The Blessings of Democracy

June 14, 2009

Iranian President Ahmandinejad's election victory, real or rigged?

As Americans we are well practiced in expressing our opinions. Sure the debate gets a little loud, and at times more than just a little obnoxious, but minimally every four years we have a democratic free for all when it’s time to elect a new president.

Probably for that very reason it was encouraging to watch as Iran, a country not known for democracy either in the time of the Shah or in recent decades under the Ayatollahs, engage in a vigorous debate as incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was opposed by Mir Hussein Moussavi. These two men held televised debates in which they leveled some very harsh charges at each other, charges they repeated in rallies around the country.

While Ahmadinejad appeared to have a healthy lead at the start of the campaign season, by its conclusion a variety of news sources were reporting that an increasing groundswell for the reform-minded Moussavi had brought the race to a dead heat. Given the fact that in Iran a presidential election must end in a clear popular vote winner with 50% plus one to avoid a runoff, and the fact that along with Moussavi’s strong challenge there were two lesser known opposition candidates, it seemed likely, therefore, that at the very least this election would be headed to a second round.

Then came Friday, election day, and the vote counting that followed. Suddenly it appeared that the emerging spirit of democracy in Iran was one-tenth bombast, and nine-tenths theater. And with that the idea of an emerging democracy came tumbling down.

We may not ever know between the time the votes were cast and the result was announced what really happened, what we do know is the result announced by Iranian officials: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won 63% of the vote, his principle opponent, Mir Hussein Moussav, won less than 37% of the vote.

When Moussav’s supporters went wild claiming that a fraud had been committed, Ahmandinejad’s supporters countered that the “western media” had mislead their readers all along with their Tehran-centric coverage and vastly underestimated their candidate’s popularity outside of Iran’s major urban areas.

That has a degree of logic to it. After all speaking to voters in New York City and San Francisco may not give you a clear idea of how the vote will go in Tulsa and Charleston. But then when you look deeper something much darker appears to be afoot. First, Moussav supporters and organizers found themselves on election day with a sudden loss of texting services. In a country where the opposition has long depended on such high tech capabilities as texting and instant messaging that’s significant. Additionally, opposition websites, and Internet services went down around the country, while universities were closed as well.

Further, honest voter polling prior to the election, and most importantly, exit polling conducted by an independent news media of targeted voting areas could have revealed a reasonably accurate reflection of how the electorate, an incredible 85% of Iran’s eligible voters, actually voted.  Most Americans should recall that during this past November’s presidential election, Barack Obama won by an impressive margin, significantly less than Ahmandinejad’s victory however. Still all the media networks, based on exit polling, announced McCain’s defeat moments after polls closed in California and throughout the West. Exit polling, as seen in the US election of 2000 can be problematic in a very tight race, but when the margin is relatively small, say 52-48, or even less, this form of polling quickly reveals an accurate winner.

Of course in Iran, beyond the electioneering and the heated debates, none of these actual trappings of democracy seem to have been present on the day of their presidential election. No election monitors, no polling place observers, no opposition attorneys present.

Within 24-hours of Ahmandinejad’s announced victory, heavily armed police began moving through Tehran and the beatings and arrests of Moussav’s supporters began. As this sad story unfolds it provides Americans, and the citizens of Democratic nations, from Germany to Australia, from Japan to the United Kingdom, a chance to pause and give thanks for the blessings of democracy.

Ahmandinejad, early in what now appears to be his first, as opposed to only, four-year presidential term, drew world-wide condemnation when he questioned whether Nazi genocide had really occurred. Denying the Holocaust is a rather audacious act when one stops to consider that no nation ever did a better job at documenting its own war crimes than Hitler’s Germany. Right down to the gold extracted from their victim’s teeth, Nazi Holocaust records are a shameful testament to a well organized killing machine.

Of course in this election “landslide” Ahmandinejad might be borrowing from Hitler’s political playbook as well. Hitler believed that you never made a small lie. Hitler thought it essential to always create a lie so huge that it simply left your opponents dazed. Ahmandinejad’s impressive 63% of the vote may just be one such audacious act of deceit. We’ll probably never know because without a free press no one will be allowed to get the real answers.

Our democracy can be noisy and unsettling at times, but how sweet our system seems when placed next to the stench of dictatorship.

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Other MVL Articles of Interest

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Husbands and Housework

Catching Your Wave: Motivation Made Easy

Donna Reed’s Long Lost Letters Capture Soldiers’ Emotions

Surviving the Seven-Year Itch

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