Bogusssssssssss!!!
Ahmadinejad and company can’t even steal an election in a convincing fashion, and the ayatollahs have just let the US off the hook for the 1953 coup that put the Shah in power.
The BBC is reporting from Iran, Numerian at the Agonist isn’t buying it, nor is Gary Sick.
Update via Badtux in comments: Juan Cole has his reasons for not buying it.
OK, here’s why I don’t believe it without even getting to the details:
– this was the largest turn-out that they had had in years
– they had to extend voting hours and round up extra ballots
– they use hand-marked paper ballots that are folded and then stuffed in a box
– the results were reported in record time, and the winning percentage never changed
That does not happen in hand-counted elections that are even close to honest.
They said they had a 70-75% turn-out, but Khamenei said 85% when he congratulated Ahmadinejad before the dust even settled. They are saying there was 90% turn out in the rural areas where Ahmadinejad was expected to win, but a turn out like that should have slowed the system down.
The problem with the clerics who engineered this coup is that they didn’t know or care enough about democracy to even bother to make it look plausible. A 51% win based on fiddling the numbers in the rural areas and inner cities would have probably been accepted, but this is an obvious fraud.
The government is blocking most forms of communication, but there are demonstrations in the cities. People are angry. The clerics have seriously damaged their credibility with the people.
June 13, 2009 9 Comments
