It was a massive voter turnout in The Iranian Presidential Elections of 2009, in what was hailed as a supposed referendum on the current president’s mismanagement of the economy as well as its handling of international affairs, it seems that Iranian State Television is setting the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner in a surprising landslide victory. His main rival, however, Mir Hossein Mousavi has disputed this result and has alleged election fraud on the part of the Ahmahdinejad camp.
By Saturday morning, Ahmadinejad had 64.7 percent and Mousavi had 32.2 percent with 82 percent of all votes counted, said Kamran Daneshjoo, a senior official with the Interior Ministry, which oversees the voting.
The 67 year old, former Prime Minister, Mir Hussein Mousavi gained momentum in the weeks running up to the election and was predicted to gain a suprising victory over the very controversial Ahmadinejad. Mousavi’s campaign had been a campaign with a massive youth backing, online presence, and a reformist agenda. An agenda that criticized the radical stance of the current regime as well as its mismanagement of Iran’s economy.
Mousavi and his allies have pleaded with the supreme ruler, Ayatollah Khamenei, who wields much of the political and military power in Iran, to look into the allegations of fraud during these elections.
Another very surprising occurrence in this very much heated election is the fact that the SMS services of the entire country all failed just before the opening of the polls. And even much of the websites that covered the Iranian Election were reported to have either been blocked or slow to load.
The results are still being disputed by Mousavi, who many sectors had predicted would actually breach the 50 per cent needed to win the election. In Iranian Presidential Elections, The winning candidate must garner at least 50 per cent of the vote, or else the two candidates with the highest percentage will participate in a run off election against one another.
Most individuals had predicted that a second round of voting would not even be needed, and that Mr Mousavi would garner enough votes to win in the first round. This is why there has been such surprise from supporters of Mousavi, both online and offline, when Iranian State run News reported the numbers.
“I am the absolute winner of the election by a very large margin,” Mr. Moussavi said during a news conference with reporters just after 11 p.m. Friday, adding: “It is our duty to defend people’s votes. There is no turning back.”
Doubts on the official results continue because of lack of information, calling some to declare an information blackout. Such allegations continue to fester especially in the light of SMS service disruption during the polls, as well as reported blocking of Iran Election coverage from sources other than the state itself.
With much doubt still lingering, both major candidate declaring themselves the winner, and what many see as a great discrepancy in the expected results as compared to the state announced results of this election, it seems the only individual that can break this deadlock and strife between the two main candidates and their supporters, is the supreme ruler himself, Ayatollah Khamenei.
But even if The Ayatollah did not endorse any of the candidates, many believe that the choice candidate for The Ayatollah was indeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But with most of the votes having been counted, it seems, barring any revolution, which the Iranian State said they would extinguish, it seems The Incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may just pull off a landslide victory and retain his presidency.
Popularity: 1% [?]
The result means: There is a Democracy in Iran. Not a Dictatorship.
Inggit siguro ang pro-GMA sa Iran.
Bakit nga ba hindi pinili ng Pinas for 2010 elections iyong voting machines na ginamit sa Iran? Tingnan mo, hindi lang ubod ng bilis ang bilangan, landslide pa!!!
I believe the elections held here were just as fast or maybe even fast-er even without the technology. This is the land of people who knows how to be resourceful and even better beacuse they know how to work with “timing” as well.
Right, which is why the opposing candidates are under house arrest.
Joe
(My vote does not count, though I think this world becomes a safer place if Ahmadinejad does not get re-elected, but) I still am not ready to believe who has really won that Iranian election. It is now obvious that the students and many of the middle-class-and-above (especially of their national capital area) want to get rid of that semi-crazy Holocaust-denier who is the incumbent. What is not clear to me — if the majority of the countryside and the poor have the same sentiment.
What is also apparent in Iran is that Iran has a strictly-managed politics with the Khameini-theocracy in dictatorial control, e.g. there is a strictly-managed press; the response to student demonstrations has been brutal; in favct, the voters selected from candidates that the theocracy had pre-selected.
And I think a country can be in a dictatorship even if the dictator is popular among the poor.
The problem with a popular dictator is the same as it is with an unpopular dictator. Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
This will happen in the Philippines. If we dont watch out the 2010
Election.
Why is essential to know History..to remind us not to stay stuck. Democracy and Peace, nice cliches but not for everyone.
In the Bible it says everyone is created equal,I look around and I’m definitely not convinced. Some are blessed while others are not or least proportionally equipped to deal with challenges that life may bring. Every now and then in the course of history a nobody from nowhere had risen. Disrupted a
prolonged upheaval and people around the world rallied for freedom and so it was. I have my reservations for happy ending, specially in the climate of Peace and Democracy there’s just so much drama involved.
Moussavi was due for a political dive because of his soft stand on nuclear issues, coziness with the West and Women’s libbers.
Ahmadinejad could be a blessing for Obama. A regional Cold War, although costly, has deterrent and pressure imperatives on Netanyahu because of the level playing field in nuclear capability, similar to India and Pakistan. The Western military-industrial complex will continue to make tons of money out of this stand-off and maybe get a share of Iranian oil if all goes well. Palestine may have to be resolved as part of the concession to make Israel give in to peace pact, in exchange for her security in the region. Pres. Barack HUssein Obama is expected to swing this one out because there is no other way but peace or war. War solves nothing. And the middle name sounds good.
Persian civilization may have many ups and downs in the turbulent history of man … and weaklings have no place in this equation. Long before the polls took place, an Ahmadinejad victory was a foregone conclusion. He stirred the imagination of Iranians hungry for regional identity as a nuclear power, a developing oil state backed by an awesome military might. This is their chance. And Moussavi cannot win an election by glorifying women’s libbers and rich middle-class as his counter balance against the masses in the countryside, the powerful Mullahs and the military top brass. The US never considered Moussavi as a threat to Ahmadinejad, contrary to Western media hoopla.
Interesting perspectives. No weaklings in the equation, balance of powers. It is a dangerous tightrope, however. Whilst balancing nuclear balls.
Gene
You know the interesting part?
39-M votes were counter manually in twelve hours!. Vanity Fair magazaine estimated that it comes out to 907 ballots being tallied per second. Credible?