Lazy Lob
06-29-2005, 04:29 AM
From the Times today.
THE RECENT Iranian presidential elections were a triumph for the principle of one man, one vote. And the man with the vote this time, as always, was the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s new President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may well be the choice of the urban poor, the anti-sleaze candidate and the favourite of the military. But ultimately, he’s the winner because he’s also the guy who did best with one key demographic — bearded sixtysomething clerics called Ali who enjoy wielding supreme power within theocratic republics.
Even before the first vote was cast, a thousand potential presidential candidates were barred from running by the state’s Guardian Council, itself hand-picked by Ayatollah Khamenei. The two rounds of voting that Iran just held were charades, Potemkin exercises designed to give the outside world the illusion that the Islamic Republic could hold an open election and sustain the lie that its leaders enjoy popular backing.
*
The television pictures of voters queueing to get to the polls were taken from previous elections, the polling stations themselves were policed by fundamentalist militias, ballot papers were held in reserve to ensure the vote went the prescribed way and the figures eventually announced were manufactured in a fashion that would have brought a tear to the eye of Saddam himself.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the second round of the presidential election with 17,248,782 votes. In the first round he got just 5,710,354 votes. In one week he secured the support of an extra 11,500,000 people, trebling his popularity, and scooping dramatically more votes than those earned in the first round by all the “hardline” candidates put together. All while the recorded turnout actually dropped. The figures just don’t add up. And that’s because they’re made up. No independent observers are allowed to monitor what happens in polling stations, to scrutinise ballot boxes or attend counts. That would be to let daylight in upon the magic of theologically guided democracy.
Instead, Iran’s ruling fundamentalist elite makes its dispositions, plucks the appropriate figures out of the air to lend support their choice, and then European chancelleries rush to play their appointed role in this farce by welcoming the people’s choice to his new office.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1055-1672868,00.html
THE RECENT Iranian presidential elections were a triumph for the principle of one man, one vote. And the man with the vote this time, as always, was the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iran’s new President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, may well be the choice of the urban poor, the anti-sleaze candidate and the favourite of the military. But ultimately, he’s the winner because he’s also the guy who did best with one key demographic — bearded sixtysomething clerics called Ali who enjoy wielding supreme power within theocratic republics.
Even before the first vote was cast, a thousand potential presidential candidates were barred from running by the state’s Guardian Council, itself hand-picked by Ayatollah Khamenei. The two rounds of voting that Iran just held were charades, Potemkin exercises designed to give the outside world the illusion that the Islamic Republic could hold an open election and sustain the lie that its leaders enjoy popular backing.
*
The television pictures of voters queueing to get to the polls were taken from previous elections, the polling stations themselves were policed by fundamentalist militias, ballot papers were held in reserve to ensure the vote went the prescribed way and the figures eventually announced were manufactured in a fashion that would have brought a tear to the eye of Saddam himself.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the second round of the presidential election with 17,248,782 votes. In the first round he got just 5,710,354 votes. In one week he secured the support of an extra 11,500,000 people, trebling his popularity, and scooping dramatically more votes than those earned in the first round by all the “hardline” candidates put together. All while the recorded turnout actually dropped. The figures just don’t add up. And that’s because they’re made up. No independent observers are allowed to monitor what happens in polling stations, to scrutinise ballot boxes or attend counts. That would be to let daylight in upon the magic of theologically guided democracy.
Instead, Iran’s ruling fundamentalist elite makes its dispositions, plucks the appropriate figures out of the air to lend support their choice, and then European chancelleries rush to play their appointed role in this farce by welcoming the people’s choice to his new office.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1055-1672868,00.html