Slashdot Mirror
Statistical Suspicions In Iran's Election
hoytak writes "An expert in electoral fraud, professor Walter Melbane, has released a detailed analysis (PDF) of available data in Iran's controversial election (summary here). While he did not find significant indications of fraud, he does note that all the deviations from the predicted model are in Ahmadinejad's favor: 'In general, combining the 2005 and 2009 data conveys the impression that a substantial core of the 2009 results reflected natural political process... [These] stand in contrast to the unusual pattern in which all of the notable discrepancies between the support Ahmadinejad actually received and the support the model predicts are always negative. This pattern needs to be explained before one can have confidence that natural election processes were not supplemented with artificial manipulations.'" In related news, EsonLinji notes reports in the Seattle PI and other sources that the US State Department has asked Twitter to delay system maintenance to prevent cutting off Iranians who have been relying on the service during the post-election crisis. And if you would like to help ease the communication crunch, reader RCulpepper tips a blog post detailing how to set up a proxy server for users with Iranian IP addresses.
... when Barack Obama congratulated Ahmadinejad a week early.
There are a lot of issues with the data. But even before one gets to the statistical anomalies one has the basic problem of time. Iran uses paper ballots. In the past elections it has taken at least three days for Iran to count the votes. In this case, if the results are to be believed it took a matter of hours. That's just not plausible. Even if there were zero apparent stat problems, this would still be a massive red flag.
the US State Department has asked Twitter to delay system maintenance to prevent cutting off Iranians who have been relying on the service during the post-election crisis
What does the US State Department have to do with an election in Iran? By all means they should use their normal channels to express their views. But for me, asking twitter to keep operating for this reason is a minor example of the way other countries have long been interfering in Iranian politics.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
We hand count around 10M votes in Canada in a few hours each federal election (which is around once a year these days....) You can say "well, that's Canada and this is Iran", but Iranians have the same hands Canadians do. (Well, minus those cut off due to Sharia, if Iran practices that.)
There's a good chance the election was manipulated but that's no indication at all.
They somehow managed to hand-count ~40M votes in a couple hours. It doesn't take a brain surgeon (or a statistician, in this case) to realize there's something fishy going on.
How so? I believe the way it works in Canada is that ballots are counted at each polling station and parties are free to have a representative oversee the election process. This ensures that we have an unofficial count a couple of hours after the polling stations close. (See The Electoral System of Canada, on page 34 of the PDF)
The official count comes, by law, up to seven days later, but it usually doesn't differ from the unofficial count.
Jean-Francois Im's blog
While he did not find significant indications of fraud
QED. The null hypothesis was not rejected, therefore your study determined nothing. Speculation is not science.
Except that, amongst other issues, the turnout in this election is 60%+, and the differences weren't a few votes
Also, Ahmadinejad won in *all* his opponents' home provinces and amongst *all* his opponents' ethnic groups, which is unlikely, to say the least.
I'm proud to see these young people stand up for their rights and for what they believe in. It's good to see these kids fighting the good fight. (Morgan Freedman anyone?)
I'm hoping this will come to a peaceful end, but any government that steals an election should be punished, and it seems the people of Iran will have none of it.
Keep fighting guys, I only wish I could help fro way over here.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
Other interesting points: most people don't agree with Ahmadinejad's policies. Quote:
more than 70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment
That warms my heart. I really don't want Iran to get nuclear weapons (for purely selfish, self-preservation reasons. Don't respond to this saying, 'it is their right' because I don't care). Apparently most people voted for Ahmadinejad not because they agree with his policies, but because they consider him to be a stronger negotiator, and more capable of getting favorable concessions from the US, China, and Russia.
If these results do turn out to be accurate, Obama should call and congratulate Ahmadinejad. After all, there are things we can agree on: we want Iran to be a strong, capable, functioning member of international society, not one that tries to destroy it (of course, our views on how they should reach that goal are different, but we can work on that).
Qxe4
Counting paper ballots is an embarrassingly parallelizable task. If you get enough people doing the counting, you could count 400M votes and sum up the results in half an hour.
...you know that a small random sample of the population tells you what the general population is like to a very high degree of certainty. A random sample of 10 percent of population is virtually guaranteed to be within the margin of error of the general sample. Now the early vote counts are not exactly random sample, but it's not unreasonable to announce the result of an election with a very small percentage of the vote counted.
AFAIK the official line was that the boxes were sealed and were brought to a central location for counting.
This was after the elections observers from the opposition parties were kicked out of the polling places, of course.
Mirror 1
Mirror 2
Proxies:
Squid installed and listening on ports: 7, 13, 53, 993, 995, 3128
Polipo installed and listening on port: 8123. Polipo is routed through Tor.
