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An Absurd Outcome
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The main questions left after Ahmadinejad’s surprising win is how much the vote was manipulated—and, asks Suzanne Maloney of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, whether Obama can possibly still pursue diplomacy as an option with a fractured Iran.
Plus, read more insight on Iran's election from other Daily Beast writers.
It's official—after a bruising election campaign and historic voter turnout, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has secured a second term. Iran's Interior Ministry pronounced Ahmadinejad the winner with a landslide 63 percent of the vote, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader and the country's real authority, congratulated the president on his epic victory.
However, the notion that nearly two-thirds of Iranians want another four years of Ahmadinejad strains any credulity. By nearly every measure, his presidency has been disastrous for most Iranians.
Whether Ahmadinejad actually won at the ballot box remains an open question, to say the very least. Polls and anecdotal evidence pointed to a late surge by former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, whose bid to revive Iran's reform movement had picked up steam after a rancorous series of televised debates between Ahmadinejad and his three rivals. Mousavi himself had declared victory toward the end of voting on Friday, no doubt buoyed by the long lines at the voting booths which typically benefit reformist candidates.
Iranian elections are notoriously unpredictable, and this one had already taken several surprising turns. But while past election results have surely been massaged through the regime’s many mechanisms for ensuring a result acceptable to the defenders of the current system, few suspected that the regime would engage in such heavy-handed rigging of the outcome, which is the only reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the official tally.
The only question is how much the result was manipulated. Despite the exciting final days of large-scale public demonstrations on his behalf, Mousavi was by no means a shoo-in. In particular, it's impossible to know whether his last-minute surge extended beyond Iran's major cities. Moreover, it's not inconceivable that Ahmadinejad's base of support is broader and stronger than it appears from outside. The president’s copious spreading of Iran's oil revenue around the country, as well as his strident nationalism and indignant denunciation of corruption among the country’s longstanding power brokers, may well have earned him votes.
However, the notion that nearly two-thirds of Iranians want another four years of Ahmadinejad strains any credulity. By nearly every measure, his presidency has been disastrous for most Iranians. The economy represented Ahmadinejad’s primary vulnerability; the campaign took place in the shadow of double-digit inflation and uncertainties surrounding the whereabouts of billions of dollars in oil revenue. Participants at election rallies hurled potatoes in mocking protest of the president’s efforts to offset rising prices with free vegetables.
And beyond the pocketbook, Ahmadinejad did little to improve Iranians’ quality of life. Many of the modest gains in political and social freedoms achieved during the Khatami period were rolled back, and Ahmadinejad’s regional swagger and hateful rhetoric generate international support for the United Nations, an unprecedented dishonor for a proud country. Each of these issues emerged as key themes in reports of campaign rallies, public commentary, and the barbs exchanged by the candidates themselves. Ahmadinejad countered by stepping up his nationalist rhetoric, laced with increasingly pointed accusations of official corruption and smears against his primary opponent’s wife.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Obviously the "establishment" in Iran did not want the running narrative around the world to be that Obama had any effect on their populace so they rigged the election results to counter that perception. But time will tell if the so called Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad, etc., can quell the growing unrest within their own country as easily, especially amongst younger Iranians.
You can only keep growing pressure contained for so long. History has shown us that, time and time again. With more then 60 percent of it's population under 30, and with the power of the digital age... change is coming.
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"help themselves" through armed insurrection?
...well it would have been nice to see some people in America concerned enough about Democracy to take to the streets and cry foul.
...Imagine if you can no BushCo for the eight "lost years".
...At least Al Gore had the stones to take it all the way to the SCOTUS (ask Sandra Day O'connor how she likes that glimmering example of jurisprudence)
...John Kerry out right won and walked away! (Ohio...thanks Ken Blackwell)
Actually, Bush sued under the Equal Protection Clause. Gore did not bring suit. Not that it makes much of a difference, Gore was winning in the Florida courts, so wouldn't have needed to bring suit.
It would be a tactical mistake
For the U.S. to appear to be trying
To influence the outcome of the elections.
It's not about stones or no stones.
A mistake because American support for Iranian reformists allows the hardliners to paint them as traitors to Iran. Much as I hate the idea, maybe it is time cry havok and loose Bibi on them. On the other hand, we brazenly subverted the vote here not too long ago with much less at stake. Could it be that democracy has devolved entirely into a propaganda term?
I agree about overtly trying to influence the election. How do you feel about Americans seeking ways to help freedom along with the people?
RitaRita
I'm a big fan
of yours
I expected Gore to dispute the election and fight. He was not willing to do so. He caved and gave us 8 years of Bush. The Republicans called it "gracious". I called it cowardly. If he had stood up, he would have had millions behind him.
One thing you have to give Republicans; they understand how to fight.
Go fuck yourself. We won in 2008.
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Wouldn't you consider this to be an internal matter? Iran IS a sovereign state, after all, no?
It's the job of pundits to call a spade a spade... they don't suffer political consequences in a way that politicians do. So, glad to hear/see world-wide support for the opposition in Iran.
There's nothing we can do now except wait, otherwise we'll make Musavi look like a US stoog, a new Shah.
If Iran faces some kind of human rights disaster with the regime putting down it's own people as a result of opposition to this election... well, we'll see how things play out.
