Iran election rivals both declare victory (possible coup d'etat in Iran)

[Demosthenes11]

saw this on facebook and didn't really know what to think, but i guess its true

"Tehran-9:50pm: We don't have text message, cellphone network, Facebook, youTube, Twitter and lots of other websites. BBC PERSIA is gone also on HOTBIRD. 3 reformist newspapers are banned (I can't check the names I've just heard and everything is blocked on internet) If anyone can, help me share the news. They have cut us off from the world."

[Darus Grey]

Darus, while in design the Iranian electoral system may be fair, I think there's something obviously amiss this time around.

Oh I don't disagree, I just take a little bit of smug joy when people make a comment about the clerical weeding process for canidates with the implication that it's somehow horrible...when compared to our system it's significantly fairer. Which should be a kick in the balls to America...but oh well.

For this particular election, it does seem like there was a hardliner coup. I'm still trying to figure out the motivation though.

President Ahmadinejad doesn't have the power or popularity to do this. He was as popular in Iran as Bush was here. The clerics didn't like him, his election was a surprise to them(it was pretty much a direct reaction to Bush's Axis of evil label...), since traditionally the iranian electorate has elected liberals, progressives, and reformists.

There is no motivation for Khamenei to do this...he's already the supreme leader, regardless which president gets elected they're under his total control. I wouldn't believe for a moment Ahmadinejad would somehow coup HIM. Plus just on a personal gut level...I have a hard-time beleiving a direct disciple of Khomeini like Khamenei would take such actions to directly under-mine his own government, both him and Khomeini were beleivers in "True Islam" as outlined in the Qu'Ran...i.e. Democracy.

The fact that Khamenei was so abruptly quick to affirm Ahmadinejad breaking with the tradition of the 3 day period tells me there is *some* 3rd party in this whole affair that we don't know who has power over Khamenei and is putting pressure on him...

From there on it's just speculation and conspiracy...

Though it'd be hilarious if Khamenei was a sleeper agent this entire time for the US.

[Kuya]

I'm also having a hard time buying that Khamenei feared a "velvet revolution". I mean, Musavi isn't really that much of a reformist. I don't understand how Ahmedinejad beat Musavi in a place like Azerbaijan, but i also don't see much of a motivation for messing with this election, it just wasn't necessary. I still don't get it.

[6souls]

Iran reformists held after street clashes

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/image...07489575-1.jpg

Up to 100 members of major Iranian reformist groups have been arrested, accused of orchestrating violence after the disputed presidential election.

Backers of defeated reformist Mir Hossein Mousavi were rounded up overnight, reports said, including the brother of ex-President Khatami.

Mr Mousavi's whereabouts are unknown but he is thought to remain free.

Crowds took to the streets of Tehran on Saturday to protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's re-election.

There were clashes between protesters and police in Tehran, despite calls from Mr Mousavi to avoid violence.

He has refused to accept the election result, calling it a "dangerous charade" and alleging wide-scale irregularities.

Lock down

Details of the arrests remained sketchy, but reports said those detained were members of pro-reformist political parties which had backed Mr Mousavi during the election campaign.

The state news agency, Irna, said those arrested were involved in orchestrating the protests in Tehran on Saturday.

The streets of the Iranian capital were reported to be calm on Sunday morning, but the BBC's Jon Leyne, in the city, says concrete barriers are being erected in the streets.

Senior Iranian political figures have offered their backing to Mr Ahmadinejad, among them parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani.

The president already has the backing of the country's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who endorsed his election win on Saturday.

Our correspondent says the expressions of support for Mr Ahmadinejad could be an attempt to "lock down" support for the president within Iran's divided political establishment.

Mr Ahmadinejad is due to hold a news conference on Sunday before attending a victory rally.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Iran reformists held after street clashes

[Kuya]

Who could possibly have power over Khamenei though?

[Darus Grey]

The only people who have any kind of power over Khamenei(within Iran) is the Assembly of Experts.