Tor: port 9050 (a socks5 proxy)
Ziproxy: Port 8080 (good for low bandwidth connections. It recompress images & text.
Socat: Must be run manually, but listens on port 443 and routes through Squid.
SSH enabled, listening on ports 22,80,2222,22222
2 Users: root:#iran and iran:election. If you enable ssh to the world, change the root password (passwd). This should enable ssh tunneling.
-
I created this for people on Fark who were having problems with squid. Everyone here shouldn't have a problem. It's a bare bones (netinst) debian install with all the above installed and setup.
I did NOT put ACLs in because there are reports here: http://iran.sharearchy.com/ that the ACL list is actually blocking some people in Iran.
And could one of the mods please change to the coral cache of Austin's website? He's already getting DDoS'd by Iran all this morning. Slashdot isn't going to help anything.
If any /.ers would like to help make it smaller, better, faster (VPN?), jjarvis98 at gmail.com
And you're free to inspect it to make sure I'm not trying to r00t you.
As a PoliSci student, I've spent a ton of time looking at election data for many countries, over the past hundred years or so. I see a lot of people jumping to conclusions based on some evidence, and not all necessarily means the election was tampered with.
Oddly, I've found a lot of people take the demonstrations in the street to be indication of fraud. What it is is indication of the belief in fraud. I'm pretty sure some people protested after Kerry lost the 2004 US election, that doesn't mean the election was tampered with (and yeah, I know I'll get some conspiracy nut reply to that with an essay.)
Several other stuff looks at odd vote shifting patterns, specifically the almost total abandonment of this one candidate in favor of the President. That is unusual, and calls to be looked into, but it's far from unprecedented. Quebec, in particular, has a history of some pretty wild swings from one party to another.
Another thing is the "rule" that as turnout goes up, the reformers do better. I've seen countless "rules" made in politics, only to be broken, because voters can act weird sometimes. It would be bucking the trend, but again, not definitive proof.
Overall, there is some evidence to suggest there may have been fraud, but as of yet, I've yet to see any "smoking gun". I saw similar analysis "prove" Kerry really won in 2004, and that didn't really amount to anything.
Looking at the whole situation, my gut tells me that there probably was some tampering, either deliberate or systematic, most likely in the process of actually voting. Basically, I think the strange results are most likely, if anything, the result of intimidation, either direct (guy waving around AK-47) or indirect (ie, Ahmed the voter chose the president because of a climate of fear).
It's very possible that Ahmadinejad won legit, even if his vote total was padded due to intimidation or result tampering. It's also very possible that there's a climate of fear in Iran, that essentially prevents a truly fair and free election from occurring. I honestly don't know much about Iran, so these are just my thoughts from being a (mostly Canadian) politics geek.
In case it's not clear, I'm not defending the Iranian results, only suggesting that I've not seen any "smoking gun" type proof, only "unusual" results, which can still happen in a free and fair election.
The point is that enough of the people of Iran find the results incredible and are in general angry enough about their present conditions that they have lost faith in the current government and desire significant reforms. This won't go away, ever. Even if a complete do-over of the election is performed, the fact that peaceful assembly was denied and communications have been disrupted, among many other things, makes this a moot point.
Why do you say it is unlikely? Are you guessing, or hoping, or do you have an objective reason to believe this? In this independent poll (warning: PDF) conducted by the Washington Post, only 16% of Azeri Iranians favored Moussavi (Moussavi is Iranian). Upon closer inspection, there are reasons to believe the election results are reasonably accurate.
Qxe4
Except that you have good transit systems and are counting around 30M fewer votes.
1) The counting and reporting is done right from the polling stations. Checks and rechecks, and additional audits might benefit from being able to move the ballots around efficiently, but the initial counting and reporting is very efficient.
2) The number of ballots being counted is completely irrelevant, and would make no difference in how long it takes. We allocate polling stations and staff them on a per capita basis. So if our population doubled it wouldn't take twice as long, we'd just have twice as many polling stations and staff.
(And it would cost twice as much, but there would be twice the population paying for it, so it all works out the same whether its 30M or 300M people.)
The only effort that goes up, is summarizing results, but:
a) that is largely done using computers
b) the amount of effort grows logarithmically so 300M ballots would only require a handful more staff than 30M ballots.
Really, people who think you can't run an efficient paper ballot system with a large population aren't really thinking.
Except that you have good transit systems and are counting around 30M fewer votes.
From what I understand, Iran has a good, or at least decent, transit system, (they aren't a third world country) and a decent communication grid.
Having 4x more votes means nothing. They could easily have 4x (or more) counters.
