Groups contest Iranian election
Omkar Baxi
Issue date: 7/3/09 Section: News
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Iran's recent presidential election pitted the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad against the reformist candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The Iranian Guardian Council, in charge of overseeing presidential elections, declared Ahmadinejad as the victor with a 63 percent lead.
According to Anne-Marie Obajtek-Kirkwood, head of French studies at Drexel, the Iranian elections were clearly not fair.
"Irregularities took many forms: voting ballots came in late, mobile voting boxes took fishy itineraries, the number of mobile voting boxes increased to 14,307, ten times more than in 2005," Obajtek-Kirkwood said. "The participation rate was 100 percent in 30 Iranian cities, a city like Taft had a rate of 141 percent, Kouhrang 132 percent and Chadegan in the province of Ispahan 120 percent."
Many Iranians contested the election results claiming that Mousavi and Karroubi had a greater political base than suggested by the published election results, according to CNN. As a result, many Iranians have protested in the cities, calling for a recount, despite anti-protest actions by the Revolutionary Guard.
According to Mike Hess, chairman of the College Republicans, the protests show the disparity between the Iranian public and their government.
"The Iranian president is a symbol of the Iranian government and represents the connection between the Iranian people and their government," Hess said. "I think this election has shown that the Iranian public is disenfranchised, and that's not what the people want. The ensuing protests have shown that the Iranians are not happy with their government."
Obajtek-Kirkwood agreed and said the outcome of the election has in a way reinforced the power of the clerics against the politics but has also made more of a dent into their hold.
"Khamenei has been challenged as no Supreme Leader ever has been. Iranian society is really divided," she said.
Iran's political structure employs a unique mix of theocracy and democracy. A mix of popular representatives and clerics - the Guardian Council - and the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, oversees the democratically elected president. According to CNN, the president's influence is largely determined by his interaction with these overseeing bodies, as evidenced by former president Mohammad Khatami's unsuccessful reform attempts.
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