Iran

I don't really have much to say about this. Sometime this weekend, there was an election going on in Iran. There were two major candidates: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi. Ahmadinejad is the former president running for re-election. He is a social conservative who believes in Islamic ideals and customs. Mousavi is a reformist candidate who campaigned for greater freedom among Iranian youths. Mousavi was quite popular with young people, especially in Tehran. Ahmadinejad is more popular in rural and poor areas.

Some time before the election, both candidates said they had won the election. During that time, all phone, text, Facebook, and other communications were disabled nationwide. Police built up near the Ministry of Interior.

The results came in: 66% for Ahmadinejad, 33% for Mousavi. Ahmadinejad won the popular vote in every area of Iran, including the urban areas of Tehran. Mousavi later claims the election was a fraud, and that he had won. He was placed on house arrest later this weekend.

You can read more about this through Twitter: http://iran.twazzup.com/
Also, Reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/8sbor/twitterers_posting_from_inside_iran
The results are on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_presidential_election,_2009#Results

I ask you: who do you think won the election? Was this a fraud, or is Ahmadinejad the clear winner? Is there any other reasonable doubt, or should the people of Iran back the victor? Please discuss.

If my crash course in Iranian politics is anything to go by, there is no way Ahmadinejad could have won such a homogeneous victory. He supposedly got 57% of the vote in Mousavi's base - something, I hear, roughly comparable to Bush winning San Francisco by the same margin (for the record, Bush lost San Fran 80 - 20. Twice.)

That said, I am not very well acquainted with the situation, so everything I say is based off what I have read and my knowledge of politics in other countries.

For a sitting President to win by millions more votes than even the highest predictions predicted him is a patent sign of a crooked election, if not an election outright rigged, and to anyone who does not actively campaign for President Ahmadinejad the results, next to the predictions, look weird at a glance. But I have a question I can't answer that makes me think the elections might after all have been fair. The question is why somebody with the shrewdness to rig an election would give so many needless votes to himself as to look grossly suspicious and the results look untrue.

The question is why somebody with the shrewdness to rig an election would give so many needless votes to himself as to look grossly suspicious and make the results look wrong.

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Because the election was only rigged at the last minute. See here.

I'm 99.99% sure the election was a fraud.

The situation is getting pretty intense; 7 people have been confirmed dead so far as a result of the protests. Unfortunately the foreign media has been banned from reporting there, so it's hard to know exactly what's going on.

On one side it'd be pretty cool if this brought about another revolution and they made those shitbag fundamentalists step down. The horrible side would of course be the inevitably huge deathtoll.
I mean a lot of Iranians even go so far as to say life was better with the Shah in power, and that's saying something.

I agree with Vlad

and my opinion when i first heard of the results is the same as many others here, there is no way u win by that much in an election, especially if u always risk war with the States. Its just unheard of in these modern times, obama didnt even win by that much!!!! And if he didnt really fix the elections, he wouldnt have put the other guy on house arrest and give orders to shoot peaceful protesters.

Vladimir Putin's LJ said:

On one side it'd be pretty cool if this brought about another revolution and they made those shitbag fundamentalists step down.

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Totally. That's what I'm hoping for.

I don't want the deaths of the people that have died so far to have been for nothing. Let us at least see some positive change.

Right now the president is on the top of my Hate List. He said some very disturbing things about the United States in Russia, and didn't even mention the election!! I refuse to say his name, that kopoyu... (If you have signatures turned off, "kopoyu" is a made-up word that means "dishonorable idiotic jerk".)

It's very probably a fixed election. Not that that's anything really new.

Wow, the Iranian people are going against the wishes of their supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and will be continuing the protests.
That's ballsy as all hell.

I really hope there's a revolution in Iran during which the Ayatollah is forced out and decapitated. That'd be aces. I could watch it on TV. <3

(also it'd fix many problems with Iran)

I wouldn't say "die". Just a way to keep him from talking or communicating with anyone. Ever.

Well he wouldn't be able to talk to anyone if he were dead.

Just sayin'.

We interrupt this talk about murder to bring a quick update to those who don't read the news: Iran sent out the big boys with the shields and the tear gas and the guns and oh god it's going to be a fuking rampage.

Still glad America's kept its fat head out of their business.

Aw shit.

Yeah, I seriously doubt someone who won legitimately would act so insecure when he's questioned.