Re: [Marxism] NY TImes bias on Iranian elections dissected by WSWS

["farmelantj@xxxxxxxx" <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

I think it's quite likely that Ahmadinejad won in the untampered
vote and that the election results were, nevertheless, tampered
with.  Why would that have happened?  Most likely because the
clerical establishment was eager to avoid a runoff, and
so by giving Mr. Ahmadinejad extra votes they were able
to ensure that he would get an outright majority rather
than just a plurality. They seemed eager to get the
election over with since it seemed to stimulating
social tensions in Iran, although it now seems that
they miscalculated in this regard.

The Iranian election also merits
comparison with the Russian elections. It seems that in
the Russian election there was widespread tampering with
the vote counts although no serious observer doubts that
Dmitry Medvedev did win, by far, a majority of the votes
cast.

Jim Farmelant
--------- Original Message ----------
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Marxism] NY TImes bias on Iranian elections dissected by WSWS
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 10:00:24 -0400

Bhaskar Sunkara wrote:
> Except the election was stolen.   Anyone with a, let's see how they put it,
> "a serious knowledge of Iranian society and politics", would notice the
> results in Azerbaijan and the performance of the two minor candidates in
> their home provinces and realize that even IF Ahmadinejad led, he surely did
> not get a 2/3 majority. The tampering was obviously done to avoid a runoff.
>

Maybe you missed the Washington Post article that Fred posted:

The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection 
survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his 
identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after 
Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris 
favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.

full: 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html



____________________________________________________________
Always a good call. Click now to establish your local phone service!
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/BLSrjpTHbDjzmzdFNdAWwxnWD5rwDuu8WmEKWCDucFiOyUYKCCMAOUSIvSI/

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu