The coup — “revolution will be crushed”

June 14th, 2009

The NeoCons, the Theocons and the Zionists got their wish today — and it appears they took what they wanted despite the huge out-turn [remarkable turn-out, actually] of Iranian citizens voting against the ‘old way.’ This is what birthing a new paradigm brings … [r]evolution and political strife. What is configured in tyranny is pushing stronger than ever … and being met by those who can no longer tolerate the darkness.

The Iranian contender for Ahmadinejad’s presidency, Mousavi, was Western-leaning and sympathetic to the need for rights reform. From the Wall Street Journal [link to a thorough, informative piece]:

During a live TV debate last week, Mousavi warned that Ahmadinejad was moving Iran toward “dictatorship” and based his foreign policy on “adventurism, illusionism, exhibitionism, extremism and superficiality”. He continued: “For the past four years you kept saying that the United States is collapsing. You said Israel is collapsing. France is collapsing. Your foreign policy has been based on such illusional perceptions.”

Mousavi speaks for sections of the Iranian ruling elite who believe that an opportunity exists with the Obama administration to ease tensions with the US, and regard Ahmadinejad’s confrontational style as a barrier. Mousavi, who has emerged as the leading challenger, has the backing not only of the reformers, but also layers of the conservatives.

There’s no hard evidence to prove the numbers were skewed, given our inability to get decent news out of the country — but if you look at this graph of the reports and results you can’t help but shake your head in disgust; they didn’t even try to make it look real. Me, I’ll go with Juan Cole’s read on this; but it would take a child to miss what’s going on.

All over this globe, people want a different way — in Iran, they’re taking to the streets to protest their governments manipulation … and some are, apparently, dying for it. The Supreme Leader has called the numbers announced “A Divine Assessment” — and immediately put Mousavi under house arrest, declaring. “I assume that enemies intend to eliminate the sweetness of the election with their hostile provocation.”

Those that feared this was just window dressing on dictatorship are pretty much stunned at how glaringly obvious it is. A quote from over at Sully’s blog:

“I don’t think anyone anticipated this level of fraudulence. This was a selection, not an election. At least authoritarian regimes like Syria and Egypt have no democratic pretences. In retrospect it appears this entire campaign was a show: (Supreme Leader) Ayatollah (Ali) Khamenei wasn’t ever going to let Ahmadinejad lose,”

~ Karim Sadjadpour, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Rumor has it that former President Rasfanjani has resigned his influential positions in the government in protest.

Friday night pundits were discussing this possibility … and mentioned something about “fixing” a presidential race, noting how it couldn’t happen here. WTF!!! Are they high? Even now, we can’t face our own demons!

Obama is disappointed, as are freedom-loving people everywhere … and Israeli leaders are, predictably, relieved.

Iran — the Mullah’s coup, below.

Jude

Stealing the Iranian Election
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Saturday, June 13, 2009

Top Pieces of Evidence that the Iranian Presidential Election Was Stolen

1. It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.

2. Ahmadinejad is claimed to have taken Tehran by over 50%. Again, he is not popular in the cities, even, as he claims, in the poor neighborhoods, in part because his policies have produced high inflation and high unemployment. That he should have won Tehran is so unlikely as to raise real questions about these numbers. [Ahmadinejad is widely thought only to have won Tehran in 2005 because the pro-reform groups were discouraged and stayed home rather than voting.)

3. It is claimed that cleric Mehdi Karoubi, the other reformist candidate, received 320,000 votes, and that he did poorly in Iran's western provinces, even losing in Luristan. He is a Lur and is popular in the west, including in Kurdistan. Karoubi received 17 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in 2005. While it is possible that his support has substantially declined since then, it is hard to believe that he would get less than one percent of the vote. Moreover, he should have at least done well in the west, which he did not.

4. Mohsen Rezaie, who polled very badly and seems not to have been at all popular, is alleged to have received 670,000 votes, twice as much as Karoubi.

5. Ahmadinejad's numbers were fairly standard across Iran's provinces. In past elections there have been substantial ethnic and provincial variations.

6. The Electoral Commission is supposed to wait three days before certifying the results of the election, at which point they are to inform Khamenei of the results, and he signs off on the process. The three-day delay is intended to allow charges of irregularities to be adjudicated. In this case, Khamenei immediately approved the alleged results.

I am aware of the difficulties of catching history on the run. Some explanation may emerge for Ahmadinejad's upset that does not involve fraud. For instance, it is possible that he has gotten the credit for spreading around a lot of oil money in the form of favors to his constituencies, but somehow managed to escape the blame for the resultant high inflation.

But just as a first reaction, this post-election situation looks to me like a crime scene. And here is how I would reconstruct the crime.

As the real numbers started coming into the Interior Ministry late on Friday, it became clear that Mousavi was winning. Mousavi's spokesman abroad, filmmaker Mohsen Makhbalbaf, alleges that the ministry even contacted Mousavi's camp and said it would begin preparing the population for this victory.

The ministry must have informed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has had a feud with Mousavi for over 30 years, who found this outcome unsupportable. And, apparently, he and other top leaders had been so confident of an Ahmadinejad win that they had made no contingency plans for what to do if he looked as though he would lose.

They therefore sent blanket instructions to the Electoral Commission to falsify the vote counts.

This clumsy cover-up then produced the incredible result of an Ahmadinejad landlside in Tabriz and Isfahan and Tehran.

The reason for which Rezaie and Karoubi had to be assigned such implausibly low totals was to make sure Ahmadinejad got over 51% of the vote and thus avoid a run-off between him and Mousavi next Friday, which would have given the Mousavi camp a chance to attempt to rally the public and forestall further tampering with the election.

This scenario accounts for all known anomalies and is consistent with what we know of the major players.

More in my column, just out, in Salon.com: "Ahmadinejad reelected under cloud of fraud," where I argue that the outcome of the presidential elections does not and should not affect Obama's policies toward that country-- they are the right policies and should be followed through on regardless.

The public demonstrations against the result don't appear to be that big. In the past decade, reformers have always backed down in Iran when challenged by hardliners, in part because no one wants to relive the horrible Great Terror of the 1980s after the revolution, when faction-fighting produced blood in the streets. Mousavi is still from that generation.

My own guess is that you have to get a leadership born after the revolution, who does not remember it and its sanguinary aftermath, before you get people willing to push back hard against the rightwingers.

So, there are protests against an allegedly stolen election. The Basij paramilitary thugs and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards will break some heads. Unless there has been a sea change in Iran, the theocrats may well get away with this soft coup for the moment. But the regime's legitimacy will take a critical hit, and its ultimate demise may have been hastened, over the next decade or two.

What I've said is full of speculation and informed guesses. I'd be glad to be proved wrong on several of these points. Maybe I will be.

PS: Here's the data:

So here is what Interior Minister Sadeq Mahsouli said Saturday about the outcome of the Iranian presidential elections:

"Of 39,165,191 votes counted (85 percent), Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the election with 24,527,516 (62.63 percent)."

He announced that Mir-Hossein Mousavi came in second with 13,216,411 votes (33.75 percent).

Mohsen Rezaei got 678,240 votes (1.73 percent)

Mehdi Karroubi with 333,635 votes (0.85 percent).

He put the void ballots at 409,389 (1.04 percent). ++

A Rigged Election?
Andrew Sullivan, Daily Dish
13 Jun 2009

The outcome of the biggest out-pouring of reformist sentiment in years has been what appears to be an almost comically lop-sided result. In some ways, you wonder whether the mullahs rigged it this obviously because they sensed that this signaled something real beginning to shift. We'll see. But the story now is what this outrage will do to Iran's civil peace. Mousavi seems adamant about resistance:

"I’m warning that I won’t surrender to this manipulation," the statement said, adding that the election outcome “is nothing but shaking the pillars of the Islamic Republic of Iran sacred system and governance of lie and dictatorship." He warned "people won’t respect those who take power through fraud" and said the decision to declare Mr. Ahmadinejad the winner was a "treason to the votes of the people."