Technically they can force him to resign at any time since Supreme Leader *is* an elected position(just not elected by the public). But at the same time...getting a 2/3 majority in the assembly of experts in order to oust one of the most popular Iranian leaders of all time? Or more accurately I should say just the threat of removal. Even if that happens to be true, why would Khemenei comply?

To me...the oddest thing about this somewhat obvious coup is that it doesn't seem like anyone is benefiting except the one man who doesn't have the power to do it.

[Kuya]

By the way, i was apparently wrong earlier. The voter turn out was not 60% but 85%. Which is, compared to Western democracies, staggering.

[Darus Grey]

Even more staggering when you consider...what? over 2/3 the population is in the 14-30 range. Majority of the electorate is young and liberal.

[Kuya]

Which makes an Ahmedinejad win so much more ridiculous, seeing as how there are record voter turn outs for liberal Iranians.

Cole explains this further:

By 2005, the hard liners had rolled back all the reforms and the reform camp was sullen and defeated. They did not come out in large numbers for the reformist candidate, Karoubi, who only got 17 percent of the vote. They nevertheless were able to force a run-off between hard line populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative billionaire. Ahmadinejad won.

But Ahmadinejad's 2005 victory was made possible by the widespread boycott of the vote or just disillusionment in the reformist camp, meaning that fewer youth and women bothered to come out.

So to believe that the 20% hard line support of 2001 has become 63% in 2009, we would have to posit that Iran is less urban, less literate and less interested in cultural issues today than 8 years ago. We would have to posit that the reformist camp once again boycotted the election and stayed home in droves.

So observers who want to lay a guilt trip on us about falling for Mousavi's smooth upper middle class schtick are simply ignoring the last 12 years of Iranian history. It was about culture wars, not class. It is simply not true that the typical Iranian voter votes conservative and religious when he or she gets the chance. In fact, Mousavi is substantially more conservative than the typical winning politician in 2000. Given the enormous turnout of some 80 percent, and given the growth of Iran's urban sector, the spread of literacy, and the obvious yearning for ways around the puritanism of the hard liners, Mousavi should have won in the ongoing culture war.

And just because Ahmadinejad poses as a champion of the little people does not mean that his policies are actually good for workers or farmers or for working class women (they are not, and many people in that social class know that they are not).

So let that be an end to the guilt trip. The Second of Khordad Movement was a winning coalition for the better part of a decade. Its supporters are 8 years older than the last time they won, but it was a young movement. Did they all do a 180 and defect from Khatami to Ahmadinejad? Unlikely. The Iranian women who voted in droves for Khatami haven't gone anywhere, and they did not very likely much care for Ahmadinejad's stances on women's issues:

He's still defending the idea that the election was rigged and i agree with him. But like it was mentioned earlier, rigging this election was not necessary. It makes no sense.

[Darus Grey]

Unconfirmed...but a friend of mine in Iran is telling me the rumor is circulating that Khemenei is under lock and key by the revolutionary guard...

*if* true, the peicing are falling into place. This is a military coup, and Ahmadinejad and Khemenei are both puppets at this point.

[Kuya]

First i've heard of that. I'll see if there's anything true to that though.

[Darus Grey]

Well according to this خبرهای دريافتی : میرحسین موسوی هنوز در بازداشت خانگی به سر میبرد/ آيت الله صانعی احمدی نژاد رييس جمهور نيست و همکاری با او حرام است....

Translation:

Grand Ayatollah Sanei in Iran has declared Ahmadinejad's presidency illegitimate and cooperating with his government against Islam. There are strong rumors that his house and office are surrounded by the police and his website is filtered. He had previously issued a fatwa, against rigging of the elections in any form or shape, calling it a mortal sin.

Another Grand Ayatollah dissenting against Khemenei is a big deal. I don't see that happening unless it's obvious Khemenei has been compromised somehow.

