photo credit: misterarasmus

This has been puzzling me recently: Despite the massive demonstrations, I have not seen any news report/article over the claimed wrongdoings in the Iranian election. All the western media I read only reported that Ahmadinejad won by a clear margin and none of them noted any rigging of the votes etc. However, the opposition claims this has been very much the case. I suppose (but do not know) there were no independent election monitors. Then again, as far as I know, none of the western states or the UN has criticized the election process as such, just the way the authorities have handled the demonstrations. Furthermore, in this case the rigging should have been massive, the margin was so huge between the two.

If the election was fair, from my perspective it is a done deal, the current president won and that’s it. In accordance with the democratic principles the opposition should in this case congratulate the winner and get ready for their job as the opposition again, frustating as it might be. In any case, as already noted above, I do not know. I just wish somebody could tell what or why is it exactly that the opposition got so “upset” about, or is it more just a general custom that after the elections this always happens (I recall that it was not like this the last time, but with this memory nothing is certain…). In what way was the election not fair?

On the other hand, I did read that it was said that especially the young were more likely to vote for the opposition. If the turnout was considerably high, how is it possible that in a country where the medium age is 27 Ahmadinejad was able to win with such a big margin?

Tags: demonstration, election, Iran

Category: Explanation needed

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