Saturday
Jun192010
Iran Analysis: Why the 2009 Election is Not Legitimate (Ansari)
Saturday, June 19, 2010 at 7:36 
More than a year later, the fight goes on over the validity of the 2009 Presidential election. In the face of the questions not only about the vote but also the intimidation, state propaganda, and detentions that surrounded it, defenders of the Government re-present a series of flawed polls and A report --- based on the Guardian Council's attempt to vindicate the process --- to put Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's "victory" beyond doubt.I won't repeat my dissection of those defenders here, since the campaign for civil rights and the issue of the Government's legitimacy are now far beyond the elections. I'll just note that I picked up new information this week that the decision to manipulate the electoral results had been established 72 hours before the ballot.
Ali Ansari, writing for Chatham House's World Review, offers this overview, taking apart seven myths propping up the platform of a rightly-elected President:
Iran's 10th Presidential election, on 12 June last year, was the most controversial and contested poll in the 30 years of the Islamic Republic. Far from anointing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a landslide election victory for a second term, the credibility of the result was immediately in question, unleashing the most extraordinary public anger against the governing elite.
The street protests subsided, but there is little sign of the widespread anger the result generated dissipating. The situation remains tense and the governing elite is no less anxious about the future. Unlike other disputeswhich have periodically shaken the Islamic Republic, this one affects and divides the political elite like no other. The government remains determined to promote its account of a free and fair election, convinced that it has defeated a "velvet revolution". This is the reason given for the brutal crackdown, which continues to this day.
A year on, it is worth revisiting some of the urban myths which have come to underpin this standoff:
Those who allege fraud must prove their case; the government is innocent until proven guilty
Not so; in any political system which claims democratic procedures and values, it is the governing elite and holders of power who must answer to the people, not the other way round. Accountability must be transparent and not a matter of faith. Accountability is the basis of any democratic settlement, without it the process of ‘voting’ is mere procedural window dressing.
In Iran, with its fragile democracy under considerable attack, the situation is more acute.
As a consequence of the election victories of President Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and 2001,a plan was implemented to organise and manipulate the electoral system to ensure the desired result. As a result, the parliamentary and presidential elections from 2004 to 2008 saw a gradual collapse in turnout, with optimistic estimates for Tehran in 2008 barely reaching thirty percent. For particular reasons, only the 2006 municipal election was an exception.
Last year, all the major institutions of government, including those with oversight of the
election were in the hands of the government faction. At least three members of the Guardian Council, the Chief of the General Staff, and the Supreme Leader, all voiced support for Ahmadinejad. In such a climate the burden of proof --- and accountability --- lies with the government, not the people.
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Reader Comments (19)
[...] Iran Analysis: Why the 2009 Election is Not Legitimate (Ansari … [...]
[...] Iran Analysis: Why the 2009 Election is Not Legitimate (Ansari … [...]
WitteKr,
The new information was from a highly reliable source who was in Tehran before and after the election. Key political figures were saying on 9 June that an Ahmadinejad first-round victory was going to be arranged.
And here's another piece of information to match up with the revelations by the Tehran police chief in today's updates. As noted by Rooz Online, State TV were reporting results by 11:30 p.m. local time, 30 minutes after Ahmadi-Moghaddam says the first ballots came in to Tehran. It was because of those reports that the Mir Hossein Mousavi camp, concluding that the "fix" was now being implemented, decided to set up a press conference.
So rather than Mousavi pre-empting the result, as Government defenders claim, he was reacting to the first signs of the Ahmadinejad camp making their pre-emptive move for "victory".
Scott
[...] Iran Analysis: Why the 2009 Election is Not Legitimate (Ansari … [...]
Fascinating! Thanks, hope we will soon hear the real story...
All of these arguments have previously been challenged and Ansari just uses vague logic.
M. Ali,
I'm not sure that's a refutation of Ansari's overview, so let's get to specifics (and there a lot of them beyond the repetition of "the vote was legitimate", "all is well", "move along").
Where are the Form 22s which record the vote count from each polling station?