If Tocqueville is right, and these expectations are dashed this crudely, then this is a very dangerous moment for the regime in Tehran. ++

Elliot Abrams: "Don't Cry For Me Ahmadinejad"
M.J. Rosenberg, Talking Points Memo
June 12, 2009

[...]

Anyway, in today’s New York Times, Abrams is the latest of the neocons to publicly weep over the possible defeat of Ahmadinejad. Abrams says that election of a moderate President might deter war. He is worried.

The twists and turns of the neocons are almost beyond belief. Maybe it’s not Israel they “care” about at all. Maybe even a theoretical Iranian bomb is just a pretext. Maybe all these schoolboys want is another real cool war against Muslims.

In any case, the pro-Ahmadinejad tilt of Bolton, Pipes, Abrams and the rest of the crowd that gave us the Iraq war is a demonstration of perversity unlike any I’ve ever seen in American politics.

And to think, they had the ear (and not just the ear) of the 43rd President for eight years.

Postscript: Many Israelis feel the same way. From today’s Jerusalem Post. From today’s Ma’ariv: “When it comes to the Iranian presidential elections, Jerusalem is convinced that it is in fact Iran’s current president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is the best candidate to serve Israel’s interests. ‘We’re better off with him getting elected,’ said a senior political source. ‘The prevailing opinion here is that Ahmadinejad just speaks his mind. How are the others any different? They’re just nicer, but they think exactly like him.’” ++

Iranian Elections Were Obviously Rigged
Cenk Uygur, The Young Turks, HuffPo
June 13, 2009

This conversation about whether the Iranian vote was fixed is nonsense. Of course it was! Yes, polls in Iran are unreliable but Mousavi was leading 54-39 in the one poll before the election. Heavy voter turnout favored him. And instead he loses 63% to 34%. That’s an absolute joke. They might as well have gone all the way and called it 97-3%.

According to these “official” results Mousavi lost his own home district (which is inconceivable in Iranian politics) and got far less votes than previous reformist candidates. Look, these things are not even close to believable. No one should give these numbers a shred of credibility. What is only a hundred percent more likely is that the Iranian government decided ahead of time who was going to win and that was that.

You have to understand 63-34 is a gigantic blowout that is much larger than some of the biggest landslides in American history. When Reagan crushed Mondale in 1984 and carried 49 out of the 50 states, he only won 58.8% to 40.6%. To say Ahmedinejad won 63-34 is not only saying we fixed this thing, but we’re rubbing it in your face.

And let’s be clear this isn’t a matter of some missing ballots or voting irregularities. This is simply making up a number and pretending it’s the real vote. I doubt they even counted the actual votes. What would be the point? Remember, the Iranian state news agency declared Ahmedinejad the winner before a single vote had been counted. Gee, I wonder who they were pulling for? I’ve never seen an election so rigged in my life (at least one that was actually pretending to be a real election). Saddam Hussein would be proud of the way this election was conducted.

The internet, texting and other forms of communication also happened to be conveniently down during and after the election. These are the main ways Mousavi supporters were communicating with one another. Gee, I wonder which side the state was on? Who gave the order to jam these lines of communication and whose side were they on? How much more obvious can this be?

Most people think the Iranian government turned these devices off to lower the Mousavi vote. I think they didn’t give damn about lowering the vote because they weren’t going to count the ballots anyway. They turned off the communication so that a revolt would be harder to conduct while they announced the bogus results.

Before the elections the Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced that if Mousavi’s people complained about rigged elections, they would crush them. Whose side do you think they were on? And why do you think they might have been making such preparations?

But the clerics who run Iran and Ayatollah Khamenei better be careful what they wish for. This is how you start revolutions. Iran has a very young population that is yearning for more freedom and those younger voters were overwhelmingly on the side of Mousavi. These young Iranians made the mistake of believing that they had some say in their government and that they did not live under a dictatorship. And now they have found out the truth. My guess is that is not going to sit well with them.

