Many interesting posts here. Thanks to Mani for posting all the pictures. This brings up an interesting point has anyone poll involving women been done? When Ahmadinejad criticized Mousavi's wife could he have alienated half the voting population? Given that women's rights issues have taken a step backwards under Ahmadinejad you would think that their vote would tilt towards Mousavi. Also, what safeguards are in place to prevent voting fraud? Is this a concern? Who could be in a position to do it, if it is a concern? (I'm not trolling here, this is a sincere question.)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being heckled by the supporters of his main rival, reformer Mirhossein Mousavi. As Mahmood Ahmadinejad enters his car, Mirhossein Mousavi's supporters openly insult him, calling him "liar" and "dictator". We cannot see Ahmadinejad as he is hidden in the car, but we can clearly see his son, in the forefront, who is trying to talk with students. The scene gives us a glimpse of the intensity and the level of opposition of the Iranian presidential. This video was posted on the reformist party website a few minutes after the incident, which shows the active organisation of the opposition." [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2JI7dwSyaA"]YouTube - Ahmadinejad Heckled outside a Mosque[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU-OA5B0qEg"]YouTube - Important Iranian Elections To Occur[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=381DirqYxoE"]YouTube - Presidential candidates court Iran youth - 10 June 09[/ame]
I think that's a legitimate question... Btw: Last night's complete "Auslandsjournal" ("overseas journal") on public German tv station ZDF was dedicated Iran's election campaign. http://auslandsjournal.zdf.de/ZDFde/inhalt/17/0,1872,1020465,00.html?dr=1 I'm pretty confident that a vast majority of the young population (especially the beautiful & smart female students of the big cities) will vote this time and decide the race for Mr. Mousavi.
Voting fraud is a major issue. There are two parts, 1) fake votes and 2) vote counting. Have a look at this article about all the difficulties with both: http://washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=3068 Everyone in Iran comments that there are somewhere around 5-7 million fake votes. These are largely controlled by Basij. It is largely hearsay and with very little evidence behind it, however there was one city in the last election with 140% voter turnout. I think it wasn't even 140% of eligible voters, but the city's total population!! Granted, voters can vote in any city/town/station regardless or whether it is their city or not, but that one was simply ridiculous! There is little that can be done with regards to the former. Short of introducing a new electoral system (probably using the national ID cards or a purely electronic system which for the moment is far from practical). As to the vote counting, every candidate can have an observer in the polling station but as the article points out, the final count may have nothing to do with the votes counted in the station! Karrubi also ran 4 years ago and in a field of more candidates came 3rd just behind AN in the first round. He subsequently claimed he had evidence that he had been in fact second. He never produced any of it and did not persist with the allegations (everyone expected him to make a mention of it in these elections). He has said that his group will announce by 11 the next day the results from all the stations in a press conference and will talk about the results etc. So that should largely prevent the latter possibility of cheating. We shall have to wait and see.
Here are some pictures of Mousavi's visit to Isfahan. To give you an idea of scale, this is the second biggest square in the world after Tianamen.
News reports from CBC, AFP, Reuters, [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3VauuWdGvo"]YouTube - Iran Election Frenzy[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTbONndkRdo"]YouTube - Iran's Facebook youth prods voters[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EAnLFKiQbI"]YouTube - Countdown to Iran vote[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQvPQ_Q7bY4"]YouTube - Battle for Iran's leadership[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE_7PdE-CvI"]YouTube - Iran's presidential election wrapped up ahead vote on friday - 11 Jun 09[/ame]
Surprize, surprize (there seems to be a huge nervosity among the ultra-conservatives)... more: CLICK more: CLICK more: CLICK more: CLICK
If Ahmadinejad wins Iran’s economy is going to get so bad that people won’t be able to afford houses and will have to eat noodles in order to survive.
Tomorrow is the big day and there are already accusations of cheating and many are worried about underhanded tactics. Mousavi has written a letter to Khamenei and Karrubi another to the three main groups that can allow/cheat. Both expressing concern over potential irregularities. And of course, news has come out that observers of Mousavi are either being denied in places (namely the mobile polling stations) or some being moved around. Anyway, IM's indecisiveness reminds me of a competition I was involved with some time ago where one of the judges of the preliminary rounds of the competition kept on insisting that one of the teams was really good (team A). No one seemed capable of understanding why they were presumed to be that good! In the final they were pitted against the best team (team B) and even after the final, that judge and another of his friends insisted that the team A was the better to the surprise of almost everyone. The judged announced team A as the winners and those preliminary judges seemed to have been justified in their views. Of course, with the exception of the final, Team B won almost every other prize possible! How did they lose the final when almost all observers thought they were better? It came out the organisers had told the judges to announce team A as the winners as team B had won everything else. Simply put team A won because of cheating, not because they were the better team. They were in fact crap!! So why were these two people so adement that team A was so good? Maybe because they knew it was fixed! So IM, do you know anything we don't?
