Tehran Police attack civilian
As the minutes go by, the world is learning more and more how an event that was believed to mean so little could actually portend a sea change in a volatile region of the world. The 2009 Iranian Presidential election will already go down in history even if the violence were to end right here and now today. At the rate things are going, however, this seems to be anything but the case.
What was believed to be nothing more than a sham election a few weeks ago by most sources turned out to be every single bit of the sham that was predicted but it had an unusual side effect: a seemingly spontaneous blossoming of anti-establishment feelings and outright anger at the government of the Ayatollahs that have been in place since the Islamic revolution of 1979.In the weeks leading up to the election, independent polls showed the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, with a decisive lead while government-sponsored polls showed incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a similar unstoppable lead. Averaging out the polls taken in June leading to the election showed a potential breakdown of Mousavi 43% and Ahmadinejad with 38%. Still, with polling varying so wildly, these numbers were next to useless.
A true example of uselessness would be seen Friday night in Iran, though, as “official” vote totals were reported by Iranian state media. Those numbers stack up as the following:
| Official Iranian Election Results | ||
| Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | 24,527,516 | 62.63% |
| Mir-Hossein Mousavi | 13,216,411 | 33.75% |
| Mohsen Rezaee | 678,240 | 1.73% |
| Mehdi Karroubi | 333,635 | 0.85% |
Almost immediately after these results were announced, thousands of people took to the streets in Tehran, protesting what they considered a sham. Hours before, before the official results were given from the state, Mr. Mousavi already declared victory – shortly followed by Ahmadinejad. Late in the day Sunday (local time), “actual” results were leaked from sources within the Iranian government. With violent protests entering their second day, if these totals are anywhere near the truth, one can see why so many are so angry:
| Unofficial Iranian Election Results | ||
| Mir-Hossein Mousavi | 19,075,623 | 45.39% |
| Mehdi Karroubi | 13,387,104 | 31.85% |
| Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | 5,698,417 | 13.56% |
| Mohsen Rezaee | 3,754,218 | 8.93% |
The pace at which results came in didn't help calm fears of fraud.
There’s a difference between a simple “stealing” of an election and daring in so many words anyone who stands against you to call you on such bullshit – which is exactly what whomever attempted to fix this election did. I’m assuming those who did fix the election couldn’t have thought of what would follow.
Now to be absolutely fair, the idea that this was a free and fair election in the first place is in of itself a complete sham: the election was run with an approved list of candidates with many who are even more open to opposition of the ruling class completely shut out of the process. This did not stop the electorate from turning out in droves however to send a clear message to the status-quo that they were ready for some serious change. Elections in Iran typically don’t garner an extreme amount of attention even among the citizens of the country, but this time around turnout hovered near the 85% mark – which would be a record for post-1979 Iran. Normal turnout is usually closer to 50%, and normal elections usually rubberstamp whomever is already in charge. If Mr. Mousavi were to have won, it would have been the first time in post-1979 Iran that an incumbent President were voted out of office by the people. Obviously those in power wanted nothing to do with democracy when it so happened to work against them.
The weekend has brought spasm after spasm of violence which punctuates attempts at peaceful protests and demonstrations against the election result. International media has been largely ejected from the country or has had their ability of reporting on what is going on outside of restricted zones severely curtailed. This has led to the world of blogs and twittering to explode with information on a near real-time basis. Youtube has also brought us a great amount of video that would have not otherwise been seen as no reporters were anywhere to be found. The upside to this is that even though Iran is making every effort to keep a lid on the story, the story is getting out there, and the world is taking notice – if only a little slow due to no one thinking much of anything would actually come of this election.
Exactly how violent the repression will become from the Iranian government remains to be seen, though there have already been reports circulating of battles on university campuses and hospitals being blocked by troops and/or riot police, preventing people that are injured in the riots and protests (or happen to be standing in the general area) from seeking any sort of medical care – a truly inhumane act.
Protesters surround a riot policeman
So how will the world react? As much as I despise breaking this down to simple terms of money and oil, it is quite understandable that countries that do the most business with iran will be the slowest to critique what is going on there, or even just roll over and accept the farce result as if it was a real occurrence. So one merely has to look who is buying Iran’s oil for an answer to that question. The results?
| Top Iran Oil Exports (2007) | |
| Japan | 190,895,000 bbl |
| China | 150,015,000 |
| India | 136,510,000 |
| South Korea | 94,170,000 |
| Italy | 71,905,000 |
| France | 47,815,000 |
| South Africa | 46,720,000 |
| Greece | 41,245,000 |
| Netherlands | 33,945,000 |
| Spain | 28,835,000 |
The highlighted countries in blue are European Union countries – listed separately but taken together (not accounting for any other member states) add up to 223,745,000 bbl per year, which blows by the #1 spot supposedly set by Japan. Following this logic, the following should come as absolutely no surprise:
The Presidency of the Council of the EU closely followed the course of the Presidential elections held on 12 June 2009 and notices Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected for the second term as the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Presidency is concerned about alledged [sic] irregularities during the election process and post-electional violence that broke out immediately after the release of the official election results on 13 June 2009.
The Presidency hopes that outcome of the Presidential elections will bring the opportunity to resume the dialogue on nuclear issue and clear up Iranian possition [sic] in this regard. The Presidency expects the new Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran will take its responsibility towards international community and respect its international obligations.
It’s sad when everything boils down to dollars and cents.
The week ahead will tell us how much leg these protesters have, and how long they can keep up. In the end the math is against them: the protesters have only their voices and bodies to fight with. They do not have the guns. History has showed us time and time again what happens most of the time when those without guns stand up to those who do have guns. Sad and fitting that this is 20 years on from Tiananmen Square.