It’s one thing to bring in a new slightly moderate leader with only some powers as your next president. It’s another thing to tell your people that they don’t matter and that you rule their lives with an iron fist and that their government is a fraud. That’s the kind of thing revolutions are made of. ++

Iran election result makes Obama’s outreach efforts harder
Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers
Saturday, June 13, 2009

WASHINGTON — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s highly disputed reelection victory will complicate President Barack Obama’s push for better relations with the Islamic republic.

If Ahmadinejad stays in office with his legitimacy seriously compromised, experts said it could make it harder for the U.S. to trust negotiations with the regime over its nuclear program; fuel domestic pressure on Obama to take a harder line with Iran; increase tensions with Israel; and possibly affect stability in Iraq, where Iran has long been accused of supporting armed groups.

“Everything is made more complicated by this,” said Gary Sick, who formerly served on the National Security Council, writes about Iran, and teaches at Columbia University.

With supporters of challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi rioting in the streets of Tehran Saturday, and critics around the world accusing the regime of rigging the returns, U.S. foreign policy experts warned it could take days or weeks for the dust to settle.

“If they’d been a little more modest and said Ahmadinejad had won by 51 percent,” Sick said, Iranians might have been dubious but more accepting. But the government’s assertion that Ahmadinejad won with 62.6 percent of the vote, “is not credible.”

“I think it does mark a real transition point in the Iranian Revolution, from a position of claiming to have its legitimacy based on the support of the population, to a position that has increasingly relied on repression. The voice of the people is ignored.”

At the same time, experts reiterated, Iran is controlled not by its president but by its unelected supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who would have remained in power even if Mousavi had been recognized as the winner.

That’s one reason the Ahmadinejad triumph need not derail U.S. efforts to improve its relationship with Tehran, said Kenneth M. Pollack, acting director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution.

“Ahmadinejad doesn’t control Iranian foreign policy, the supreme leader does,” Pollack said. “And at the end of the day if the supreme leader says, ‘Sit down with the Americans,’ he (Ahmadinejad) will sit down with the Americans.

“But this election and their results are an important caution to Americans and everyone else on the planet: This is not a democracy.”

Obama did not directly weigh in. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs instead issued a statement saying, “Like the rest of the world, we were impressed by the vigorous debate and enthusiasm that this election generated, particularly among young Iranians. We continue to monitor the entire situation closely, including reports of irregularities.”

Philip Zelikow, an adviser to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and history professor at the University of Virginia, said because of the election results, the United States needs to be careful with how it approaches Iran and shouldn’t be seen as taking the side of the Ahmadinejad’s opponents.

“The forces supporting Ahmadinejad will want to accuse their opponents of being foreign puppets,” Zelikow said. “So our behavior needs to inoculate against that accusation. On the other hand, a lot of Iranians are going to be troubled about the apparent illegitimacy of their government.”

The outcome is also likely to make it more difficult for Obama to persuade Israel to focus on a Palestinian peace deal rather than on Iran’s perceived threat.

Sam Lewis, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and senior policy adviser to the Israel Policy Forum, which advocates a two-state solution, called the reelection of Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier who has frequently said Israel’s days are numbered, “a disappointing outcome.”

Karim Sadjadpour, an associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former chief Iran analyst for the International Crisis Group, took a pessimistic view.

He said Ahmadinejad may now represent an “insurmountable obstacle to confidence building with Iran” and that Khamenei’s influence in perpetuating Ahmadinejad makes clear Khamenei is the one voice in Iran who matters.

The Obama administration, he said, “should stop this dance of looking at these elections with potentially hopeful eyes. We should go directly to the source of power, Ayatollah Khamenei, and make clear we’re ready to deal with him directly.” ++

Ahmadinejad wins surprise Iran landslide victory
• Riot police in violent clashes with opposition supporters
• Challenger Mousavi claims fraud after record 84% turnout
Ian Black in Tehran. The Guardian
Saturday 13 June 2009

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has won a crushing victory in Iran’s landmark presidential election, according to the country’s authorities, but his moderate challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi has warned of “tyranny” and protested that the result was rigged after a record turnout of 84%.

As the official results were announced, baton-wielding riot police clashed with angry Mousavi supporters in some of the most serious unrest Tehran has seen in years.

Riot police on motorbikes used batons to disperse Mousavi supporters who staged a sit-in near the interior ministry, where the results were announced. Up to 2,000 Mousavi supporters erected barricades of burning tyres and chanted “Mousavi take back our vote! What happened to our vote?”

Reporters saw police attacking the demonstrators, and several protesters were carried away. The BBC showed footage of police attacking protesters, some of whom threw stones at the officers.

In another main street of Tehran, about 300 young people blocked the avenue by forming a human chain and chanted “Ahmadi, shame on you. Leave the government alone.”

Mobile phone text messages were jammed, and news and social networking websites – including the Guardian, the BBC and Facebook – as well as pro-Mousavi websites were blocked or difficult to access.

“The election was a game and full of lies,” shouted one protester. “We can not do anything here,” said another. “We can not believe the results and they are unacceptable.”

Mousavi appealed directly to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei but the country’s supreme leader today threw his weight behind Ahmadinejad, urging the other candidates to support the president.

Mousavi said this morning: “I personally strongly protest the many obvious violations and I’m warning I will not surrender to this dangerous charade. The result of such performance by some officials will jeopardise the pillars of the Islamic Republic and will establish tyranny.”

But Khamenei, who has final say on all state matters, called the result a “divine assessment” and called on all Iranians to support Ahmadinejad.

Speaking on state television this afternoon, he said: “I assume that enemies intend to eliminate the sweetness of the election with their hostile provocation.”

Mousavi, a former prime minister, had been widely expected to trounce the controversial incumbent, or at least do well enough to trigger a run-off. He claimed victory in an apparent attempt to pre-empt his rival.

But as the votes were still being counted late on Friday, aides to Ahmadinejad announced that he had won by an “unassailable” margin. Polling stations had stayed open four extra hours to meet the huge demand.

The interior minister, Sadeq Mahsouli, said this afternoon that Ahmadinejad had won an overwhelming victory of 62.63% to Mousavi’s 33.75%.

Even in Mousavi’s hometown province of Tabriz in north-west Iran, the ministry claimed Ahmadinejad received more than 60% of the vote.

Early editions of Mousavi’s paper Kalemeh Sabz, or the Green Word, and other reformist dailies declared Mousavi the victor but were ordered to change their headlines, local journalists said. The papers had blank spots where articles were removed.

The outcome seems a grave setback to hopes for a solution to the looming international crisis over Iran’s nuclear ambitions and for détente with the US in response to Barack Obama’s overtures. Israel quickly demanded efforts to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

“It doesn’t augur well for an early and peaceful settlement of the nuclear dispute,” said Mark Fitzpatrick at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Israel’s deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, said: “If there was a shadow of hope for a change in Iran, the renewed choice of Ahmadinejad expresses more than anything the growing Iranian threat.”

If the result stands it will spell an end to hopes for the greater freedoms and economic competence Mousavi had promised Iran’s 72 million people. At times the election campaign seemed like a referendum on Ahmadinejad’s four-year term.

The high turnout underscored the stakes domestically. Mousavi’s slick ­campaign galvanised an apathetic electorate and raised hopes of a more stable economy and increased liberty at home as well as better relations abroad.

Supporters had hoped Mousavi could have a similarly positive effect to Mohammad Khatami, who ushered in a period of change that ended when Ahmadinejad came from nowhere to capture the presidency four years ago.

Trita Parsi, the president of the Washington-based National Iranian American Council, expressed disbelief at the wide margin in Ahmadinejad’s favour. “It is difficult to feel comfortable that this occurred without any cheating,” Parsi told Reuters.

Ali Ansari, who heads the Institute for Iranian Studies at St Andrews University in Scotland, warned: “The potential for unrest is high.”

As three weeks of often passionate campaigning drew to a close on Wednesday, the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) issued an ominous warning that any attempt at a popular “revolution” would be crushed. ++

Iran’s elections - the human rights dimension
Shirin Ebadi, WaPo
Thursday, June 11, 2009

Most of the attention - in Iran and here - has understandably been on the domestic politics of the Iranian election and its potential effect on international relations. But the outcome will also have fundamental implications for human rights in Iran.

Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian human rights lawyer who was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, described the current human rights situation in Iran in the above link. Although it is difficult to know where to begin with Iran’s recent human rights record, she focused on the treatment of women - in particular the young women who launched the One Million Signatures Campaign, a grass-roots movement to reform the legal system and educate the public about discrimination against women.

They have been arrested in the hundreds, and many remain in jail simply for exercising their rights of free speech. Shirin Ebadi herself has been arrested in the past, and her office was recently attacked and ransacked by police and their non-uniformed goons. But the women are not backing down.

Roxana Saberi, the American journalist who was arrested and spent months in prison reminds us of just how arbitrary, paranoid and unjust the Iranian “justice” system can be. She recounts some of her experiences in a column in the Washington Post.

Iran has had a deplorable human rights record over a very long period of time, actually extending back even before the 1979 revolution. But repression has clearly become worse over the past four years of Ahmadinejad’s presidency. A partial catalogue of this venomous history was published several days ago by Hossein Bastani & Fariba Amini.

Would a change of presidents make a difference? It would be naïve to expect Iran to suddenly become Sweden, but it is neither naïve nor unrealistic to expect improvement. Mr Mousavi, whose “green wave” campaign has inspired such enthusiasm, has issued a formal platform which, for the first time in Iran, includes a civil rights charter and a declaration on the rights of ethnic and religious minorities. In addition, there is every reason to believe that the influence of Mousavi’s wife, if nothing else, would have an effect on the handling of womens’ rights in his presidency.

Implementing a human rights agenda is more difficult than setting forth a set of principles, but that is at least a useful place to begin. Iran needs to be held accountable, but Mr Ahmadinejad has shown himself to be impervious to such criticism. He simply denies it in the face of all evidence.

A different president, especially one who is formally committed to greater tolerance, would be a significant and positive change. ++

A Divided Country United by the Spirit of Democracy
Robert Fisk, The Independent/UK
Saturday, June 13, 2009

A brave people went in their millions yesterday to vote for the next president of Iran.

They went for the right reasons and they went for the wrong reasons but they wanted a say in how their country is governed. In their tens of thousands, they waited in Tehran amid the sword-like heat of summer to insist that they had duties and obligations towards their society. Alas, the clerical blanket which smothers Iran will ensure that mullahs - not people - ultimately get their way. Thank you, Ayatollah Khomeini.

Not since the first free Iraqi elections have a Middle Eastern people so staunchly demonstrated their right to be heard. The last elections in Iran provided a 60 per cent turnout. Now some were saying it was 80 per cent, even 85 per cent. I found the mosques and schools of Tehran packed to capacity, the overflow winding back down the hot pavements and across the baking highways.

Never before in Iran - not since the Islamic Revolution that brought all this about - have I heard such a thunder of free speech. No, it is not a new Iran we are going to see, even if the favourite Mirhossein Mousavi wins the ticket. (Both Mousavi and the unbalanced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were last night claiming victory.) But it will be a little bit stronger than it was before. Please God, not a little bit more dangerous.