More clips [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3V8Q6zC7p-8"]YouTube - Ahmadinejad To Lose Election?[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-Pl7Gtliog"]YouTube - Youth rallies for Mir Hossein Mousavi[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmSRU3qYbU0"]YouTube [/ame]
Incidentally, the Republicans seem to be trying hard to ensure a victory for AN, and the icing on the cake, embarassing Obama!! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/trita-parsi/congress-ahmadinejad-secr_b_214388.html
Iranian political drama unfolds as election nears [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8SHY-DZQk8"]YouTube - Iranian political drama unfolds as election nears - 6/11/2009[/ame] US-Iranians prepare to cast their votes [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3V5YGHrwRo"]YouTube - US-Iranians prepare to cast their votes 11 Jun 09[/ame] Opinion: Iran's Green Tsunami [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hfhg8zBzBa8"]YouTube - Opinion: Iran's Green Tsunami - nytimes.com/video[/ame]
I would like to vote for Mousavi, because I like the young kids and women who are investing their hopes on him even though I don't expect Mousavi to be able to do any more for them than Ahmadinejad. But mostly because I see Mousavi's election as making it more difficult for opponents of reapproachment with Iran to prevent Obama from giving that route and earnest try, while making it more difficult for the US/Israel to rally additional sanctions against Iran among the EU, Russians, Chinese et al. But I would never want a vote for Mousavi to appear as an endorcement of the many rumors, false attacks and unfair criticisms (and, yes, outright lies) being perpetuated by his supporters. I don't appreciate their tactics one bit. On the other hand, I would like to say thank to Ahmadinejad for standing steadfast and with remarkable confidence against enemies who had very dangerous plans for Iran the past 4 years. I am trying to figure out how I can say thank you without voting for him, and how I can vote for Mousavi (despite considering him a very unexceptional figure) without endorsing those who have tried to destroy Ahmadinejad (including those funding and fueling Mousavi's campaign)? Incidentally, on the domestic issues that !Bob likes to talk about, let me say only the following for now: 1- Inflation in Iran spiked in 1387 (Iranian calendar) mostly because of the following: Rise in liquidity because of a rise in government spending, without a concomitant increase in productivity -- the latter due to structural problems in the Iranian economy which were inherited by Ahmadinejad. Rise in oil prices rising the costs of imports. Sanctions rising the transaction costs associated with imports and consequently the price of imports. Rationing of subsidized gasoline, which rised the price of the gasoline purchases overall. Relaxation of some of our import restrictions to counter the threat of sanctions and to allow Iran to stock up on some goods that it feared might be hard to get if tougher sanctions were imposed, which in turn caused us to import more inflation while attempts to free Iranian exports made our domestic prices more in line with international prices on the goods that were once sold cheaper in Iran. 2- As for management issues, I have lived in Iran for the past few years and have some perspective on what has happened and is happening here. To make it short and simple, our government bucreaucy is still largely controlled by the groups which were in power the preceding 16 years before Ahmadinejad. While these people have gained some experience in this period, they are not exactly our best potential managers. But they did become a monopolistic force in our bucreaucy and besides issues of corruption, played two other undesirable roles: acted as gatekeepers to prevent new faces to emerge to preserve their monopolistic control, while they acted as vested interests who tried to either stop real privatization or steer it in a direction which amounted to crony capitalism. Which is not to say that replacing this monopoly with a new one loyal to another camp is the right answer either. Anyway, lets hope that whatever the result, it will be good for Iran. I expect a high turnout (80%+) and as I have noted many times in the past, in a high turnout, Mousavi's chances improve substantially. Indeed, if turnout is over 80%, the best Ahmadinejad can hope for IMO is that the race will go to the 2nd round. (In a lower turnout, 60% or less, he would be a shoe in to win the race). Essentially, Ahmadinejad has 14-16 million votes on his side, while the "other than Ahmadinejad" group have 19 million votes if voter turnout is 80%+ (37.5 million votes). That is the parameters within which the first round of the elections will be played out IMO.
