Ten Tell-Tall Signs of a Rigged Election

[Warph]

So, who rules Iran?

The real ruler of Iran is called Ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei.


You mean Ayatollah Khomeini, don't you?

No, I mean Khamenei.  Khomeini is the other (dead) guy.


Why so many ayatollahs?

Because these big boys – not presidents, or judges – run the show in Iran.  "Ayatollah" is a title granted to a handful of clerics from the Shia sect of Islam who have spent their lives becoming experts in jurisprudence, philosophy, ethics and theology.


So is Khamenei a Persian Rowan Williams? (Archbishop of Canterbury & Khamenei look-a-like)

Only if Williams had near-limitless powers over the UK's political and judicial systems . . . and the Archbishop of Canterbury had supplanted the Queen as head of state.  Khamenei is Supreme Leader of his nation; Williams has difficulty these days being supreme leader of his own Anglican Church.  The two men do, however, share a fondness for cuddly long beards.


"Supreme Leader"? Even Obama doesn't have a title like that..... yet.

Supreme Leader might be a bit of an understatement, given that Iran's theocratic constitution guarantees him the right to assume "supreme command of the armed forces", make declarations "of war and peace", sign "the decree formalising the election of the president", dismiss the president "with due regard for the interests of the country", as well as appoint (and dismiss) the heads of the national radio and television networks, the commanders of the armed forces, the chiefs of the judiciary, and six of the 12 jurists on the Council of Guardians – the powerful body that decides which bills become law and who can run for president or parliament. (Incidentally, of the 475 registered presidential hopefuls this year, only four candidates were finally approved by the Council.)


I hear Khamenei is a tad thin-skinned?

Insulting the leader is indeed a crime in Iran, and Khamenei hasn't shirked in seeing that this law is enforced against politicians and journalists.  Even close family members are not exempt: his reformist younger brother Hadi Khamenei was once brutally beaten by militiamen loyal to the ayatollah after giving a lecture criticising the powers of the Supreme Leader.  Critics beware!



Who's Who in Iran's Political System:
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1905910_1905908,00.html



10 tell-tale signs of the rigged election in Iran:

1 -- Opinion polls showed that the leading opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, had a strong lead over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the eve of the poll. This changed overnight into a landslide victory for Ahmadinejad.


2 -- Ahmadinejad won in Tehran – despite his noted unpopularity in Iran's big cities, and despite Mousavi having drawn a million supporters on to the streets of the capital just days before polling.

3 -- Official results show Ahmadinejad beat Mousavi even in his home town, Tabriz, where ethnic Azeri candidates – such as Mousavi – are usually a shoo-in.

4 -- Mousavi is not alone in crying foul – the other two opposition candidates, the liberal Mehdi Karroubi and Mohsen Rezaei, a conservative, have also appealed against the official result.

5 -- Karroubi, a former Speaker, saw his vote share collapse from 17 per cent in 2005 to less than 1 per cent – even in his home province of Lorestan.

6 -- The Iranian authorities imposed a post-election information blackout. Cellphone networks went down and foreign websites such as the BBC and Facebook were blocked.

7 -- The interior ministry declared victory for Ahmadinejad only two hours after the polls closed. And the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, signed off on the result straight away, instead of following the normal three-day verification process.

8 -- More than 100 members of the major opposition factions were arrested the day after the election, including high-profile figures such as the brother of the ex-president Mohammad Khatami.

9 -- There are reports of voting "irregularities" in pro-Mousavi cities. In Tabriz, for example, ballot papers ran out at 11am.

10 -- Ahmadinejad, an unpopular incumbent president in charge of a stagnant economy, got a higher proportion of the vote this time round than he did when he won in 2005 as a popular, fresh-faced insurgent. 

So, was the Iranian presidential election rigged?  We may never know for sure.  Various voting irregularities, the suspiciously rapid announcement of results favouring the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the president's surprise defeat of his opponents, even in their own home towns raises some big red flags.