Encountering widespread pushback in the comments, I'd like to lay out some very basic information as to why it is that so many of us maintain the Iranian presidential election smells "fishy". A lot of the arguments I'm coming across have no accounting for Iran's demographics, both age or ethnicity, nor of the political divisions in Iran.
First of all, you must understand Iran is an extremely diverse country, with about a dozen major ethnicities, religious sects and languages each. A majority of Iran is Persian, but not all Iranians are Persian. Arabs are a distinct (tiny) minority concentrated on the Iraqi border of Iran... yet I see kossacks (to say nothing of freepers and red staters) confuse Arab culture with Persian. Iran's religiousity is a paradox, because most of the population is not that zealous, (compare the veils in Tehran with those in the West Bank) in fact much is heterodox, between [impious Shia] Sunnis, Armenian Christians, Jews, Assyrians, and so on.
That said, let's get into the meat of why Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's double-to-one win suggests manipulation. Juan Cole lays out a clear case:
- It is claimed that Ahmadinejad won the city of Tabriz with 57%. His main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, is an Azeri from Azerbaijan province, of which Tabriz is the capital. Mousavi, according to such polls as exist in Iran and widespread anecdotal evidence, did better in cities and is popular in Azerbaijan. Certainly, his rallies there were very well attended. So for an Azeri urban center to go so heavily for Ahmadinejad just makes no sense. In past elections, Azeris voted disproportionately for even minor presidential candidates who hailed from that province.
Btw, Tabriz is Iran's fourth largest city, (more on cities below) and has a very liberal history as a center of poetry, mysticism and art. As an ethnic city, a tolerant city, a moderate city, Ahmadinejad would have to take this city's vote into account before hand. Dr. Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council in Washington, was just on CNN and said that the opposition is realizing it "didn't have a plan" for this kind of contested result, but Ahmadinejad's faction did.
- Ahmadinejad is claimed to have taken Tehran by over 50%. Again, he is not popular in the cities, even, as he claims, in the poor neighborhoods, in part because his policies have produced high inflation and high unemployment. That he should have won Tehran is so unlikely as to raise real questions about these numbers.
Remember when John McCain was polling competitively, until people started to talk about their bills, their foreclosures, and McCain revealed himself to be a plutocrat? Yeah, well we don't have it as bad as Iran. As McCain experienced here, the rich Tehranians are against Mahmoud because his policies (oh, ya know, international antagonism?) are bad for business. Both Ahmadinejad and Mousavi are right-wing, but Mousavi is a business-oriented moderate 'winger, first and foremost. There was clearly a populism vs. economically liberal divide between the candidates.
I keep seeing comments refering to Iran as "rural" and therefore that explains Ahmadinejad's win--the voters are rural, uneducated and conservative! As of 2005, 67% of the population is urban. According to Wikipedia, it's 12.5 million in Tehran area, 2 million in Mashhad, 1.5 million in Esfahan, 1.6 million in Tabriz, 1.2 million in Shiraz and 1 million holy city of Qom where the Ayatollahs have called for a revote, and so forth. The four leading cities are all in the north, and again, the cities have the bulk of the population, are fillied with minorities and secular youth. Plus in regional centres like the Zoroastrian holy city of Yazd, hardliners like Ahmadinejad are not going to be as popular among those influenced by the tiny minority of Zoroastrians.
And how about magically shrinking candidates and disappearing election procedures?
- It is claimed that cleric Mehdi Karoubi, the other reformist candidate, received 320,000 votes, and that he did poorly in Iran's western provinces, even losing in Luristan. He is a Lur and is popular in the west, including in Kurdistan. Karoubi received 17 percent of the vote in the first round of presidential elections in 2005. While it is possible that his support has substantially declined since then, it is hard to believe that he would get less than one percent of the vote. Moreover, he should have at least done well in the west, which he did not.
- Mohsen Rezaie, who polled very badly and seems not to have been at all popular, is alleged to have received 670,000 votes, twice as much as Karoubi.
- Ahmadinejad's numbers were fairly standard across Iran's provinces. In past elections there have been substantial ethnic and provincial variations.
- The Electoral Commission is supposed to wait three days before certifying the results of the election [not declare them almost immediately]
Iranians under 30 comprised 60% of the population in 2005. That trend is accelerating. Why did Iran block youth-website facebook? Clearly, youth were not breaking for Ahmadinejad but they also used facebook to organize politically. Facebook was an asset to the opposition. Plus, the oversees Iranian community, in Los Angeles, Washington DC, London, was largely backing Mousavi.
In addition, you have a demographic time bomb in Iran's case, with a lopsidedly urban and young population which is only becoming more so, with clear ethnic divisions (18-20% Azeris, 7-10% Kurdish, 2% Baloch, 1 million Turkomen, 2% tribal groups, 2% Armenians, Georgian, Assyrians) This holds the Persian population somewhere between 60% to just under fifty at 49%. Where did Mahmoud obtain 65% of the vote, and why couldn't he have done it without day becoming night and up becoming down?
Also hard to "add up" considering its the same man who can be held responsible for lost fortunes of Iranian money due to the oil bubble, bad unemployment and severe inflation, as Trita Parsi says.
The elite is holding new elections because they didn't anticipate the youth would call bullshit.
UPDATE: minor grammar/syntax corrections. Jay Elias has a good criticism below involving religious demographics: approx. 90% of Iran is Shia, leaving about 7 million of religious minorities/70 million in Iran. My point is that it's odd in a much more secular country than its made out to be--many of those Shia are not orthodox--and where there are various minorities to have so little impact in an economically turbulent election year.
UPDATE 2: Thank you.