one thing to have a “revolution” in the power arrangements in Iran, but another for any “new players” to really embrace the high risk move to open democracy. There is a lot of entrenched, reactionary backwardness that has to be “healed”, and an unskilled set of revolutionary leaders could create a lot of instability if they gained power. This is presumably a legitimate fear that many people will have, and unless it is addressed, there night be more hesitancy than would otherwise be expected.

    What would a reform government in Iran do to appease native fears of western imperialism and “godlessness” while not falling back into old, bad habits that over ineptitude and corruption with demonization of westerners?

    Integral theory offers the necessary tools (subcomponent memes), but is there anyone in Iranian leadership that could use them? Are they even ready to move to the kind of postmodernism that Obama offers?

  • Craig Parke

    It appears “Karma is a bitch” is the highest spiritual insight attainable at the current sorry functioning level of the planet. My country, the U.S. has certainly been the poster child as much as anyone else in world history. Everyone I know saw 9/11 coming (I even wrote a local letter to the editor to that effect in December 1999) but apparently no one in the U.S. government did. I was at a national meeting of an anti-war veterans group I belong to in August 2001. One guy had just copme back from Europe. He got up and said “You guys don't understand. Americans are living in a bubble. Americans are sound asleep. Something terrible is going to happen. The chatter is on the street everywhere else in the world.”

    This is always true of everyone, everywhere. What is going to happen next in life is always as clear as the noon day sun if you just think about it. what is going to happen next in Iran is very clear. What is going to happen next in the Baha'i Faith is very clear. It is all archetypal judgment. All you have to do is read lots of C.G. Jung, the history and literature of the world, and Marvel Comics. The main thing in life right now is to study the big plays of the Pittsburgh Steelers over the years. That will tell you plenty about what is going to happen next. But neither the clueless in Iran or the clueless in other circles will ever understand the omens.

    Move to the ball.

  • fubar

    well, if the iranian mullas think that capitalism is “godless”, then one part of the solution would be to have “spiritual capitalism”.

    Some hints that the idea of “spiritual capitalism” may be something fairly simpatico to some religious minorities in the USA, and that the ameican religious mainstream is capable of absorbing “occult” elements:

    A Republic of Mind and Spirit:
    A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion
    by Catherine L. Albanese
    Yale University Press, 640 pages

    “If one is looking for a fascinating tour of the many sideshows of the carnival that is religion in America, Catherine L. Albanese is the guide you want. She is head of religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has a big new book from Yale University Press, A Republic of Mind and Spirit: A Cultural History of American Metaphysical Religion. She would not be happy, however, to be described as a tour guide of religious sideshows, never mind freak shows. She intends to propose a very different way of understanding American religious history as a whole.”

    also:

    http://books.google.com/books?id=fzSP6BRFBzIC&dq

    “Jeffrey Kripal here recounts the spectacular history of Esalen, the institute that has long been a world leader in alternative and experiential education and stands today at the center of the human potential movement. Forged in the literary and mythical leanings of the Beat Generation, inspired in the lecture halls of Stanford by radical scholars of comparative religion, the institute was the remarkable brainchild of Michael Murphy and Richard Price. Set against the heady backdrop of California during the revolutionary 1960s, Esalen recounts in fascinating detail how these two maverick thinkers sought to fuse the spiritual revelations of the East with the scientific revolutions of the West, or to combine the very best elements of Zen Buddhism, Western psychology, and Indian yoga into a decidedly utopian vision that rejected the dogmas of conventional religion. In their religion of no religion, the natural world was just as crucial as the spiritual one, science and faith not only commingled but became staunch allies, and the enlightenment of the body could lead to the full realization of our development as human beings.”

  • Craig Parke

    Fubar,

    Thanks for the above excellent links! I will look into getting both books. I tell you the combination of these two below books on many very interesting levels is going to be the next big meme dynamic across many populations and strata of society in the world.

    http://www.cosmosandpsyche.com/

    http://lifeincorporated.net/

    The people that understand how the analysis in these two books work together are already living in the future. Combine these insights with Weber's meme dynamics and thinkers will now be right up there with the high octane Iranian women who are now cutting edge in what is going to happen next in the world.

    As I said, as far as Divine Geometry goes, this is where it is all going to go now to people of Cosmic insight.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xMDIcsUMmA

    Get ready. It is all going to be a very interesting. And, of course, all in Internet time.

  • Baquia

    A very ingenious new tactic will be used by the protesters in Iran, see link re bazaar (marketplace).

  • Baquia

    “perhaps the dominant faction of mullas saw that they would “only” win by 51%, and stupidly decided to skew the electoral results more strongly in their favor in hopes of putting the ordeal behind them?”

    I suspect this was it. The clue for me was in Khamenei's sermon last Friday where he said that there may have been some irregularities but a majority of such magnitude by its very size proves that it could not have been manufactured. If you're going to lie, the one rule is to make it BIG. We will most probably never prove that the election was rigged but there is enough evidence to give a rational person reasonable doubt.

  • Craig Parke

    When you speak for Allah as the Supreme Leader does, you can count 40 million votes in 2 hours. You have Divine Powers. You command time and space. You can bend forks with your mind power too.

    Yeah. That's the ticket.

    Same when you are factually infallible on everything too. You don't have to research anything or learn how to communicate with people or prudence or any skill at all in implementing your ideas and decisions. You are factually infallible. All you need is an infallibility certificate in writing somewhere and a Magic Eight Ball and you are good to go. No fuss and no muss. Just use the Magic Eight Ball and break for lunch. It's as simple as that. Nice and tidy.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8-Ball

    But mine is telling me that Iran is in deep deep recently created biological matter and other organizations too. That is what my Magic Eight Ball is saying.

    And mine can count votes too and declare the winners of elections centuries in advance.

  • Craig Parke

    When you speak for Allah as the Supreme Leader does, you can count 40 million votes in 2 hours. You have Divine Powers. You command time and space. You can bend forks with your mind power too.

    Yeah. That's the ticket.

    Same when you are factually infallible on everything too. You don't have to research anything or learn how to communicate with people or prudence or any skill at all in implementing your ideas and decisions. You are factually infallible. All you need is an infallibility certificate in writing somewhere and a Magic Eight Ball and you are good to go. No fuss and no muss. Just use the Magic Eight Ball and break for lunch. It's as simple as that. Nice and tidy.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8-Ball

    But mine is telling me that Iran is in deep deep recently created biological matter and other organizations too. That is what my Magic Eight Ball is saying.

    And mine can count votes too and declare the winners of elections centuries in advance.

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