The US could hand count over 100m ballots in the same time frame, if you only had one election at a time, like Canada. Because you have a FREAKING CRAP TON of elections (President, Senate, House, State Senate, State House, DA, Judge, School Board, Official State Dog Walker) and often several referendums all at one time, hand counting becomes impractical. BTW, I am not bashing having so many elections, just pointing out that it is the major reason why hand counting is impractical in the US.
tweet: unconfirmed: Mohammad Asgari,a system administrator in the interior ministry (in charge of securing election LAN) was killed #iranelection
I did go ahead and set up a squid proxy - how do I get the IP address to Iranians who need it without the government seeing it? I've asked this question on twitter several times over the last day, and my messages seem to just get drowned out by all the other information flooding in. Is there a trusted source who can pass the server address on to Iranian users who need it?
How about we compare what can be compared instead of comparing Iran to Canada? Iran has had paper elections before, how about we compare to how long it took them then to do it? Nowhere near as fast? And they didn't change anything to the way they count votes?
You just got troll'd!
Ya, that's sorta the point of democracy. You have to have enough faith in the system to tolerate peaceful protest, otherwise you're just a military dictatorship pretending to be a democracy. But most democracies are.....
How we know is more important than what we know.
There were several of the more liberal districts around Tehran where Pat Buchanan won.
It seems like we have a lot of happy westerns in the western world who have absolutely no idea what is going on and still act as if they are helping to make a "change" by setting up proxies, twitter accounts and such. You western people, please tell me, why you are supporting people, who are supporting Mousavi, who have murdered thousands of Iranians during his time as prime minister in Iran when Khamenie was president and the "supreme leader" was Khomeini?. Please tell me, why you support this thief who spent BILLIONS in election campaigns? Let's say the people riot, who is going to take control? Mousavi? Who was approved to candidate for presidency by Khamenie? They are all the same shit. People are being fooled. Regime change is the only solution, go away Islamic Republic. Please come democracy or/and constitutional monarchy.
Please note people are using this opportunity to riot against the government as whole and not only because of the election results. Let's say the people riot, who is going to take control if Ahmadinejad is overthrown? Mousavi? Who was approved to candidate for presidency by Khamenie? They are all the same shit. People are being fooled. Regime change is the only solution, go away Islamic Republic. Please come democracy or/and constitutional monarchy.
http://slashdot.org/submission/1021265/Grassroots-PetitionOnlineorg-taken-down-by-DDos
It seems peitiononline.com is under ddos attack. What I thought was interesting is that their number two most popular petition is
Investigation into crimes committed by Ali Khamenei
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/irans_disputed_election.html
Take out a chess board. Starting with the bottom left, and in any order you please, place a mustard seed in the first square. Then two in the next square. Then double that in the next square. Keep going until you get to a little less than half the board (25 squares I should think). Those are your voters. If each of the inhabitants of the next lower square sums the ones above them and passes the count down to the first seed, you can see that it shouldn't take very long at all to count any number of votes.
Note: this scheme implies that all the seeds are capable of counting votes. But if you're not capable of counting votes, then maybe you shouldn't be allowed to vote.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Wow pretty much why the "Camel Jockeys" dislike us so much. Mealy mouthed cowards here in the good Ol US. Put your name behind it and say it again moron.
Why bother
Actually, from what I've heard the rioters aren't just for Mousavi anymore. Their list of demands includes revising the Iranian constitution to grant religious freedom (not so much that they love their minorities as that they've discovered that Muslim theocracy oppresses Muslims too), dissolving all "organs of repression", and release of all political prisoners. All sounds like big, good changes to me.
What's really stupid is when people assume that fudged election numbers are only off by a few percent, and that only a few key results are fudged. That's the way an idiot would do it, but anyone remotely intelligent (or remotely smart enough to hire someone who WAS intelligent) would tweak all the results. Especially in the case of electronic voting, where there's no physical record of the votes. Start with current polls, and just nudge the numbers to give small, statistically probable swings across the board.
If the election was properly rigged, you wouldn't be able to tell via this kind of statistical analysis.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
When did hippies become the quintessential example of victims of government abuse? Why not, say, civil rights protesters?
QED. The null hypothesis was not rejected, therefore your study determined nothing. Speculation is not science.
Yes, yes, but that's not the point. The point is that the election didn't come out the way we wanted and it didn't come out in the way the minority of Iranians with internet access wanted. Do we really need to be scientific when questioning the credibility of a result we don't like and which (if it isn't the result of manipulation) reflects the views of the under-educated rural religiouly conservative masses?
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Like the US has never spread FUD to undermine a regime they disapprove of.
Whatever the truth of the situation, I find that more and more news these days smells like propaganda.
Iran was, by the very definition of the term, a third world country. Not that the term has any meaning, any more, as the Soviet Bloc, the second world, no longer exists.
