Ouij (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} ouij) wrote,@ 2009-06-16 01:09:00 |
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People Power in Tehran?
The images coming out of Tehran are amazing. A million people on the streets of the capital, forming a procession nine kilometers long, demanding, well, change they can believe in.
As a Filipino, I can't help but think back to the 1986 EDSA Revolution. There, too, the people came out in force to protest what turned out to be massive ballot fraud. In the Philippines, the Marcos regime's last attempt at legitimacy was by calling the snap election of 1986. When the fraud became too obvious, the people turned out in such numbers that one by one, the regime's allies defected.
There's a tragic difference. Apparently, government-backed paramilitaries have fired upon the protesters in Tehran--something that the security forces in the EDSA revolution famously refused to do. Now that the shooting has begun, it's anybody's guess what will happen next.
Mehdi Karrobi, one of the defeated candidates, has refuesd to wear his clerical garb any longer, a sign of his dissatisfaction with the regime. If his counterparts in the Guardian Council begin to do the same, that will spell the end of Ahmedinejad and his hard-liners.
The Asia Times is carrying an excellent report on the internal maneouvering within Iran. The piece gives an excellent summary of the election:
It would also appear that the reformist faction--Mousavi's faction, backed by Rafsanjani, president of the Council of Experts-- has begun mobilizing their own religious scholars to denounce vote-rigging as "a mortal sin" and to call on the government to hold fresh, properly-monitored elections. Disturbingly, a delegation of Interior Ministry workers have published a letter that casts doubt on the election's legitimacy, saying: "As dedicated employees of the Ministry of Interior, with experience in management and supervision of several elections such as the elections of Khamenei, Rafsanjani and Khatami, we announce that we fear the 10th presidential elections were not healthy." (emphasis added).
The images coming out of Tehran are amazing. A million people on the streets of the capital, forming a procession nine kilometers long, demanding, well, change they can believe in.
As a Filipino, I can't help but think back to the 1986 EDSA Revolution. There, too, the people came out in force to protest what turned out to be massive ballot fraud. In the Philippines, the Marcos regime's last attempt at legitimacy was by calling the snap election of 1986. When the fraud became too obvious, the people turned out in such numbers that one by one, the regime's allies defected.
There's a tragic difference. Apparently, government-backed paramilitaries have fired upon the protesters in Tehran--something that the security forces in the EDSA revolution famously refused to do. Now that the shooting has begun, it's anybody's guess what will happen next.
Mehdi Karrobi, one of the defeated candidates, has refuesd to wear his clerical garb any longer, a sign of his dissatisfaction with the regime. If his counterparts in the Guardian Council begin to do the same, that will spell the end of Ahmedinejad and his hard-liners.
The Asia Times is carrying an excellent report on the internal maneouvering within Iran. The piece gives an excellent summary of the election:
The polls closed at 10pm on Friday, Tehran time. Most main streets then were fully decked out in green. In an absolutely crucial development, the great Iranian film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf told Radio Farda how Mousavi's main campaign office in Tehran received a phone call on Saturday at 1am; the Interior Ministry was saying "Don't announce Mr Mousavi's victory yet ... We will gradually prepare the public and then you can proceed." Iranian bloggers broke down the vote at the time as 19.7 million for Mousavi, between 7 and 8 million for Ahmadinejad, 7 million for Karroubi, and 3 million for Rezai.
Then all hell seemed to break loose. Phones, SMS, text messaging, YouTube, political blogs, opposition websites, foreign media websites, all communication networks, in a cascade, were shutting down fast. Military and police forces started to take over Tehran's streets. The Ahmadinejad-controlled Ministry of Interior - doubling as election headquarters - was isolated by concrete barriers. Iranian TV switched to old Iron Curtain-style "messages of national unity". And the mind-boggling semi-final numbers of Ahmadinejad's landslide were announced (Ahmadinejad 64%, Mousavi 32%, Rezai 2% and Karroubi less than 1%).
The fact that the electoral commission had less than three hours to hand-count 81% of 39 million votes is positively a "divine assessment".
It would also appear that the reformist faction--Mousavi's faction, backed by Rafsanjani, president of the Council of Experts-- has begun mobilizing their own religious scholars to denounce vote-rigging as "a mortal sin" and to call on the government to hold fresh, properly-monitored elections. Disturbingly, a delegation of Interior Ministry workers have published a letter that casts doubt on the election's legitimacy, saying: "As dedicated employees of the Ministry of Interior, with experience in management and supervision of several elections such as the elections of Khamenei, Rafsanjani and Khatami, we announce that we fear the 10th presidential elections were not healthy." (emphasis added).