The one thing that's for certain is that we have no place in this for now.
Leslie Gelb has a fairly sunny view of the potential outcome: Iran's hardline will moderate to keep peace in their nation while maintaining control. Nehru spoke of the velvet glove and iron fist, which could apply here. The iron fist steels the election, the velvet glove softens the blow with limited moderation of policies.
Totalitarians know that if you beat someone enough with a stick their gratitude when you stop exceeds and often effaces their desire for revenge.
Revolutionaries make excellent counter-revolutionaries when they come to power, i.e. the Whiskey Rebellion, Kronstadt, Tiananmen Square... ad nauseum
Mousavi will be arrested and executed. Ah's last opponent was arrested and denied his insulin. He went into a diabetic coma and died. It's bad for your health to run against Ah.
Um, Ahmadinejad's "last opponent" was Rafsanjani, who is alive and well and currently has a position in the Iranian government, and is very rich from all the money he siphoned off from the Iranian oil exports. (Are you asking yourself why Ahmadinejad beat his corruptness?)
why can't they be forced to prove it? i know they have no independent monitors and are ruled IK, but maybe in the name of calm, other middle eastern leaders could insist on them revelaing the actual votes?
Excellent article. I sense that the instability in Iran will last much longer than in 1999. We are in the age of the internet and I think we will be witnessing a much more coordinated and sustained opposition effort in Iran which could result in even more demonstrations, generalized strikes and other acts of sabotage against the Regime. Thuggery and iron fists are resorts of the weak and the desperate, and what we are witnessing are the final throes of a Regime. If it doesn't end this time around, it will be more seriously cracked than in any previous time, and with the maturing of this youth in the coming decade, it will fall for good.
The author of this piece is the employee of a right-wing think tank. Her making flat statements such as, " the election was stolen without even a pretense of plausibility." is certainly more a reflection of her political bias than any specific knowledge of the circumstances of the Iranian election. At this point all commentary on this issue is speculation without any hard facts; facts that may never be forthcomming.
Hear, Hear!
Regardless where this author gets her paycheck, or what sort of influences she has, she is decrying the election on a fact-free basis.
She is also, showing her deep ignorance, lumping in together the Khameini (revolutionary era) leaders with Ahmedinejad, who is definitely a sort of gnesio-fundamentalist.
If I were Iranian, it would be clear to me that a vote for Mousavi would be a vote for capitulation to the West, a sort of affirmation of their years of hypocrisy and mistreatment of my proud nation.
That doesn't mean that such nationalist pride isn't stupid, it just would be quite common. Happens in America, too, with the re-election of our own gnesio-fundamentalist President Bush.
One of the first calls Ahmadinejad received after his "landslide" win was Hugo Chavez. Birds of a feather folks. I truly feel sorry for the people of Iran (and Venezuela).
Does it not strike anyone else as peculiar that our government finds elections that don't go the way we want them to go to be 'questionable'? Gaza's election of Hamas comes to mind. But when the Lebanese elect a government that we 'like', we welcome the result. When we will admit that we really don't have a clue what goes on in the Middle East (except for Israel, perhaps).
Much is made of the Iranians' development of nuclear weapons. There are 4 nations in the world that are not signatories to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty: Indian, Pakistan, N Korea and Israel. Each one of them have nuclear weapons. We support the Indians and the Pakistanis, we have tried to deal with the N Koreans and our relationship with Israel is unquestioned. The relationship between Iran and Israel might be called 'strained' if I were a diplomat. The Israelis have struck Iran before, as well as Iraq, Syria and Lebanon when they felt threatened. So if you were an Iranian, would you not want something to deter the Israelis from doing that again?
Ms. Maloney,
You are so completely wrong in your asesment that one would wonder how much information you have at your institution.
You talk about the present government in Iran as if it is some kind of a real democracy ! Are you serious or are joking. I am not sure whether you are fooling yourself.
The fact is that after 30 years of the most propagndist regime in the world, only 25% of Iranians support this regime; half of which do it because of the financial gains and the rest for some very sick idealogy.
The regime in Iran is comprised of a bunch of bandits who have stolen the country from the true Iranian people. The 75% that oppose the regime, do not just politically oppose it. They hate the regime in its entirety. A notorious dream of the Iranian people is to hang the mullahs from the trees.
The young people dancing in the streets are not just playing around. They want to get rid of the criminals ruling their country. And whether you like it or not, THEY WILL ! It is only a matter of time. They don't really care what President Obama or any other western will say or do. They will do it by themselves.
You, apparently, don't know much about Iran or Iranian culture. Iran is a 2600 years old country. It has had lots of ups and downs. A lot of other powers have medled into its affairs. But the Iranian people have always blessed with a brave man or a woman who has got them out of the ditch.
You are not alone in not understanding the true nature of the Iranians. There are probably many others like you. But you will all be proven wrong. The Iranian people will get rid of the bandits ruling their country and will build a new democratic Iran that will bw the envy of the world.
You might say that the mullahs are very powerful. But so were a lot of other dictators in the world. And guess what ? They are all gone !!!!! The mullahs will be gone soon too. If you really like them, you may want to offer them shelter because they will be on the run !!!!
Thank you.
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