"Bussed in from the provinces" was how John Simpson dismissed those marching in support of Ahmadinejad, some of them carrying placards in English denouncing the interference of the BBC. Just how much license-payers' money, taxpayers' money or both has been spent on this new "Persian Service" for no purpose except to knobble this election?
Simpson, like the rest of the Beeb, cannot imagine an election in which anyone favoured by provincial (or poor, or working-class) people stood a cat in hell's chance of winning, or was even on the ballot paper in the first place. Nor in which anyone had the effrontery to vote against the instructions of the BBC.
As Robert Baer puts it:
For too many years now, the Western media have looked at Iran through the narrow prism of Iran's liberal middle class — an intelligentsia that is addicted to the Internet and American music and is more ready to talk to the Western press, including people with money to buy tickets to Paris or Los Angeles. Reading Lolita in Tehran is a terrific book, but does it represent the real Iran?
Most of the demonstrations and rioting I've seen in the news are taking place in north Tehran, around Tehran University and in public places like Azadi Square. These are, for the most part, areas where the educated and well-off live — Iran's liberal middle class. These are also the same neighborhoods that little doubt voted for Mir-Hossein Mousavi, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rival, who now claims that the election was stolen. But I have yet to see any pictures from south Tehran, where the poor live. Or from other Iranian slums.
Before we settle on the narrative that there has been a hard-line takeover in Iran, an illegitimate coup d'état, we need to seriously consider the possibility that there has been a popular hard-line takeover, an electoral mandate for Ahmadinejad and his policies. One of the only reliable, Western polls conducted in the run-up to the vote gave the election to Ahmadinejad — by higher percentages than the 63% he actually received. The poll even predicted that Mousavi would lose in his hometown of Tabriz, a result that many skeptics have viewed as clear evidence of fraud. The poll was taken all across Iran, not just the well-heeled parts of Tehran.
Al Gore didn't win Tennessee, either. Was that election rigged, too...?
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"Al Gore didn't win Tennessee, either. Was that election rigged, too...?"
ReplyDeleteI seem to remember that the 2000 US Presidential election was indeed a matter of some controversy. Maybe you missed it.
As you yourself would put it David, bless.
ReplyDeleteI'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and hoping that this was some sort of double irony. I'm nice like that.
ReplyDeleteLeo the Duck has, I think, missed the irony. David's point is that yes, of course the 2000 US Presidential election was dodgy - but it was not dodgy in Tennessee. In a similar way, of course the 2009 Iranian election is corrupt, but the result in Tabriz does not prove it so.
ReplyDeleteLindsay endorses another fascist authoritarian regime -
ReplyDeleteAs surprising as the fact that snow rarely lies in Death Valley.
His insane lust for power continues---------
My point, actually, is that I can't see any real evidence that it was rigged. The wrong candidate (as I freely admit that he was) won, that's all. But at least he won fair and square. Unlike in the US in 2000.
ReplyDeleteBDJ, I think you'll find that it is the poor, the working classes and the dwellers in rural areas who have endorsed Ahmadinejad. More is the pity, but there we are.
ReplyDeleteThose, of course, are the categories of people that you despise. Which is why they barely vote for you any more.
"I can't see any real evidence that it was rigged"
ReplyDeleteWell, for a start, in more than 70 voting districts the number of votes cast exceeded the total population.
Says who? The BBC, presumably. Someone told them that round a faaashionable dinner table in North Tehran, which they are too bone idle to leave.
ReplyDelete"Someone told them that round a faaashionable dinner table in North Tehran, which they are too bone idle to leave."
ReplyDeleteUnlike hundreds of thousands of protesters on the streets of Tehran and other Iranian cities.
How many of them are there, really?
ReplyDeleteAnd what about the demonstrators on the other side? Oh, of course, they were "bussed in from the provinces". So they don't count.
For someone who doesn't claim to support Ahmedinijad, you seem to be doing a pretty good job spinning furiously for him. Or is it that your insticntive hatred for the type of people criticising the result overwhelms your dislike for him?
ReplyDeleteHere's the Guardian:
ReplyDeleteTurnouts of more than 100% were recorded in at least 30 Iranian towns in last week's disputed presidential election, opposition sources have claimed.
