Iran: A Matter of Appearances
Is there the possibility that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did win re-election Friday? The answer is yes. But it isn't the most important question. Neither, really, is whether the winner was his chief opponent, Mir Hosain Mousavi.
The most crucial question is the appearance of legitimacy. Whether or not Ahmadinejad in fact did win the most votes, if sufficent numbers of Iranians conclude that the result was fair, he and the clerical circle surrounding Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are probably secure for the next four years.
But if Iranians conclude the opposite, the ruling class could lose the veneer of legitimacy. Considering Iran's history -- in particular how the regime itself came to power -- that could be perilous for its survival.
The government seems to perceive this danger. As Ahmadinejad's landslide triumph collided with the pre-election expectations of many Iranians, the government detained dozens of opposition leaders and members, and continued to sever social networking among Iranians -- text-messaging, Facebook and so on. As for Mousavi, though he issued a statement today -- calling for the election result to be overturned -- he has vanished from the public eye.
This space has argued for the last week that the pre-election public anointment of Mousavi -- on the streets of Tehran and in the columns of blog and newspaper writers -- was premature. All alert Iranians are aware that their electoral system is tightly controlled by Khamenei's circle. Mousavi was open-eyed to the prospect of a staged result; hence his declaration of victory before any vote totals were announced, a move that makes sense only as an attempt to seize the post-election initiative. Mousavi either knew or should have known that this result was possible, and should have been prepared for it. If he wasn't, he doesn't deserve to be president.
The battle for legitimacy is already under way. As one data point, Al-Jazeera's Teymour Nabili points out that Ahmadinejad was declared the victor even in Mousavi's native city of Tabriz, the capital of Iranian Azerbaijan. Mousavi himself is Azeri, who are "among the tightest ethnic groups in the country, unfailingly voting along ethnic lines," Nabili wrote. "In the 2005 presidential election, Mohsen Mehralizadeh was a largely unknown and wholly unsuccessful candidate. He came in seventh and last, and yet he still won the Azeri vote in the Azerbaijani provinces."
This phenomenon -- that of opposition supporters purportedly failing to vote for their own candidate on election day -- is an age-old indicator of a stolen election. My own first experience of this was in the Philippines. I recall one witty parliamentary candidate in notorious Ilocos Norte who was thumped by the incumbent, 100%-0%. In explanation of how this was possible, he responded that even he didn't vote for himself.
Carnegie's Sadjadpour doesn't think the protests so far are "significant enough to cause any type of existential threat to the regime." Khamenei's circle, he says, probably presumes that opposition unhappiness will peter out after a week or so.
That could be a safe bet. Yet legitimacy is a precious commodity. Once one loses it, the rest is a running battle.
Updates: Mousavi issued a statement saying he is under house arrest and is banned from appearing in public, according to the Wall Street Journal's Farnaz Fassihi. A previous such report turned out to be false, and Fassihi notes that the government has not confirmed this one. Separately, I just ran across Nader Uskowi's excellent news blog on Iran. I highly recommend it for those interested in straight-forward coverage, videos and insidery news.
The most crucial question is the appearance of legitimacy. Whether or not Ahmadinejad in fact did win the most votes, if sufficent numbers of Iranians conclude that the result was fair, he and the clerical circle surrounding Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are probably secure for the next four years.
But if Iranians conclude the opposite, the ruling class could lose the veneer of legitimacy. Considering Iran's history -- in particular how the regime itself came to power -- that could be perilous for its survival.
The government seems to perceive this danger. As Ahmadinejad's landslide triumph collided with the pre-election expectations of many Iranians, the government detained dozens of opposition leaders and members, and continued to sever social networking among Iranians -- text-messaging, Facebook and so on. As for Mousavi, though he issued a statement today -- calling for the election result to be overturned -- he has vanished from the public eye.
This space has argued for the last week that the pre-election public anointment of Mousavi -- on the streets of Tehran and in the columns of blog and newspaper writers -- was premature. All alert Iranians are aware that their electoral system is tightly controlled by Khamenei's circle. Mousavi was open-eyed to the prospect of a staged result; hence his declaration of victory before any vote totals were announced, a move that makes sense only as an attempt to seize the post-election initiative. Mousavi either knew or should have known that this result was possible, and should have been prepared for it. If he wasn't, he doesn't deserve to be president.
The battle for legitimacy is already under way. As one data point, Al-Jazeera's Teymour Nabili points out that Ahmadinejad was declared the victor even in Mousavi's native city of Tabriz, the capital of Iranian Azerbaijan. Mousavi himself is Azeri, who are "among the tightest ethnic groups in the country, unfailingly voting along ethnic lines," Nabili wrote. "In the 2005 presidential election, Mohsen Mehralizadeh was a largely unknown and wholly unsuccessful candidate. He came in seventh and last, and yet he still won the Azeri vote in the Azerbaijani provinces."
This phenomenon -- that of opposition supporters purportedly failing to vote for their own candidate on election day -- is an age-old indicator of a stolen election. My own first experience of this was in the Philippines. I recall one witty parliamentary candidate in notorious Ilocos Norte who was thumped by the incumbent, 100%-0%. In explanation of how this was possible, he responded that even he didn't vote for himself.
Carnegie's Sadjadpour doesn't think the protests so far are "significant enough to cause any type of existential threat to the regime." Khamenei's circle, he says, probably presumes that opposition unhappiness will peter out after a week or so.
That could be a safe bet. Yet legitimacy is a precious commodity. Once one loses it, the rest is a running battle.
Updates: Mousavi issued a statement saying he is under house arrest and is banned from appearing in public, according to the Wall Street Journal's Farnaz Fassihi. A previous such report turned out to be false, and Fassihi notes that the government has not confirmed this one. Separately, I just ran across Nader Uskowi's excellent news blog on Iran. I highly recommend it for those interested in straight-forward coverage, videos and insidery news.
Labels: ahmadinejad, iran elections, iranian elections, mousavi, moussavi
3 Comments:
What do you think about Juan Cole's reading of this poll?
"The poll did not find that Ahmadinejad had majority support. It found that the level of support for the incumbent was 34%, with Mousavi at 14%.
27% said that they were undecided. (Some 22% of respondents are not accounted for by any of the 4 candidates or by the undecided category, and I cannot find an explanation for this. Did they plan to write in for other candidates? A little over a quarter of respondents did say they wanted more choice than they were being given.)
Here's the important point: 60% of the 27% who said they were undecided favored political reform."
Hi Ian.
Cole raises strong points. The takeaway of the current reporting, in my view, is that nothing is black-and-white. The heavy probability is that there was at least some rigging -- one only has to examine the lead up to the polls to conclude that. But, short of a confession, it seems highly unlikely that there will be factual knowledge of who won; and in this vein I am reminded of the 1986 presidential polls in the Philippines, when the elections workers themselves publicly admitted to cheating and described how the fix took place. So I return to the conclusion that, ultimately, what matters is the Iranian street -- who do Iranians perceive won?
"60% of the 27% who said they were undecided favored political reform."
Does anyone know what kind of reform Iranians want? Have any experts written on the specifics of the political system they want to replace the current one? Thank you.
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