Iran uses paper ballots. In the past elections it has taken at least three days for Iran to count the votes. In this case, if the results are to be believed it took a matter of hours. That's just not plausible.
As someone who lives in a country which uses paper ballots, I find no lack of plausibility in the speed of the result. We usually know the result of the election within 4-6 hours of the booths closing. Although it takes longer to get final figures (especially if recounts are triggered) it would have to be an extremely close election to have to wait for the final figure to know who won (and indeed for the loser to conceed).
Given no significant statistical problem has been identified, and given that independant telephone polling prior to the election indicated that A'jad enjoyed a 2:1 lead over his rival, the most parsimonious explanation might simply be that A'jad actaully does enjoy the overwhelming support of the Iranian population.
Until such time that some plausible evidence of irregularities is presented, that should be the presumption we work on. The question of whether we personally want A'jad to have won or not, ought not to colour our intepretation of the results.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Like the US has never spread FUD to undermine a regime they disapprove of.
But at least the American citizens have the decency to remain calm when their own presidential elections are rigged.
None of this yelling and fighting in the streets. It doesn't even stop them voting him in for real in the next election.
The study did not reject the null hypothesis ( that the results are not rigged.)
The strongest pattern observed was that in 2009 Amadi-nejad (sp?) did the best in districts he did the best in 2005. (no surprise). The authors note that to the extent that prediction for 2009 deviated from a model based on 2005, then his deviations were always above the extrapolated line. The thought here is that if the model were perfect then the deivations should be unbiased and thus depending on their distributions nature have about as much mass or events above and below the line-- more or less. But to have them all above the line is, assuming the model predicts well, surprising.
But this assumes the model predicts well.
Other people have noted that with an 85% turnout, common sense suggests this should favor the challenger. that is, angry people are more motivated to turn out. But while perhaps compelling it's not a hard rule. Iceland had a recent election where something like 70% turned out and the incumbent won. Likewise, even obama did not win by a margin anywhere close to the level of excess turnout. So it's quite clear that excessive turnout is not all favoring the challenger. Perhaps an enhanced fraction but by no means all.
It's also worth noting that 3 weeks prior to the election A was leading by double digits in some unscientific polls. In those (non rigorous) polls about 50-60% where undecided to declined to state. so there was a large latent swing vote. But again it's not reasonable to assume that all of the swing vote would go to the challenger. Hence A's early lead of committed voters would give him a suggested advantage. Admittedly the poll is not scientific, probably did not poll women as much, and I'd assume there's intimidation as well for people to respond honestly.
This is not to say that A won. Not at all. It is to say that proving that A lost is a hard sell and should not be based on statistics. What should be learned here is that in order for the winner to govern he has to convince the losers they lost. And you can't do that by denying poll observers to the challenger, having the incumbent's office too tightly coupled to the voting authorities, and then doing some jackass stunt like reporting results before the polls close (assuming that allegation is true-- there's some doubt on that.)
SO now they losers are not convinced they lost. They might be right, they mught be wrong, but the important thing is they are not convinced.
These same reasons are why electronic voting is a bad idea as well I note.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
While I don't like your implication with the
under-educated rural religiouly conservative masses
comment, I agree in general with your premise. Another way to look at it is: after the 2008 US election, 40 million people could have taken to the streets in protest of the result. That's a shitload of people, and would look like something really underhanded happened in the election.
Similarly, the expected outcome of the 2004 election was "President John Kerry," yet he lost decidedly amidst gasps of democrat horror.
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
It's amazing how easily people are manipulated by the media. I'm going to paste some accurate analysis from Stratfor about the reality of politics in Iran, and why as Westerners we are getting a distorted picture (above and beyond the fact that the CIA would like to see the government of Iran overthrown).
----
Stratfor
WESTERN MISCONCEPTIONS MEET IRANIAN REALITY
By George Friedman
In 1979, when we were still young and starry-eyed, a revolution took place in Iran. When I asked experts what would happen, they divided into two camps.
The first group of Iran experts argued that the Shah of Iran would certainly survive, that the unrest was simply a cyclical event readily manageable by his security, and that the Iranian people were united behind the Iranian monarch's modernization program. These experts developed this view by talking to the same Iranian officials and businessmen they had been talking to for years -- Iranians who had grown wealthy and powerful under the shah and who spoke English, since Iran experts frequently didn't speak Farsi all that well.
The second group of Iran experts regarded the shah as a repressive brute, and saw the revolution as aimed at liberalizing the country. Their sources were the professionals and academics who supported the uprising -- Iranians who knew what former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini believed, but didn't think he had much popular support. They thought the revolution would result in an increase in human rights and liberty. The experts in this group spoke even less Farsi than the those in the first group.