This new spirit could be heard outside the Issar School voting booths in Shaheed Mozaffarikhah Street - yes, of course this martyr died in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, but then that awesome conflict had a lot to do with the turnout, as we shall see. “There are different reasons why I am here,” Mariam Amina said to me, the less courageous voters - who didn’t want to talk to the foreign journalist - listening to her every word. “I was not going to vote - I wasn’t. But then I thought my silence would help someone who is not qualified to be president of Iran. And I thought my one vote would be worth it and that the person who becomes president would be a good president.” Could there be a better reason for any democrat in the world to vote? The psychology student did suggest - unwisely, as I pointed out to her - that the British did not vote in such numbers “because they don’t need to change their government”. Corruption, I gently offered, is not a uniquely Arab or Iranian phenomenon - but her courage drew others to talk. A trickle of words turned into a waterfall. Ehsan, his unwillingness to give his family name told its own story - got the day about right. “Maybe people aren’t here for the voting,” he said. “Maybe it’s only a political demonstration against the regime. We don’t have any way to say why we need to change.”

Minar - suffice it to say that every woman was scarved or chadored, albeit with ever increasing fringes of hair glistening beneath the sun - thought the “unpredictable debates” on Iranian television had a role in bringing the people of Tehran on to their canyon-like streets. “No one knew what would be said on television. That’s why so many people are taking part in this election. The Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Khamenei] didn’t want those cameras but they were there.”

They were indeed, and there was much conversation among the crowd as to why the long-dead Ayatollah Khomeini had laid this permanent crust of Islamic rule over a real democracy of the people. Ehsan thought it accounted for the failure of the Mohamed Khatami government, “the chain over us,” he called it. “There are people surrounding the Supreme Leader and they are all in line with him.”

Then came the shadows that always lie away from the blinding sunlight of Tehran. A man called Kurosh - “Kurosh” is Persian for Cyrus, as in Cyrus the Great - took me to the shade on the other side of the street. He didn’t want to be heard. “In the case of Mirhossein [Mousavi], he might have a successful vote, he could save the country freely. But I think in the next years, there may be a bloodbath in Tehran, because there are two totally divided sides in the country. All this is silent at the moment…”

Quite so. On Thursday, for the second time in five days, the judiciary authorities closed down the pro-Mousavi newspaper Yaseno. President Ahmadinejad’s boys were at work again. And as I drove to the poverty of south Tehran - you always know you are heading for the poor here, because all roads to them lead downhill - there were those childish posters of the ever-smiling country boy who is still - just - the President. Ahmadinejad running in his sports clothes, Ahmadinejad among his smiling people, Ahmadinejad playing football.

Inside the Hasrat Rasoul Mosque - and here we were definitely amid the poverty of the capital - there were three state television cameras (Ahmadinejad’s work again, of course) and there were thousands waiting to vote, old bearded men, young labourers, half shaved, in dirty trousers, and on the other side of the “masjid” a row of women, their chadors billowing in dark clouds. “For Ahmadinejad, naturally,” came the first male voice. “Because he’s an expert and an uncorrupt person. I didn’t vote for him last time because I didn’t know him. But his plans have always been complete and successful.”

What was this? The man who has turned Iran into a laughing stock, who clearly cannot understand economics - reporters do sometimes have to tell the truth - is “complete” is he? He is “successful” is he? Though at the end, that’s what his election result might prove to be. Then 52-year-old Hassan Danesh revealed himself. He runs a clothing store in the Great Tehran Bazaar. Same old story, the bazaaris in league with the clerics, just as they were in the 1979 revolution. Then a shock. A veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, white-haired now, Asghar Naderzadeh stepped towards me. He was a Basiji, a religiously inspired volunteer to fight Saddam, fought at Shalamcheh, arrived on the front lines at the age of just 14. “I want Mirhossein,” he said. “The war veterans all know him as a good person. He managed the war perfectly and controlled inflation during this period.” The old Basiji, it should be understood, were heroes and died for Iran. The new version, the young men who never fought but cluster around the Supreme Leader, are a political breed.

Another man, after Asghar, nameless this time but voting once more for Mirhossein “because of the way he speaks, his promises…” And then, inevitably, the voice of conservative womanhood. “All the time, Iran is a victory for Muslims. Everywhere imperialism has intimidated countries. We are all supporters of the Supreme Leader and the [Ahmadinejad] government.” Untrue. Samaya was voting for the first time, a job in public relations management, who had listened to all four candidates in the televised debates. “It’s my responsibility to vote for my president, Mirhossein Mousavi. His personality is fit for being a president.”

