Tuesday
Jun022009
Iranian Election Outcome Still Uncertain
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 5:22PM
By Courtney Costello-Talk Radio News Service
With the tenth Iranian Presidential election less than two weeks away, conversation is heating up as to whether sitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will win a second term.
“No incumbent has ever lost a re-election campaign, but Ahmadinejad is indeed in real trouble.”, said Robin Wright, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Ahmadinejad’s opponents in the presidential race include: former Iranian Prime Minister, Mir-Hossein Mousavi; former Speaker of the Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi and former Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rezaii.
According to recent polls Mousavi has the most support with a three to four percent lead in ten major Iranian cities, where seventy percent of Iran’s population lives.
Karim Sadjadpour, an associate at the Carnegie Endownment for International Peace said, “These elections in Iran are unfree, they’re unfair, [and] they’re unpredictable.”
Women are expected to have a large impact in the coming election, possibly due to a strong presence of Iranian women's rights activism.
“Women voters are increasingly voting independently. Women were a major factor in the election of Khatami and supporting the reformists,” Wright said.
On predictions for the forthcoming election, Sadjadpour said: “Judging by the last 30 years it usually takes 2 presidential terms for Iran to correct itself...So things may have to get worse before they get better.”
With the tenth Iranian Presidential election less than two weeks away, conversation is heating up as to whether sitting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will win a second term.
“No incumbent has ever lost a re-election campaign, but Ahmadinejad is indeed in real trouble.”, said Robin Wright, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Ahmadinejad’s opponents in the presidential race include: former Iranian Prime Minister, Mir-Hossein Mousavi; former Speaker of the Parliament, Mehdi Karroubi and former Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rezaii.
According to recent polls Mousavi has the most support with a three to four percent lead in ten major Iranian cities, where seventy percent of Iran’s population lives.
Karim Sadjadpour, an associate at the Carnegie Endownment for International Peace said, “These elections in Iran are unfree, they’re unfair, [and] they’re unpredictable.”
Women are expected to have a large impact in the coming election, possibly due to a strong presence of Iranian women's rights activism.
“Women voters are increasingly voting independently. Women were a major factor in the election of Khatami and supporting the reformists,” Wright said.
On predictions for the forthcoming election, Sadjadpour said: “Judging by the last 30 years it usually takes 2 presidential terms for Iran to correct itself...So things may have to get worse before they get better.”
Experts Support Obama’s Response to Contested Iranian Election
Nick Burns, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, countered critics who have described Obama’s response to the allegedly fraudulent election in Iran as overly passive. Instead, Burns said that Obama was “sensible” and “handled it superbly.”
Mounting evidence has suggested that the results of the recent Presidential election in Iran, which resulted in the apparent re-election of former President Ahmadinejad, suffered from fraud. The newly surfaced evidence includes: millions of extra ballots that were printed but unaccounted for, a refusal to use mandated see-through ballot boxes, a refusal to monitor ballots, and voting stations running out of ballots early despite being given an overabundance of blank ballots.
“I don’t have any doubt that it was a stolen election,” said speaker Abbas Milani, Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University, in a discussion on the United States’ response to the Iranian elections Tuesday.
Karim Sadjadpour, former Chief Iran analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the elections were fixed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini because “a Mousavi Presidency and an Obama Presidency at the same time would make it very clear to everyone that Ayatollah Khomeini is the impediment that is standing in the way of U.S.-Iran relations.”
Burns said, “[Obama] has been very thoughtful, measured--you’ve seen that his statements have become progressively stronger in line with events.” He continued to praise Obama for not “playing politics with the issue at home” and maintaining his focus on hopes of diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran instead of succumbing to domestic criticism.