Misreading Sentiment in Iran
Limited to information on Iran from English-speaking opponents of the regime, both groups of Iran experts got a very misleading vision of where the revolution was heading -- because the Iranian revolution was not brought about by the people who spoke English. It was made by merchants in city bazaars, by rural peasants, by the clergy -- people Americans didn't speak to because they couldn't. This demographic was unsure of the virtues of modernization and not at all clear on the virtues of liberalism. From the time they were born, its members knew the virtue of Islam, and that the Iranian state must be an Islamic state.
Americans and Europeans have been misreading Iran for 30 years. Even after the shah fell, the myth has survived that a mass movement of people exists demanding liberalization -- a movement that if encouraged by the West eventually would form a majority and rule the country. We call this outlook "iPod liberalism," the idea that anyone who listens to rock 'n' roll on an iPod, writes blogs and knows what it means to Twitter must be an enthusiastic supporter of Western liberalism. Even more significantly, this outlook fails to recognize that iPod owners represent a small minority in Iran -- a country that is poor, pious and content on the whole with the revolution forged 30 years ago.
There are undoubtedly people who want to liberalize the Iranian regime. They are to be found among the professional classes in Tehran, as well as among students. Many speak English, making them accessible to the touring journalists, diplomats and intelligence people who pass through. They are the ones who can speak to Westerners, and they are the ones willing to speak to Westerners. And these people give Westerners a wildly distorted view of Iran. They can create the impression that a fantastic liberalization is at hand -- but not when you realize that iPod-owning Anglophones are not exactly the majority in Iran.
Last Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected with about two-thirds of the vote. Supporters of his opponent, both inside and outside Iran, were stunned. A poll revealed that former Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi was beating Ahmadinejad. It is, of course, interesting to meditate on how you could conduct a poll in a country where phones are not universal, and making a call once you have found a phone can be a trial. A poll therefore would
Did you even read it? They asked questions such as, "do you favor changing the government so that the supreme leader is elected?" or "do you favor freedom of the press?" Politically dangerous questions, and yet many people answered YES.
Qxe4
Do we really need to be scientific when questioning the credibility of a result we don't like and which (if it isn't the result of manipulation) reflects the views of the under-educated rural religiouly conservative masses?
Juan Cole politely tells you that you're full of shit here. He knows more about this than you do. Go read him.
Literalism isn't a form of humor, it's you being irritating.
reflects the views of the under-educated rural religiouly conservative masses
but enough about the GOP...
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
Here's the thing that most slashdotters don't get about Iran, they are not just Muslims, previous to the Islamic revolution in 79 a large portion of the population was Zoroastrian and Baha'i. The US/British backed Shah was so bad that when the Islamic revolutionaries offered them another choice they jumped at it. Unfortunately the Ayatollah set about suppressing Zoroastrians and exiled all Baha'i who didn't convert. This is why the main Baha'i complex is in Israel (as a side note, every Israeli Jew I've met has said the most oppressed people in the middle east are the Persians).
Persian Iranians are amongst the most secular and accepting (of other religions) people I've met, even the Muslims. Granted I've only ever met the ones that have moved to Australia.
From what I've been told this has ignited a lot of Racial tensions in Iran, the Ayatollah and ruling council have set up a separate police force made almost exclusively from non-Persians (mostly Palestinian and Lebanese migrants) for the purposes of guaranteeing that the government has a force to use against its own people. The government will keep the Iranian army from being involved as they consist of mostly ethnic Persians and will not fire on their own people. Protesters have taken to killing non-Persians in some parts of Tehran in reprisal for suppressing the protests. Disclaimer: This last paragraph is third hand info (given to me by my Persian mate).
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Juan Cole politely tells you that you're full of shit here. ... Go read him.
He has a different opinion, yes. Personally I find his analysis far from persuasive.
IMHO he overemphasises the "culture wars" of a decade ago (if they ever existed as he imagines) and completely ignores appeal of A'jad jingositic nationalism, ineed he completely ignores the last 4 years of A'jad. Moreover Cole's assumption that support for Khatami in 2000 is indicative of a the success of moderates against religionists seems a little odd if we remember that Khatami was himself a cleric and indeed a sayad. Nor do can I accept that issues of class (at least if we use that terms in a more expansive sense than an old-school Marxist might) and "culture wars" can neatly be separated.
Cole's greatest failing, however, is that he simply ignores that actual data. He fails to present any statistical evidence of election fraud? He fails to account for the fact that nationwide polling showed A'jad receiving a level of support more or less in the order of the eventual result? Even intelligent and reasonably well informed people can fall victim to believing what they want to believe, rather than what the evidence suggests.
He knows more about this than you do.
I would not dispute that, but nothing in the particular posting you linked to indicates so. I suggest you go back to that article, and read some of the responses, especially those from people with 1st hand knowledge and those citing empirical evidence. These comments pretty much dispose of Cole's analysis.
