From here on in those that choose to take to the streets in Iran to protest will do so at much greater risk. Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has spoken – and he’s decided that the outcome of the election was fair. He has also claimed that he shares Ahmadinejad’s views on foreign and domestic policy, which demonstrates either obvious bias or concerns that if the protests continue it could result in his removal by conservative hardliners within the religious establishment.
Over the last few days representatives from numerous embassies have been summoned by the Iranian government and accused of meddling in Iranian internal affairs – including Canada. I have made my position very clear regarding foreign interference, but I personally believe the warnings were issued to stir up old ghosts and thus alarm those within Iran willing to buy it.
Protests will no longer be tolerated either, with Khamenei stating that opposition leaders will be directly to blame for future violence. In short, they’ll be held responsible for any violent outcome should protesters gather peacefully and then be confronted violently by the authorities. That said, the Guardian Council still plans to meet with opposition leaders tomorrow to discuss their grievances – which seems rather pointless given Khamenei’s speech today at Tehran University.
With regards to the elections themselves, Khamenei did slip up during his address, claiming…
“There is 11 million votes difference. How can one rig 11 million votes?”
The answer to that is quite simple. The blatant abuse of mobile voting stations, the fact that results were not announced for each district, and that the Minister of the Interior oversaw the final counting of votes in private in his office with only two aides present.
First, and most importantly, the mobile voting stations.
While there were 45,000 polling stations throughout the country on election day, there were also an additional 140 mobile stations that were supposed to be used to count the votes of those unable to reach regular polling stations, such as those in hospitals. But the mobile stations were not used for that purpose, going instead to military bases, police stations, and other military instillations. As Ibrahim Yazdi pointed out in a recent interview…
“When it comes to the military compounds and so on, if even 500 extra votes were put into each of the 14,000 boxes, that is seven million votes.”
Add that to the fact that no district results were publically announced, opposition parties were refused the ability to monitor polling stations, and that the Minister of the Interior oversaw the final vote count in private, and you have something that is so far away from being a legal or transparent election that it isn’t even funny.
Under such circumstances, manipulating 15 million votes would have been possible, let alone 11 million.
Given the massive amount of international attention focused on Iran this week, not to mention the use of deadly force against protesters, it’s easy to see why Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is in no mood to have his boat rocked. Iran is not a democracy. Elected officials do no represent the most influential political construct in the country – the Supreme Leader and a cast of powerful clerics do. That being the case, from their vantage point they surely must be concerned that were the election results overturned, and illegalities uncovered, that it could possibly threaten the current political system itself over time. And that’s not something that those actually running the country are about to tolerate.