The evidence that points to Ahmadinejad stealing Iranian election
Pastor Dale Morgan
*
From The Times
June 18, 2009
*The evidence that points to Ahmadinejad stealing Iranian election*
Martin Fletcher: Analysis
Could President Ahmadinejad really have won 63 per cent of last Friday’s
vote, 29 per cent more than Mir Hossein Mousavi, who had appeared to be
riding such a wave of enthusiasm?
Much has been made in the past few days of a pre-election poll that
showed Mr Ahmadinejad leading by a margin of two to one — even more than
his official victory. “The fact may be that the re-election of President
Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people want,” the pollsters Ken Ballen
and Patrick Doherty wrote in The Washington Post.
This is a startling claim, but one that should be treated with caution.
First, the poll was conducted three weeks before the vote — long before
the Mousavi bandwagon began to roll. Second, it gave Mr Ahmadinejad only
34 per cent of the vote, and Mr Mousavi 14 per cent, with 27 per cent
undecided. Third, polls in Iran are notoriously unreliable because its
pollsters are unsophisticated and ordinary Iranians can be afraid of
revealing their thoughts.
Of the last dozen polls, seven put Mr Mousavi ahead, with leads of up to
41.5 per cent, while five had Mr Ahmadinejad ahead, with leads of up to
37 per cent. They are, in short, all but useless.
There is no proof that Mr Ahmadinejad’s victory was secured by fraud,
but there is plenty of circumstantial evidence.
The election authorities somehow counted about half the 39 million
votes, by hand, within three hours of the polling stations closing — an
astonishing feat.
The 24.5 million votes allegedly cast for Iran’s deeply divisive
President would make him the most popular elected official in the
history of the Islamic Republic, just as the economy is in the doldrums.
Mohammed Khatami, a reformist, won 20 million votes in 1997.
The official results show that Mr Mousavi, an Azeri, only just beat Mr
Ahmadinejad in West Azerbaijan province and lost in East Azerbaijan, his
home province. Iranians who live in Britain are mostly educated and
sophisticated, but official figures claim that about 70 per cent of them
backed Mr Ahmadinejad.
Huge turnouts like last Friday’s 85 per cent traditionally help moderate
candidates whose natural supporters are normally reluctant to legitimise
the political system by voting.
On Tuesday Mr Mousavi, Mehdi Karoubi and Mohsen Rezai, the three losing
candidates, presented Iran’s Guardian Council with a list of 15 other
alleged irregularities. They included the exclusion of their
representatives from polling stations and counts; shortages of ballot
papers in opposition strongholds; packing of electoral committees with
Ahmadinejad supporters; vote buying; improper use of state resources and
media; and using the identity cards of dead people to cast ballots.
Mousavi aides claim that in 70 districts the number of votes counted
exceeded the population, and that many polling stations shut while
people were still queueing.
Finally, the speed with which the regime flooded the streets with
security forces and took down telephone and internet services after the
result suggests that plans were laid well in advance.