We were all being watched and listened to - at far too close quarters - by a young army officer, a lieutenant with an AK-47 rifle, unshaven but with hard, strong eyes. Was this Big Brother, coming to betray those who wished to speak their minds?

Again, another woman, 27-year-old Marjan, a student of English translation at Tehran university, in jeans and a long black cloak and scarf. “I love my country and I love my revolution and I would like a good president for my country, Mr Mousavi. He helped save our country.” It seemed the 1980-88 war cannot go away.

An older lady now. “We want to protect the blood of our martyrs in the war. I am the sister of a martyr who died in battle at Fakkeh in Khuzestan, a housewife with two daughters and I want Ahmadinejad.” Then came the classic illogicality. “I don’t want Mousavi to be president because he’s going to promote bad ‘hijab’. We don’t need more freedom for girls to go out in bad dresses.”

She was not alone. Kobra, a nurse in a scarf and purple coat, wanted the same as the housewife in front of her. “I vote because of my beliefs, because of love for this country’s Islam and for the blood of our martyrs. It must be Ahmadinejad. He is the icon of resistance and courage.” This was extraordinary. Kobra was transposing Ahmadinejad from hero of the 1980-88 war - which he was not - into hero of the war against George W Bush, a war of threats, to be sure, but certainly not a war of weapons. And then Kobra surprised us all. “I think President Obama is approaching Iran properly and this will be accepted in our society. We want other people in other countries to acknowledge us as human beings. All of us believe in God, like the Christians and the Jews. You believe in Jesus, we believe in Mohamed. We are all the same. In this election, I am looking for a channel to express my ideas. Tell everyone that we love Western countries.”

This was a deeply moving statement of love and belief to come from an Ahmadinejad voter but just at that moment, the army lieutenant came up to me, rifle over his shoulder. “We are persuading these elements that we are having a democracy in Iran,” he told me. “But democracy is for people who know their own intentions. Iranian people don’t know what they want. Democracy will not work here. People should be educated, then they know what they want. Don’t you believe that?” I said that you cannot filter out the poor from the educated and let only the rich and the powerful rule. I guessed the soldier was a bright man - I was right, he was a mining engineer in civilian life - but then up came the man from the interior ministry and the man from the governorate and told the soldier he was not allowed to talk to journalists. And this was when Lieutenant Zuheir Sadeqinejad of the Iranian army replied. “I was asking the journalist questions,” he snapped back. “And I have the right to speak.”

And I wondered if - despite his flawed argument - he wasn’t the greatest democrat of them all.

The expats’ view: ‘I knew we had to come out’

With its patio cafés and millionaire mansions, Kensington Court in west London is usually more accustomed to the genteel comings and goings of its well-heeled residents. Yesterday it could have been mistaken for north Tehran. Thousands of chanting Iranians gathered outside the Iranian consulate to cast their vote - something that expats have rarely done during previous elections. But this year’s presidential race has invigorated Britain’s Iranians like never before thanks to the astonishing rallies of the reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi. Maryam Gol, who left Iran in 1974 and now lives with her family in Milton Keynes, was one of hundreds patiently queuing up to vote yesterday afternoon. It was the first time she had cast a ballot since settling in the UK. “When I saw just how many young people came out to support Mousavi,

I knew we had to come out and help them,” she said. “People truly believe that change is on the way.” If supporters of the conservative incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were present they were keeping their heads down. Instead the street was filled with hundreds of young, expectant Mousavi supporters in his green campaign colours and chanting slogans hoping for change. Students Fasilat Nassiri, 23, and Behrad Parvar, 25, were queuing with friends who all said they were voting for Mr Mousavi. “Refusing to vote is not an option,” said Ms Nassiri. “I don’t think things will suddenly change but there is a glimmer of hope. We have to seize that.” ++

“I’m asking you to believe. Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington … I’m asking you to believe in yours.”
~ Barack Obama

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Entry Filed under: Political Waves