Iran Agrees To Partial Recount. Moussavi Rejects.
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Elections, Iran
As well he should. There’s no sense in agreeing to a recount of tainted votes. What they need is a new election, and they shouldn’t stop until they get it.
Speaking at Monday’s huge rally, Mr. Moussavi said he had written to the Guardian Council to complain about the election but had little hope of action from the panel because many of its members had supported Mr. Ahmadinejad ahead of the election.“I believe annulling the election results would be the least harmful measure,†he said. “Otherwise people will no longer have confidence in the system and the government,†he said. But the Guardian Council rejected that demand, Reuters reported.
As if they had any confidence before? I mean, it’s pretty obvious that the democracy in this country is a sham since one guy calls all the shots.
And it doesn’t sound like they’ll even consider a new election…
“Based on the law, the demand of those candidates for the cancellation of the vote, this cannot be considered,†the spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, a spokesman for the Guardian Council, told state television, Reuters said.
The difference between these protests and ones in the past is that we’re not just talking about students anymore. Now even clerics have joined the movement and are calling for new elections. So dismissals stateside of how ineffectual all of this will ultimately be is surprising to say the least, when this is what I thought everybody wanted to happen in the Middle East.
More as it develops…
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 and is filed under Elections, Iran. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 16th, 2009 at 11:43 am
Anything less than a new vote is worthless to the people of Iran. The cleric support is a substantial move, it shows that the desire for change is not limited to the “elite” populations which seems to the argument forwarded by the mainstream media, usually followed by the logically flawed argument that somehow Ahmadinejad could have legitimately won. Some have gone so far as to officially recognize his re-election: http://www.newsy.com/videos/same_old_same_old
June 16th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
When it comes to how Iran is actually governed, what part of “supreme ruler” don’t folks understand? The President is like the coach of a football team, and the supreme ruler is the owner.
The supreme ruler and his handpicked council of subservient advisor/deciders is not interested in legitimate democracy. As politicians, they are generally interested in minimizing their exposure to negative publicity. But they are 100% uninterested in anything that actually diminishes their authority.
All of the current activity in Iran and the coming activities there in next few weeks and months will be easily explainable by reference to the previous paragraph. These elections were window dressing. Anything else that happens there will be window dressing. If you wanna argue about the curtains on the prison cell window, knock yourselves out.
These events surprise me just as much as China’s ruthless crushing of the student revolution. Which is say, they don’t surprise me at all. I have zero expectation of peaceful government reform in Iran any time soon.
June 16th, 2009 at 5:42 pm
Lets not forget that Moussavi is no pro-western freedom fighter. He is a lackey of the governing council and helped create the nuclear weapons program.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:51 pm
Isn’t this what George W Bush told you was going to happen in the Middle East?
Maybe that’s why Barack Obama has so little apparent interest in finishing the job in Iran… no matter how much it benefits the US and free world.
Anyone who expected him to act in the interests of the United States -rather than for his own political security- hasn’t taken a serious look at how Obama got this far in the first place.
http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com/