Can somebody who speaks Spanish, translate what Hugo Chavez is saying about the Iranian election? Is he endorsing Ahmadinejad or something? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvf9llr0ezA"]YouTube - Hugo Chavez on Iran elections ( subtitles )[/ame]
IM, I don't want to get into the economic debate at this point since it is the day of voting, suffice to say some of what you mentioned are reasons but most cannot justify. I have made a simple point, but I just keep getting the same bland response from you. I mentioned a number of points on which AN point blank lied or failed to say the whole truth. I will say a few of them in bullet points: * Halo of light. * Refinery which he claimed started and finished under him but it was in fact under Khatami. * Rate of unemployment which he claimed had gone down by 2% but failing to mention that the reason for decrease was because of change of definition of unemployment from 2 day a week to 1 hour a week of work!! * Rate of inflation which he suddenly decided to use the point to poin (not entirely sure what the English name for it would be) instead of the average annual inflation!! Just to portray a lower number. Funnily enough, reports have come out showing that his government in fact had requested the central bank not to publish this point to point because it was often higher than the average annual rate! * In his last TV appearance he made the claim that the 1 billion missing from the budget had been dealt with and there was no longer an issue; again it seems that was quite simply untrue. There are countless other examples. You are yet to provide a single point on which any other candidate, not just Mousavi but ANY other candidate has lied on!! If you don't want to vote for Mousavi or AN, there are 2 other candidates. One with excellent economic policies and capable management (albeit conservative social policies), the other with great socialistic economic policies and very liberal social policies. My point isn't to vote a particular candidate; my point is voting for AN is not justified. 1. Vote. 2. Don't vote for AN! That is as simply as I can put it.
From even before taking office, there were attempts to sink Ahmadinejad's presidency through lies. He was accused of being one of the hostage takers; of being involved in assisanating a Kurdish dissident; his quote of the founder of the Islamic Republic about Israel was mistranslated and then made to appear as a military threat. When he announced that Iran had reached the capability to enrich uranium, and whenever he announced new breakthroughs on the nuclear front, he was falsely accused of lying, rumors were spread about "technical difficulties" Iran had with enriching uranium and running its centrifgue machines, even though those same breakthroughs are reported in IAEA reports and can no longer even be pretended to be in dispute. He was called a dictator when in fact he has no dictatorial powers or pretensions. The support that he enjoys was falsely portrayed as bought and paid and bused, when in fact even the latest non-Iranian poll as late as May 2009 showed him the most popular of the candidates. He was called a liar for using a different statistical methodology, one that admitedly was meant to make things look more favorable to him, but which was not a lie. False graphs were distributed to rebut his graph on the Ginnie index. He was accused of things such as the so-called "missing money" that his detractors know full well has no merit whatsoever, as some of Iran's expenditures for reasons that I don't want to get into had to be off the books but which were not based on things that responsible officials did not know about. Some irrelevant comment made to a cleric was edited and blown up to undermine him. His supporters were called ignorant and all sorts of other names, with an atmosphere created to make them feel uncomfortable supporting the candidate of their choice... I have voted already. I was undecided because the attacks on Ahmadinejad (as unfounded as they often were) did damage his reputation and might have given ammunition to Iran's enemies to thwart any attempt by Obama to seek a reapproachment with Iran, while making the threat of sanctions etc on Iran more likely. But while Ahmadinejad is no saint and has many flaws, I have seldom seen an Iranian with some of his strengths. The kind that made him, despite the mountain of criticisms and attacks, come to New York (the Lion's den and the center of much of the campaign against him) and confidently hold his own. From my perspective, he served during a trying time and did his job as well as could be expected and then some. He might have gotten injured (figuratively) in the process, having taken the most powerful interest group internationally while at the same time taking up Iran's most powerful interest group domestically, and as an "injured" or "damaged" president, he might not be the best for the next 4 years. But regardless of who is the right choice for Iran, I for one believe Iranians who demeaned him did a great act of injustice to a hardworking guy who did aspire good things for his country.
I understand that you & your conservative fellow countrymen around Ayatollah Khamenei are facing a huge dilemma at the moment, knowing that you/they actually can't afford your/their "pet" Ahmadinejad any longer for internal & external reasons ... but please stop talking such bullshit! If there's anybody who made use of dirty & shamefull tactics/accusations/lies in this campaign, it's the current president! And you should be smart enough to know it... Calling for democracy & the respect of human rights, are very "dangerous plans", indeed. My personal point of view is that everybody should be free to vote for whom he likes. If @ IM prefers voting for AN, it's his holy right. Have a nice day.
Ahmadinejad was about to concede the election minutes ago, but his advisers have prevented him. All the indications are that we are looking a first-round victory by Mousavi.