Scott
Scott and WitteKr,
Halfway through the comments section of Prof. Sahimi's June 8 article for Tehran Bureau, 'The Green Movement at One Year', Eric Brill made a predictable appearance to flog his blog to "Dr. Sahimi and other readers" - a readership that by now probably already knows the url by heart! (June 10, 2010 5:55 AM). Somewhat unexpectedly, Prof. Sahimi took the bait: "Eric A Brill (EAB): Before you even posted your "analysis", you communicated it with me. You argued with me for a long time, and I presented to you so much evidence and credible arguments, but none, absolutely none, of them made it into your "analysis"....(June 10, 2010 7:34 PM)"
Upon questioning by another reader, Dr. Sahimi decided to reveal some of the evidence he had provided in his e-mail correspondence with Eric while the latter was writing his piece about the 2009 elections:
"...I suppose evidence is in the eyes of beholder. Your approach in your article was formal, legalistic, and sort of bin counting, which is not surprising because you are used to the system in the States. On the other hand, people like me who know Iran and the complexities of its political system only too well know that your approach and reasoning do not practically count.
Aside from everything else, I repeat 4 pieces of evidence for everyone to read:
1. RAJANEWS, the site that is run by the wife of Ahmadinejad's spokesman, accused Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Majles, of calling Mousavi in the evening of the election, congratulating him for his victory and, hence, giving away "state secret." Larijani never denied it. He is loyal to Ayatollah Khamenei. What was the "state secret?"
2. A well-known fundamentalist Majles deputy and supporter of Ahmadinejad said angrily in a debate about the election a few days before it that, "wait until you see the 24 million votes of Ahmadinejad!" How did he know?
3. All the reformist leaders who were arrested a day or two after the election, before the huge demonstrations of June 15 took place, had been shown arrest warrants dated several days BEFORE the election. Why? What was predicted to happen several days before the election that had prompted the hardliners to issue the arrest warrants?
4. A personal story (that I told you Eric, and is totally consistent with what the Majles deputy said): On the Wednesday before the election I received an e-mail from a former Ph.D. student of mine who now teaches at a university in Tehran. She said that on that day she and her students had a great debate about whom to vote for in the class. She said that at the end of the class, a Basiji student approached her and said, "Dr..... these debates are fine, but we have been told that Dr. Ahmadinejad will win with 24 million votes." How did he know that, and who had told him? Remember that Basij played a crucial role in 2005."
(June 11, 2010 7:41 PM)
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2010/06/the-green-movement-at-one-year.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranb...
[...] Iran Analysis: Why the 2009 Election is Not Legitimate (Ansari … [...]
Catherine,
I have developed a considerable respect for Dr. Sahimi on the nuclear issue, so much so that I have apologized several times, on his website and on Race for Iran, for having been generally critical of him. He has accepted my apology, and I believe his acceptance of it was as sincere as my apology was - which means quite sincere. I even anticipate offering some insights to Dr. Sahimi that he may find useful in his future writings on the nuclear issue. He may find them useful, or he may not.
But I have always made clear to Dr. Sahimi, even in my sincere apologies to him, that I do not place much weight on his views of the 2009 election. On that I have never changed my views, and I am entirely confident that he understands this and that he cares no more about how I feel about his views on the election than I care about those views.
With that background in mind, I will say that the excerpts from Dr. Sahimi's email that you quote above (which strike me as accurate, though I haven't gone back to check his emails to me) are not even worth considering. I strongly urge you to step back a bit from your bias and read them again. I suspect you'll agree. In my exchanges with Dr. Sahimi about the election, I usually responded to his points substantively, but at least twice, possibly three times, I found them not worthy of a substantive response. It's been a while, and so I can't say the following for sure, but I believe his email quoted above fell into that category. It is not worthy of serious consideration.
Some of you might find interesting my post on the Race for Iran website concerning Dr. Ansari's recent article (though my reference in this post to footnote 10 having been a reference to Dr. Ansari's article is incorrect - it was actually my footnote 14 that referred to his article:
"Arvin,
On May 31, I received a pre-publication copy of Dr. Ali Ansari’s new “Urban Myths” article to which you provided a link. I read the published version you linked to, and see no differences. Only his first “urban myth” is worthy of comment.