NOTE: Nothing I have written should be taken to imply that I'm making any assertion that voting fraud did not take place. Rather my point is that in the absence of solid evidence of fraud, and in the light of previous polling we ought not to presume fraud.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
We don't need that much time, we all hand count the ballot (actually vonlonteer are asked during the day from normal voters). By the time it closes, we have enough people to count it within 30m-1h. A few guy are there to explain us what is a blank vote/null vote, and that's it. Usually by the time I am home the result are there. And there are 60+ million people in France so probably 30/40 millions voters too... Same order of magnitude as Iran. There is nothing wrong with having results within a few hours of the closure of all polling place. Really the alughable is that some western place can need so much time (a half day!?) to gather ballot data, when hand counting can be so quick.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Whether or not the elections were stolen, it seems that in Iran there is a significant difference in political views between the major cities and rural areas. Maybe there was a selection bias in the media?
In 2004, to outsiders it looked as if everybody but an insignificant few right wing nut jobs hated George Bush, and he didn't have any chance of being reelected. After his fairly comfortable victory, it turned out that people in the major urban districts more likely to be interviewed on TV or in the papers indeed voted against Bush, but the rest of the country had supported him.
Could a similar effect have happened in Iran? Iran is one of the few places in the region where women and minorities have the right to vote, and where a president normally steps down after losing an election. The only major difference between the Iranian and western democracies seems to be that their version of the senate is not elected by the people, but by a religious council.
Of course it's possible the elections were stolen, but maybe this is another example of people voting for a politician for entirely local reasons, without really caring what the rest of the world thinks of him? In fact, has there ever been a democratic election anywhere, where foreign opinion played a significant role?
Ignoring the post you replied to, are you sure that the election was "stolen". On the whole, the West would really, really have liked Mousavi to have won. They would really, really have liked his defeat to be the result of fraud. But truthfully, Ahmadinejad is very popular with the common Iranian. He provided insurance for millions of women who work at home. He has carried out a lot of things that have benefited the common Iranian. And when Iranians see the US invading neighbouring countries, threatening their own country both verbally in diplomatic channels and through sending armed forces scouting through their waters, someone who is perceived as standing up to the US is, rightly or wrongly, well thought of for that.
Mousavi is popular mainly with better off Iranians who believe they stand to benefit more from taking a more pacifying approach to the US (some would say submissive). It was, it now seems, wishful thinking that he would win and it seems that many commentators are now levelling the accusation of fraud because that suits the purposes of much of the West. But we see that the supporters of Mousavi taking to the streets aren't receiving popular support (and more blatantly, this is taking place only in the capital - the rest of the country seems content with the result which is also supports the election results) and in fact these supporters in many cases have initiated the violence. (The Independent paper in the UK gave a full page interview to one of Mousavi's supporters who, when you managed to overlook the bias, was praising her fellows for managing to have set a bus on fire and pretty much said that it didn't matter whether Ahmadinejad got more votes because he shouldn't be President and Mousavi should).
The behaviour of the Iranian police has been brutal (predictably) and Ahmadinejad remains horrible on certain human rights issues. But as far as I can see, it looks like he won (and earlier Western reports grudgingly admitted this before they realised they could get away with overt suggestions of fraud). And so it is essentially Mousavi's supporters who are a smaller faction trying to undermine democracy with violence. If they get anywhere (and whatever you think of the GP, covert Western support or promises of support for his followers is extremely plausible), then it would just push Iran back to a more totalitarian state because they certainly wont win whatever the West would like to pretend. They don't have the support of the common people and, quite frankly, they appear to have lost the election.
Mousavi - good or bad (and he's no angel, just more amenable to Western interests), you can't just allow democracy when it elects the people you want elected.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
In 1979, after the Iranian people overthrow the despot whom the Americans supported, the Iranians immediately established a brutal, authoritarian theocracy.
Because the despot whom the Americans supported had previously crushed on all opposition until the gang around Khomeini was the strongest, and such became the obvious leader of the opposition. After the opposition had won the revolution, the strongest party then turned on the others. Not because it had the majority behind them, but because it had violent force.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
You mean aside from the bizarre statistical anomalies? I'm starting to get a distinct "la la la I can't hear you"
You're absolutely correct, once I read "did not find significant indications of fraud" I cannot hear anyone talking about statistical anomalies. Well no, not absolutely correct, there's no "la la la" about it. It's just the same cold uncompromising "I can't hear you" a Judge will give if you attempt to submit irrelevant evidence.
You clearly either haven't read the stat breakdown on the official results, don't understand what they mean, or are a lvl 23 Erudite Troll.
