Iran’s moment of truth in identity election

June 13th, 2009 · No Comments · politics, the power of identity

IRAN-VOTE-DEMO, originally uploaded by Merat®.

Iran is in the throws of great turmoil. AP describes some of the scenes today:

Protesters set fire to tires outside the Interior Ministry and anti-riot police fought back with clubs and smashed cars. Helmeted police on foot and others on buzzing motorcycles chased bands of protesters roaming the streets pumping their fists in the air. Officers beat protesters with swift blows from their truncheons and kicks with their boots. Some of the demonstrators grouped together to charge back at police, hurling stones.

Plumes of dark smoke streaked over the city, as burning barricades of tires and garbage bins glowed orange in the streets. Protesters also torched an empty bus, engulfing it in flames on a Tehran street.

An Associated Press photographer saw a plainclothes security official beating a woman with his truncheon. Italian state TV RAI said one of its crews was caught in the clashes in front Mousavi’s headquarters. Their Iranian interpreter was beaten with clubs by riot police and officers confiscated the cameraman’s tapes, the station said.

Condemnation of the polls results are coming form many, including influential Iranians.

Effat Marashi, the wife of Hashemi Rafsanjani Iran’s former president and the head of Assembly of Experts, which officially monitors the Supreme Leader’s performance: “If people see that [the government] has cheated, they should protest in the streets.”

And there are claims on Iranian blogs that “The President of the Committee of Election Monitoring: Hojjat-ol-Eslam Yali Akbar MohteshamiPour officially requested that the Guardian Council to cancel this election and schedule a new election.”

Why are there reasons to doubt the outcome of this election? The previous time they had a high turn out, a reformist president won. Secondly Mousavi, the chief opposition leader this time, according tot this poll, even lost in the cities like Tehran, where most of his support comes from.

Thirdly as Juan Cole states:

It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.

Cole also explains that two other candidates got impossibly low totals and speculates:

“The reason for which Rezaie and Karoubi had to be assigned such implausibly low totals was to make sure Ahmadinejad got over 51% of the vote and thus avoid a run-off between him and Mousavi next Friday, which would have given the Mousavi camp a chance to attempt to rally the public and forestall further tampering with the election.”

And on the Mother Jones site you’ll find more information and a graph at how consistently and suspiciously Ahmadinejad polled.

IRAN-VOTE-DEMO, originally uploaded by Merat®.

This election is about identity. With the campaigns for the incumbent characterized by gender split rallies and women in Islamic dress. And the campaign for the reformists having integrated rallies and women showing their hair. This is not unlike France’s 1968 rallies. A protest for freedom including personal freedom.

Kameraad Mhambi cant help but thinking that the election of Barack Obama and the speeches that he has given has contributed to this upheavel against the conservative Iranian religious repression.