The first alleged “myth” is that the burden of proof of fraud is on those who allege it. Dr. Ansari makes a valid point: the government has a duty to establish fair election procedures whose fairness can be verified without undue effort. I agree entirely. If the government has done this, however, the burden shifts to those who allege fraud.
Dr. Ansari’s article prompted me to make this explicit in my article. That is why I added the following passage, in which I cited hia article (footnote 10):
“A responsible government must establish fair election procedures and make it possible, without difficulty, for its citizens to verify that the procedures have been followed. If the government does not, a challenger may rightfully complain even if he has no concrete proof of electoral fraud. But if the government has satisfied this obligation, as Iran’s government did in the 2009 election,[10] the burden fairly shifts to those who allege fraud. They must examine the available information and specify improprieties so that their charges can be investigated.”"
********************************
You might all consider as well this passage from the "Conclusion" of my article:
"Nor have independent critics maintained their initial enthusiasm. The Chatham House Preliminary Analysis never advanced beyond its self-described "preliminary" stage, despite the author's own suggestion that his brief analysis "be followed up should the fully disaggregated 'by polling station' data be released during the ongoing dispute." Precisely that data was released just days later (see note 1), but no "follow up" has appeared."
Scott,
"As noted by Rooz Online, State TV were reporting results by 11:30 p.m. local time, 30 minutes after Ahmadi-Moghaddam says the first ballots came in to Tehran. It was because of those reports that the Mir Hossein Mousavi camp, concluding that the "fix" was now being implemented, decided to set up a press conference."
Do you know what basis Mousavi had for claiming victory?
Eric,
To deal with your immediate question, you miss the point from the Ahmadi-Moghaddam testimony: Mousavi's camp set up the press conference not to "claim victory" but to counter the indications --- given State TV's very rapid projections --- that the election was being declared for Ahmadinejad before it was completed and in absence (possibly defiance) of any actual count.
Your follow-up re "burden of proof" is a red herring. The salient point is that there was never an effective investigation of the queries put not only by Mousavi and Karroubi but also by Rezaei. All three were unhappy with the outcome, and all three maintain that the Guardian Council "enquiry" did not meet their doubts and concerns.
On this thread and another, you have simply restated your assertions from last year --- which I have dealt with elsewhere --- so to keep discussion concise and productive, let us start with this fundamental:
Where are the Form 22s that document the count at each polling station?
Scott
Scott. All 45,632 ballot box tallies were released. That is being FULLY TRANSPARENT. The Interior Ministry provided all the necessary data.
It is up to you to tell me what individual ballot box was corrupted or fraudulent.
Unless you can do that, you don't have an argument.
Reza,
The figures released by Iranian authorities of the ballot box tallies are not original documents. They are claims of what was recorded on the original documents.
The original documents recording the ballots cast at each polling stations --- the documents signed by the observers for each candidate --- are the Form 22s.
Where are they?
Scott.
It is amazing that adherents of the idea of election fraud, one year after the event, after all this indirect evidence has been rebutted as insufficient in the meantime ("there is no hard evidence of fraud," which doesn't mean, of course, there is evidence of fraud), have seemingly understood that the only way of having had conducted fraud had been to fix the whole thing, any data, way before election day. If, and only if, the interior ministry had published ballot box results, district, and province results which more or less add up to final results (published already the next day), election fraud was only possible by fixing the whole before. It sounds absurd. In that case, attempts of proving fraud by applying, for instance, Benford's law and any far-reaching interpretations of 'anomalies' are completely irrelevant. No ballot stuffing would have been necessary.
So far, I have not seen any hard evidence for the new allegation. Hopefully, truth will eventually prevail.
Yes, Yes Mr. Fahada – you are right, “election fraud was only possible by fixing the whole before” - well roared, Mr. Chameleon.
But I really wonder – as a Leveret whistle-blower –
why don’t you speak directly to your blog comrade Brilly on the blog “Race for Iran?”
Sorry, correction: "there is no hard evidence of fraud," which doesn't mean, of course, there is evidence of no fraud.
No , Mr. Chameleon and Whistle-blower, your sorry is not accepted here. As I told you two weeks ago - you are rat catcher. Trying to sing lovely songs but denying the green movement without saying it.