Hey FU buddy, I'm at least a lvl 30! ;) You're probably correct about my lack of understanding, so maybe you can help me with this. Quoting from TFA:
... a statistically sharp approach to statistical testing--taking the multiple testing into account--fails to provide evidence against the hypothesis that the second digits are distributed according to Benford's Law. Tests based on the means of the second digits also fail to suggest any deviation from the second-digit Benford's Law distribution ...
I've taken on board the fact that hetrogeneity of the data might obscure local problems, but that's not really relevant since the onus of proof clearly lies with those alleging fraud anyway. I've also taken on board that the non-sharp approach (ie looking at one of the candidates results) might lead one to another conclusion. As to the other (non-significant) anomalities in his modified conclusion Mebane observes:
In general, combining the 2005 and 2009 data conveys the impression that a substantial core of the 2009 results reflected natural political processes. ... These natural aspects of the election results stand in contrast to the unusual pattern in which most of the notable discrepancies between the support Ahmadinejad actually received and the support the model predicts are negative. ... It appears that the specification using the two conditioning variables ... does not fully capture the baseline support for the candidates or the pattern of new mobilization. ... It is not possible given only the current data to say whether this reflects natural complexity in the political processes or artificial manipulations.
I admit I lack the confidence with stats (1978 was the last time I had to look at stats in any deeper way than merely applying tests of significance), to make a call on non-significant results. I get nervous when statisticians talk about "impressions" in place of "significance." Perhaps you can educate me here and convince me why I should draw conclusions based on non-significant results?
I'm not sure where you're coming from on this issue. ... What, in fact, is your deal?
I avidly opposed to theocracy as a form of government, a fortiori a nuclear armed theocracy. I am opposed to the Iranian regime even though I don't live there (some might point out it is none of my business). I don't consider A'jad to be entirely a sane man (though by the standards of his culture he may well be). I would dearly have loved to see him defeated (and he may still be, extra-democratically).
However I also endorse an evidence based view of reality, and I don't think it is valid to construe the world in a way which lacks evidence merely on the basis that I might like it to be that way. I believe that, unpalatable though we may find it, we might have to accept that a majority of Iranians disagree with us. Moreover, in the absence of clear evidence to the contrary (eyewitness, statistical, or whatever), I strongly believe the only (rebuttable) presumption we are entitled to draw (upon evidence-based criteria) is that the election result reflects the will of the majority of Iranian voters. To draw any other conclusion in the absence of compelling evidence to the contrary is, IMHO, to fall victim to the trap of believing in one's own propaganda.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I don't agree with the GP, but people need to stop immediately assuming any mention of Israel equates to Judaism. You can talk about Israel without ever intending to discuss Judaism. Yes, even when being critical about things.
Who do you want to take the power then if Ahmadinejad leaves? Mousavi who is worse than Ahmadinejad? People have been stealing elections since 1979 in Iran - where were you then? Where were you when Islamic Republic were founded in Iran and started suppressing the Iranian people?
Apparently you have not followed the Iranian presidential debates as I have where Ahmadinejad exposed what a thief Mousavi is. Mousavi was the prime minister and ignored the executions and sometimes went as far as ordering executions. He did not resign or anything, he approved it too officially.
The greatest trick the Israeli government ever pulled was to convince the world that to be Jewish is to support Israel and that to criticise Israel is to be anti-semitic. There are plenty of jews who either object to the Israeli government's behaviour or simply don't care about it. People are not their ethnicity and nobody gets to speak on your behalf because you share some ancestory with them.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
There's no excuse for opening fire on protestors whether they are backed by foreign powers or not. But in answer to your question of whether I believe the West is behind the protests, the answer is a detailed 'no.' That wasn't the thrust of what I was saying. I was just illustrating how extremely the West would like to see Mousavi in power, motivations for casting doubt on the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad's rule and reasons why he is popular.
With regard to Western involvement in the protests, I was simply cautioning the GP not to dismiss such as conspiracy theories rather than saying there was such involvement this time. There are a number of proven examples of Western interference in Iran's political processes (let alone other Middle Eastern countries). The most notable of which is US and UK's very active involvement in a coup there in 1953 that deposed the democratically elected ruler in favour of a brutal dictator who would support their strategic and oil interests. A dictatorship that lasted 26 years incidentally with US support.
In this instance I have seen no evidence of outside involvement in organising the protests. However, it's extremely naive to think that Mousavi and his allies haven't had ongoing contact with Western powers. He is a former Prime Minister of Iran - of course he has contacts and diplomatic ties abroad and will have discussed intentions should he have won the election. Iran's relationship to the USA is one of the platforms on which he campaigned. So active involvement in this instance - not that I'm aware of. My worry is that seeing the sudden media war on the legitimacy of the election (and the Western media did as they were told back in 1953, too), is that the ground may be being prepared for active involvement now and that is what we're seeing.
