Jun 17, 2009

Special Report: Elections Iran 2009


The elections in Iran and the claimed victory of Ahmadinejad have sparked riots all over Iran. UNPO has written a special report on the events of the last days. 

 


To download this special report in pdf, please click here.

 

 On June 12th 2009, elections were held in Iran, and official results announced soon after proclaimed incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the victor. According to the Iranian Interior ministry, Mr. Ahmadinejad won with 66 percent of the vote, while his strongest opponent Mir-Hossein Mousavi, received 33 percent. These results prompted protests throughout the country, mainly by the supporters of the opposition who claim that the election was fraudulent.

UNPO members have also stated that they believe the elections were not democratic. In the case of the Ahwaz and the Baloch, their preferred candidates were disqualified from even participating in the elections. Mr. K. Abdian, Executive Director of the Ahwaz Human Rights Organization states: “In short, this wasn't a democratic election as all 475 registered candidates, down from 1110 in the last election, except four were disqualified, [and] each of the four were founders and part of the establishment of the Islamic Republic. Dr. Alami was disqualified for speaking in his Turkish-Azeri mother tongue in a rally in Tabeiz”. And, as Dr. H. Soltanzadeh from Azerbaijani Federal Democratic Movement rightfully notes, the fact that people did not have the right to present their own candidates is a violation of “the elementary right of any people in choosing who should govern them”. In the case of Southern Azerbaijan, “the non Islamists and believers of other religions and women are not eligible for presidency in Iran and are legally exempt. The governing Islamic based constitution does not grant such a right for them”.

This lack of representation of the ethnic groups had serious consequences for the participation of the UNPO members and the subsequent outcome of the elections. These groups, which are the Kurds, the Baloch, the Ahwazi, and the Southern Azerbaijanis, comprise a large part of Iran’s population. According to Nasser Boladai from the Balochistan Peoples Party, the participation of the Baloch “has been very low since all Baloch political parties have boycotted this election. Of those who did participate in this election, the majority voted for Mir Hussein Mousavi, according to the regime’s own estimates”. At the time of the election, the same division was felt by the Ahwazi. According to Mr. Abdian, “The Ahwazi-Arab nation in Iran was torn by the two opposing views of the Ahwazi Opposition: one advocated complete boycott of the election to deny legitimacy in the eye of the International Community. The other was to get rid of Ahmadinejad and vote for Karrubi or Mousavi, but especially for Karubbi who for the first time discussed Ahwazi and other non-Persian nationalities’ demand for autonomy and self rule, study of mother tongue as the 2nd language and acknowledged Iran as a multi-national and a multi-ethnic society”.

Mr. Shamal Bishir, a representative of the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), a non-UNPO party from the Kurdistan region, said the election “was carried out in a vague and non-democratic atmosphere. There was no public trust in its outcome and the hope for its “soundness” was less than all the preceding elections.” The Iranian public wasn’t granted “the choice of decent participation”, by first denying candidates the right to run, and then fabricating the election result. 

The outcome of the elections exacerbated existing tensions within Iran, and sparked an outbreak of protests across the country. Tehran witnessed the largest demonstration since the 1979 revolution, with hundreds of thousands of people wearing green—the color of the opposition—demonstrating in public despite an official government ban. The Iranian authorities responded with violent crackdowns. According to firsthand accounts as well as several reports from reputable organizations, including Amnesty International, protesters were severely beaten and arrested by riot police. At least 8 people are said to have been killed in Tehran protests. This police violence has also affected some of the UNPO members. Mr. Abdian of the Ahwaz Human Rights Organization stated that “there is at least one confirmed killed in the Ahwaz demonstration yesterday [16 June 2009] on Naderi Street”. And according to Nasser Boladai from the Balochistan Peoples Party, “after […] demonstrations in Zahidan, […] Mr Shariyar Hossienbor, a Baloch university student, was arrested.”

Also, the government attempted to stop the flow of information both between Iranians within the country and from Iranians to the world outside by blocking cell phone communication, text messaging, internet access and email. Foreign journalists were either arrested or banned from attending any illegal demonstrations. Traditional media outlets have been relying heavily on informal channels—such as social networks websites Twitter and Facebook—to get information from within the country.

The UNPO members support the nonviolent protests against the election procedure. Representatives of the Ahwazi, Azerbaijani, and the Baloch have stated that they feel that the elections were neither democratic nor free. Mr. Abdian says that now that incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has claimed the victory, “our supporters are participating and supporting the current opposition for nullifying the election”.

 

Ethnicity and Election in Iran

The question that can be raised is how the members of the UNPO and other ethnic groups in Iran can benefit from democratic elections. Iran is an ethnically and religiously diverse country, but its diversity has been subverted repeatedly by the state as a means both to present and preserve national unity. According to an article by Kaveh-Cyrus Sanandaji (2009), Iran’s leaders have long feared that minorities, predominantly located in the peripheral provinces, pose a threat to national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Past attempts to reassert ethno-linguistic identity through local dress or language have been opposed as explicit efforts to undermine the state. Although these groups—including, among others, Arabs, Kurds, Baloch, Turkmen, Azerbaijanis and Lurs—comprise roughly half of Iran’s population, their local needs have been overlooked by successive governments, entrenching political, socio-cultural and economic grievances.

