Hamid Dabashi for CNN: Rigged or not, vote fractures Iran

[Turborama]

In a recent article published both in the Washington Post and the Guardian, Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty reported that according to their “nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote … Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2-to-1 margin — greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday’s election.”

That may or may not be the case, but the abiding wisdom of Aesop’s fable of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” or its Persian version, “The Lying Shepherd,” has now made any such Monday-morning quarterbacking an academic exercise in futility.

The assumption that the government has rigged the election has become a “social fact” that millions of Iranians believe. On the basis of that belief, they have put their lives on the line, with reported casualties of dozens injured and at least one, perhaps up to nine, people killed.

Chief among the slogans of supporters of presidential challenger Mir Hossein Moussavi is “With God’s help victory is at hand/Death to this deceitful government!” Such a significant and sizeable segment of Iranian society has lost its trust in this regime in general, and in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency in particular, that, even if this time around the authorities are telling the truth, they have “cried wolf” too many times to be trusted.

Continues: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/06/17/dabashi.iran.regime/index.html

[MADem]

1. Eight million blank ballots are missing, which is why a "recount" won't cut it.

Boxes of ballots in Mousavi strongholds have gone missing. And then, there's "the letter" that says Mousavi won.

There's no turning back. Khameini and Ahmadinejad have misjudged badly, I think.

[Oregone]

2. I don't think any serious observer of this would put a ton of weight in that letter

But thats not the point I guess. Its about what people there believe.

[MADem]

3. Well, a least one serious observer has.

But you are quite right--it's not if it's real, or not, it's how it is perceived.

....the photocopy appeared to be a genuine but confidential letter from the Iranian minister of interior, Sadeq Mahsuli, to Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, written on Saturday 13 June, the day after the elections, and giving both Mr Mousavi and his ally, Mehdi Karroubi, big majorities in the final results. In a highly sophisticated society like Iran, forgery is as efficient as anywhere in the West and there are reasons for both distrusting and believing this document. But it divides the final vote between Mr Mousavi and Mr Karroubi in such a way that it would have forced a second run-off vote – scarcely something Mousavi's camp would have wanted.

Headed "For the Attention of the Supreme Leader" it notes "your concerns for the 10th presidential elections" and "and your orders for Mr Ahmadinejad to be elected president", and continues "for your information only, I am telling you the actual results". Mr Mousavi has 19,075,623, Mr Karroubi 13,387,104, and Mr Ahmadinejad a mere 5,698,417.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-secret-letter-proves-mousavi-won-poll-1707896.html