So again, I never said that the West was behind the protests. As far as I can tell. the West's role so far is merely that of wealthy bridegroom that Mousavi and his followers hope to court. But it is wrong to dismiss claims of outside involvement just because it couldn't happen. And it is wrong at this point to, as the GP did, state baldly that the election was stolen because there is little reason to suppose that, the people saying so have a strong reason to want it to be so and there is good reason based on Ahmadinejad's popularity to think the results are legitimate.
I hope that clears up what I was saying and that we now see eye to eye again.
Regards,
H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Why do you want to make me your foe? The situation does have a lot to do with non-Iranian politics. One of the things that Mousavi campaigned on was closer ties with the USA and engagement with Barak Obama. This was explicitly stated as his position as part of his campaigning. A different relationship with the West is one of the things he has been selling himself to the wealthier Iranians on because a lot of them identify with the Western lifestyle and wealth. And it's very naive to think that Mousavi hasn't had some discussions with US representatives in case he won. Non-Iranian politics is a very important factor in all of this.
I hope you'll reconsider whether you want to avoid dialogue with me in the future (presuming that foes are modded down in your filters as is default).
Regards,
H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
many commentators are now levelling the accusation of fraud because that suits the purposes of much of the West...
so it is essentially Mousavi's supporters who are a smaller faction trying to undermine democracy with violence. If they get anywhere (and whatever you think of the GP, covert Western support or promises of support for his followers is extremely plausible), then it would just push Iran back to a more totalitarian state because they certainly wont win whatever the West would like to pretend. They don't have the support of the common people and, quite frankly, they appear to have lost the election.
Mousavi - good or bad (and he's no angel, just more amenable to Western interests), you can't just allow democracy when it elects the people you want elected.
In light of past US and British government/corporate behavior when it comes to securing rights to Iranian oil (i.e. Operation Ajax), the many fraud claims being thrown about reek of self-interest propaganda similar to that used in the plot to depose Mosaddeq - which any way you slice it was a very evil deed to secure oil rights. Anyway, today there is to much shit flying about (even more than in the Bush in Florida 2000 elections, at least on the international news circuit) to really know what the truth is. Best to step back and look at the big picture and Iran's history time line to put the current propaganda "news" into the context it deserves.
Actually, an Iranian friend of a friend who lives in the USA remarked when Bush won (the first time) that if this had happened in Iran, there would be riots in the streets and she asked why no-one was rioting in the USA over the Florida debacle. My US friend replied that everyone was too busy paying off mortgages.
If you could mod up comments in real life, that would have got a +5 Insightful in no time.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
The police raided Tehran university, beat, robbed and killed students who were speaking their mind or taking pictures. This was not unexpected. Not at all unexpected. It already happened before, it's why the university was gated and controlled by private security.
When people live in fear of being beaten or killed for kissing or holding hands, and everyone knows that they can bribe the police to get off the charges, it doesn't create a proud society, it creates unrest.
I don't think the election has to do with foreign politics at all. It's too dangerous to express disenting opinions about foreign politics in Iran. Nobody gets foreign news without feeling watched. People just want to live their lives and not be in fear of being attacked by the government.
I think the election was rigged, but the results might have been the same without the rigging.
I think this rigging was a catalyst to get a lot of people who were afraid, working way too hard and dealing with difficult living conditions in Tehran to stand up together and protest the terrible behaviour of the government and the religious police.
The police are killing and beating people, the media is cut off and people are afraid to use their real names when speaking to people outside the country.
And you think they're just poor losers? People are really f-ing scared that if they stop protesting, the police will silently round up identified people and beat them or kill them.
I have no idea how it could be fixed or how this will end. This could be a civil war or a bloodbath which will result in the entrenchment of an extreme, oppressive power. If members of the provinces could see this as an improvement in the Islamic revolution, then maybe the police would lose their will to enforce the orders of their corrupt leaders. No doubt, they're scared too.
Here's the thing that most slashdotters don't get about Iran, they are not just Muslims, previous to the Islamic revolution in 79 a large portion of the population was Zoroastrian and Baha'i.
I do in fact get that. Iran is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse countries in the Middle East.
From what I've been told this has ignited a lot of Racial tensions in Iran, the Ayatollah and ruling council have set up a separate police force made almost exclusively from non-Persians (mostly Palestinian and Lebanese migrants) for the purposes of guaranteeing that the government has a force to use against its own people.
I can confirm this. Those aren't "migrants", though, they're members of Lebanese Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas. Yet another reason I want to see this revolution succeed.
I'm going to go listen to "Yallah Yah Nasrallah" now.