[Kuya]

I would suggest, opposite to my previous posts, that we don't make inmediate assumptions of election rigging, specifically because a few factors migth be at play here. By that i mean, that clearly, our media would focus more on Musavi and try and paint for him huge support, this is practically a given. Another issue is that the US has a history of declaring elections it doesn't like, regardless of whether they were won fairly or not, as false. The US government seems to be much more prudent with this at the moment, but i wouldn't hold my breath.

This whole thing is just really confusing.

[Darus Grey]

I didn't find it odd that Ahmadinejad could have won with US pressure on that region and his hard line...it's the margin of victory that screams rigged. He only won with 20%~? of the vote last time as I recall...an almost 300% increase in votes despite being significantly less popular? And a significant voter demographic age shift against him since he took office?

It's just not possible. It was rigged, and it was a rush-job.

I'm thinking the Military meant to do this subtle and something fucked up at the last minute and they lost all control of the situation.

According to: THEHRAN a political coup - roozonline.com

Which I should note is clearly a biased source for Mousavi, they received a call from the ministry of the interior telling them that they had won. Which explains why Mousavi gave a premature victory announcement.

Edit:

From Twitter feed of Students holed up in their dorm and under attack.

to other sources: this isn't the police! police is still outside! we're under attack by Ansar-Hezbolah.

Mercenaries for internal affairs? *if* true...well conclusion is obvious.

Ansar is a hardliner paramilitary organization as a note. It would be like if the KKK(or insert nutjob military US group of choice) attacked a school under police supervision...

[Kuya]

Yea i think it was rigged, but i'm trying to be careful here since it's just as possible that there's a whole "LOOK THE ELECTION WAS RIGGED EVERYBODY VIOLENT PROTEST", which seems unlikely, but it would align perfectly with the interests of certain rignt wing politicians in the US and Israel.

The margins of victory, Khamenei declaring a winner so quickly, and the very preemptive lock down of Tehran (not actually that surprising), all screams out of place. At the same time lots of people would love us all to be screaming at the top of our lungs how rigged and corrupt the election was, for obvious reasons.

These are the two narratives that i'm hearing going off all over the internet right now. Surprisingly, very few are talking of a coup.

[Darus Grey]

At this point the election isn't even an issue anymore...to me it seems far beyond that. Whether it's rigged or not seems irrelivent if the military is trying to perform a coup.

I'm mostly reading Iranian sources(2 years of Farsi finally doing something...) and feeds.

[Kuya]

Can you post some of those links? This seems very interesting.

[kuronosan]

So cliff notes is that there's a political coup in Iran and one guy cheated the other out of the election?

[Darus Grey]

More both guys got cheated.

[Kuya]

This looks like the tweet that you're using Darus, anyone who wants to follow what may be happening in Iran can use this:

Iraninan Student (Change_for_Iran) on Twitter

I got it from this site:

Mondoweiss

Here is an appeal from Amir Safavi-Naeini, an Iranian-Canadian, that I don't myself understand but that I hope other readers do:
Could you please ask your readers, the ones which are technically capable to set up proxy services for IP ranges inside Iran? These addresses can be sent to some of the people who are using facebook/twitter from Iran. All mobile phones are down and this is the only means of communication from Iran.
It would also be helpful if you could post the proxy information on twitter under #iranelection with the word proxy in your tweet.
Some people in Iran seem to have access to twitter via other proxies, so they'll spread the word and addresses. The current proxies are gradually being blocked. Some are complaining that they are on their last proxy.
Here is a recent tweet from Change_in_Iran (he doesn't want to be known as Farhad anymore):

---
using freegate now, nothing else working. no power in most of the buildings & cellphones & land lines are out again. #iranelection
---
There is a chance that they may find a way to stop freegate, in which case we'll be completely shut off from what's happening in Iran. This is really the only useful thing I could think of which we could do right now for those currently in Iran.
[Another tweet from Change in Iran:

we have now some students with urgent need of medical attention I'm calling out to all ppl who can come here don't leave us ]