In the most specific allegations of rigging yet to emerge, the centrist Ayandeh website – which stayed neutral during the campaign – reported that 26 provinces across the country showed participation figures so high they were either hitherto unheard of in democratic elections or in excess of the number of registered electors.
Taft, a town in the central province of Yazd, had a turnout of 141%, the site said, quoting an unnamed "political expert". Kouhrang, in Chahar Mahaal Bakhtiari province, recorded a 132% turnout while Chadegan, in Isfahan province, had 120%.
Another example of the Lindsay thesis. David claims that there are no protestors, that the election was not rigged, and that its all an fashuionable tehran plot. I am now safe in the knowledge that I am right to be worried about the events going on and that the election was flawed.
ReplyDeleteHere's another good piece on the rural-urban divide.
ReplyDeleteMec, it doesn't "overwhelm" it, no.
ReplyDeleteSwaick, "opposition sources have claimed"; "the centrist Ayandeh website" (so "neutral" that it counts as an "opposition source"); "quoting an unnamed "political expert"". You'll have to do better than this.
Ouds, "flawed"? Of course it was "flawed". All elections are "flawed". But for one held in a huge and quite underdeveloped country that is quite new to voting anyway, this one was in fact quite good. A shame about the result. But that's all.
Ahmedinejade's supporters are incontrovertibly doctoring photos to make their crowds look bigger.
ReplyDeleteSwaick, "opposition sources have claimed"; "the centrist Ayandeh website" (so "neutral" that it counts as an "opposition source"); "quoting an unnamed "political expert"". You'll have to do better than this.
ReplyDeleteWho are your sources, David?
So just to clarify, you're arguing that the specific claims about turnout exceeding 100% are deliberately being made up by opposition sources? And these are being wilfully reported as fact by the BBC? All because they don't like conservative Iran voters?
ReplyDeleteThe people employed to count the votes, Arlo.
ReplyDeletePumice, something like that can never be "incontrovertible", by its nature.
Ptede, I can't seem to open your link.
Clort, the first is perfectly possible. If it is the case, then the second is absolutely certain. And the third is just a statement of fact. Although the Beeb's real hatred is of poor and/or provincial BRITISH voters.
ReplyDeleteI can. Click it again.
ReplyDeletelet's see - on the one hand, accusing the regime of havinf at least potentially falsified the results we have the UK, the (Obama led) US, France, Germany, the EU, the UN, and various charities and organisations.
ReplyDeleteHaving taken it at face value, we have - Syria, Venezuala, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Is this really, really where you want to be standing? Don't be so silly.
The people employed to count the votes, Arlo
ReplyDeleteWould that be the Council of Guardians, loyal to the Supreme Ayatollah, who in turn appoints, er, Ahmedinijad?
David, this is getting silly, and your increasingly wild accusations are getting ridiculolous. Swallow your pride and climb down a little, man.
ReplyDeleteMaddie, the BBC routinely reports what it wanted to have happened rather than what did. I don't think it even knows it's doing it. Until The Heir To Blair came along, it always, always reported local elections as Tory meltdowns, although now it reports Cameron's below ten per cent of the eligible vote in the Euros as a triumph. Examples could be multiplied practically without end.
ReplyDeleteSal, he doesn't "appoint" Ahmadinejad. And the Council of Guardians approved all the candidates on the ballot. You know, like the BBC here. Only more honest and straightforward about how it's done.
Han, I don't blame any country that doesn't want this sort of interference. And "various organisations" is certainly one way of putting it. Venezuela is a very interesting comparison, by the way.
If there's a war, then it will be you people's fault. And no one's more so than the BBC.
Iraq and Afghanistan says Han. Didn't we improve them?
ReplyDelete“This election almost mirrors the class composition of the recent polls in Venezuela. President Hugo Chavez has exactly the same friends in his country. And the same enemies.”
ReplyDeleteJust as we are going to improve Iran, Jack.
ReplyDeleteGeorge, quite so. Like Ahmadinejad or loathe him, like Chavez or loathe him, a few spoilt little rich kids have no right to stamp their feet until they get their own way over the will of the working population.
And those spoilt little rich kids include the BBC.