Mohammad Khatami’s presidential victory in 1997 and the corresponding rise of the reform movement offered peripheral ethno-linguistic and ethno-religious minorities the promise of greater regional autonomy. However, it was not until the 2005 presidential election that candidates began to address openly the needs of ethno-linguistic and ethno-religious minorities in national arenas.

Since becoming president in 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s policies promote subversion of regional identities in favor of a unified revolutionary, Islamic identity. Tehran has been reluctant to continue granting increased regional autonomy. Heightened Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) activity in the peripheral areas, particularly in the South-Eastern region dominated by the Baloch people, has provoked a backlash against the state – including a rising number of mass protests and violent attacks against IRGC installations and oil pipelines – which threatens regime stability.

Democratic elections could change the course of these events. The discourse on ethnic politics has drastically expanded during this past election, as an attempt to address minority issues. According to news reports on the campaign, Mr. Mousavi campaigned heavily in the periphery provinces such as Azerbaijan, Khuzestan, Kermanshah, Mazandaran and Golestan and was a popular candidate. According to the article, studies on voting behavior in Iran suggest that peripheral groups are most likely to vote for reformist candidates. These voters respond not only to ethnic ties, but also to active campaigning.

 

Key Players in the Election

On one side is the incumbent president Mr. Ahmadinejad, seemingly backed by a powerful Islamic system of government, including Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the military, the paramilitary, and the Guardian Council (a twelve member body consisting of six clerics, and six lawyers who vets candidates). On the other is a coalition of two former presidents, clerics and Mr. Mousavi, the reform candidate and main challenger to incumbent Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005. The losing candidates at that time, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, claimed that there were irregularities at the polls, however, the charges were not investigated. His policies while in power have been very conservative as well as defiant towards the United States and Europe. His opponent in this past election, Mr. Mousavi, an Iranian reformist politician, painter and architect who served as the fifth and last Prime Minister of the Islamic republic of Iran from 1981 to 1989, promised a more progressive agenda.

According to a poll analysis conducted by Nate Silver of political statistical analysis website FiveThirtyEight, the difference in votes between Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Ahmadinejad could have been narrower than the reported outcome. A pre-election poll conducted by Ballen and Doherty did indeed show that support for Mr. Ahmadinejad was greater than support for Mr. Mousavi by a 2 to 1 margin, reflected in the official election results. However, according to this poll, Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Mousavi together only gathered 47.4% of the vote. 15% of the sample refused to answer the question, and 27% of the sample reported that they did not know who they would vote for. Mr. Silver argues that given that the Iranians interviewed were generally negative on Ahmadinejad’s handling of the country on a variety of issues, and generally positive on reformist policies, it is not an automatic assumption that those percentages of voters would transfer into Ahmadinejad’s column. There is a significant argument to be made that many of the voters refused to reveal their true preferences to pollsters, fearing retribution. However, these swing voters (estimated by Mr. Silver to account for about 30% of the population) are particularly susceptible to intimidation tactics. As well, Mr. Silver theorizes that many were concerned about the “relatively small” benefit of voting for Mr. Mousavi, whose reforms could easily be vetoed by Ayatollah Khameini. He explains that, “these swing voters may also have been worried that their votes wouldn't have been counted anyway: about one-third of Iranians in the survey didn't believe, didn't say or didn't know whether they expected to have a free and fair election.” However, due to almost unbelievable incongruencies in the official numbers, many observers, both from within and outside Iran believe that the numbers are simply made up by the Interior Ministry.

Given these factors, the opposition has been calling not just for a ballot recount, but for a re-election. Mr. Mousavi addressed supporters on Monday June 15th 2009 in central Tehran, confirming his participation if new elections were to be called.  According to Al Jazeera, he told the crowd: “The vote of the people is more important than Mousavi or any other person.” 

The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameini is more powerful than the president and hugely influential in these elections. He appoints the heads of many powerful posts, including the commanders of the armed forces, the director of the national radio and television network, the heads of the major religious foundations, the prayer leaders in city mosques, and the members of national security councils dealing with defense and foreign affairs.

"Some people are against the unity of the Iranian nation and the solidarity of the Islamic system,” Mr. Khameini said in a meeting with representatives from the four candidates in Iran’s presidential election and officials from the Guardian Council and the Interior Ministry. But in response to the protest and international pressure, by June 15th 2009, Mr. Khameini ordered an investigation into fraud allegations surrounding the country's election. The Guardian Council, which oversees elections, said it would recount ballots disputed by moderate candidate.

 

Effects on U.S and European Relation with Iran

The circumstances surrounding Iran's presidential election, and in particular the declaration of Mr. Ahmadinejad as the winner despite allegations of fraud on behalf of the opposition, will present difficulties for any attempt by the Obama administration to diplomatically engage the Islamic Republic of Iran.
On June 15th 2009, during a press meeting, American President Barack Obama stated: "I have said before that I have deep concerns about the election. And I think that the world has deep concerns about the election."

Although it is Iran's Supreme Leader that makes the final call on matters of strategic policy, Mr. Ahmadinejad's strident rhetoric, confrontational personal style and malicious reputation in the West already represent challenges to attempts to negotiate with Iran, on issues such as Iran’s nuclear programme or Israel.

Despite the dramatic aftermath of these elections, some important factors must be kept in mind. The president of Iran is not the final decision-maker on matters of strategic policy. Mr. Mousavi, though a reformist candidate, was not planning to overturn Iran's Islamic system, but rather to reform it from within.

To watch a video of the nonviolent protests, please click here.