Ahmadinejad reelected, or maybe not

Ghaemi told me that opposition leaders and their supporters are scared and are being intimidated, including by the surrounding of the Karoubi and Mousavi election headquarters by the security services, and by the alleged detention of Mousavi.

He said opposition forces believe there was massive fraud in the vote count but cannot figure out where it occurred, perhaps in the computer system pre-planned in advance. He said that they are frightened.

Iran hands have used words like “coup” to describe what they believe may be taking place.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/06/12/iran_elections_update

Obama has made this disaster possible. After his craven performance in Cairo the Mullahs know they are free to act with impunity. And after his Rose Garden stupidity this afternoon we can hang it around his neck. Obama is a menace to the planet.

elduende on June 13, 2009 at 12:19 AM

Iran elections update
Fri, 06/12/2009 – 11:27pm

Leading Iranian opposition presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi was due to give a press conference at 10am Tehran time (8 1/2 hours ahead of EST), a Washington-based Iran hand tells The Cable. Two hours earlier, final vote counts (according to state counters) are expected to be announced.

“If [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei comes and endorses the results prior to 10am, then a Mousavi protest will be more than a confrontation, but war,” the Iran hand says.

Meantime, an international human rights group says that it has received unconfirmed reports that Mousavi may have been taken into custody by Iranian intelligence officials.

“We were told by very reliable sources that Mousavi was detained on his way to meet the Supreme Leader by members of the intelligence ministry and taken to a safe house to prevent him from making any public announcement,” Hadi Ghaemi, of the Hague-based NGO, the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran, told The Cable.

(A source who spoke to someone who went to the Mousavi headquarters said the person disputed that Mousavi was detained. The situation is not clear.)

Ghaemi said that the Tehran campaign headquarters of Mousavi and another opposition presidential candidate Mehdai Karoubi have been surrounded by intelligence services.

“Security and armed forces have completely taken control of the situation and Karrubi and Mousavi both have been intimidated to accept defeat,” Ghaemi wrote. “Both their HQs been seized and shut. Khamanei has summoned Karrubi and told him ‘to shut up.’ Similarly Mousavi has been forced to accept defeat.”

“Based on this information, the claim is that using armed presence and use of force the coup is completed. Ahmadinejad’s supporters are reportedly already in the streets of Tehran and celebrating their ‘victory.’ Mousavi and Karrubi and their supporters are so intimidated they don’t dare to make any public challenges. I am told none of their top staff would do an interview. A very sad day for Iranian people….”

“Moussavi’s official website, http://www.ghalamnews.ir, reported that when his supporters gathered around his headquarters to celebrate what they believed was his victory based on reports of his representatives at polling stations, police forces confronted them using pepper spray and violently dispersed them. Moussavi’s headquarters have been since shut, similar to Karroubi’s headquarters,” the human rights group said in a press release.

Ghaemi said opposition forces believe there was massive fraud in the vote count but cannot figure out or yet prove where it occurred, perhaps in the computer system pre-planned in advance. He said that they are frightened.

Iran hands have used words like “coup” to describe what they believe may be taking place.

http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/06/12/iran_elections_update

Obama this is all you bucko.

elduende on June 13, 2009 at 12:42 AM

Massive Fraud Suspected in Iran Elections
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is being declared the winner of Iran’s presidential election with nearly 35% margin over nearest competitor Mir Hossein Mousavi, with Karrubi and Rezaie receiving only 2% of the vote. The numbers do not add up. All the indications pointed to a very tight race between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Winning with 35% margin over Mousavi was unimaginable.

The questions is, if the government wanted to rig the votes in favor of Ahmadinejad, why did it need to show a margin of 35%. It would have been more believable if the margin was fixed at 1 or 2%. Here we might be witnessing not only an act of fraud on the part of the government, but a deliberate move to openly challenge and agitate the political opponents and the millions of ordinary young people who came out in droves on the city streets of Iran to register their unhappiness with the current situation.

The government seems to be challenging the opponents to come out again in anger in order to clamp down hard on them. The danger is for the IRGC and the Basij to raise their arms against the people in the coming hours and days.

To this analyst, the government’s move has all the hallmarks of a coup. The ruling group was loosing its control and has gone out in force to suppress the people’s aspirations. The opponents, especially Mousavi, Karrubi and Rezaie, need to find ways to register their refusal of the results of the election without risking a bloodbath on the streets of Iran.

A massive strike in the coming days might be a prudent approach. Such strike will have solid international support.
Posted by Nader Uskowi at 9:03 PM

http://uskowioniran.blogspot.com/

elduende on June 13, 2009 at 2:30 AM

Elliott Abrams, former senior Bush administration official now with the council on foreign relations:

“Both the apparent victory and the apparent fraud greatly complicate the Obama strategy. My advice is that they had better be thinking about more sanctions. The one hope might be that if a new Ahmadinejad government is viewed as illegitimate by many Iranians, that government might be anxious to avoid further economic distress. In that context, sanctions that bite might be a powerful tool and might push the regime into a serious negotiation. But it is more likely that the engagement strategy has been dealt a very heavy blow.

“At this point one has to wonder about vote fraud. The two-to-one margin for Ahmadinejad may well appear to millions of Iranians as bizarre and unlikely, and meant to avoid a run-off he might lose. If that’s what millions of voters think, especially young voters in this very young country (70 per cent of the population is under age 30), there could well be large demonstrations. And the legitimacy not only of an Ahmadinejad second term, but of the whole regime, would be in question in the eyes of many Iranians.”

elduende on June 13, 2009 at 3:18 AM