A Failed Velvet Revolution or a Political Coup?
Official results of the presidential election in Iran were more of a shock to both parties, i.e. reformists and hardliners. Regardless of the massive turnout that set a record in the age of Islamic Republic, Mousavi, the most hopeful reformist candidate, only gathered around 13 million votes which were almost half the votes of Ahmadinejad. Karroubi, other reformist candidate, won the support of less than a percent of voters.
Reformists believe that the results were ‘engineered’, and their supporters have waged limited rebellion against the ruling administration in some metropolitan areas. Referring to several cases of intervention, misconduct and paradoxical results as well as reports of reformist observers, they believe that Mousavi was the real winner and ruling party fabricated the results. The day after the election, several reformist figures, including the brother of former reformist president Khatami, got arrested. Moreover, some other prominent people, including Mousavi himself, are taken into home custody. Since few days ago, there has been a massive blackout on information resources. SMS service of two main operators has been completely cut since the night before election. Several reformist sites, even moderate ones such as aftabnews.ir, are blocked. Ministry of Interior Affairs permits no demonstration. Riot police is present everywhere and senior officials such as Rafsanjani who were expected to intervene are nothing but silent. From this perspective, putting together puzzle pieces, one might come to the conclusion that the whole event resembles a political coup.
On the other hand, hardliners could hardly expect to beat reformists and their ‘Green Wave’ in such a humiliating manner – Mousavi and his supporters chose Green as their symbolic color. Conservative analysts maintain that Mousavi and his companions were arranging for a Colored (Velvet) Revolution. Before the election, reformist resources and media orchestrated a massive propaganda to make people and observers believe that “the Green Wave should win if the original voice of the people is to be heard.” Finding out that Ahmadinejad is bound to win, according to hardliner analysts, reformist camp decided to run away forward. Few days before the election, Mousavi declared that he would be the winner if the people are not cheated on. And on the day of election, while people were still casting their ballots, Mousavi participated in a press conference and declared that he is the winner for sure. When the official results got published, public opinion was ready to accept that “it’s a fraud.” Then, Mousavi stated that he would not subscribe to the results. Later on, some resources informed people that Mousavi is pressed to accept the results. Mousavi and Karroubi asked people to wage a wave of civil unrest. Encountered with somehow heavy-handed response, demonstrations went violent. From this perspective, reformists are trying to direct a Colored Revolution.
In my opinion, Colored Revolution in Iran is set to fail for Revolutionary Guards and some hardliners are ready to take every possible measure to crack down demonstrations. However, they are yet to act. It might be due to two possible, yet completely opposite reasons. From one point, they may believe that the current unrest is not that serious. From another point, they may find it so unstable a situation that even one hasty move could cause serious problems. The truth will probably reveal itself within few days. Just wait.
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Good article ..
You have your great leaders now we have ours. Divide and conquer is the American way.
For example North Korea – South Korea, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan and many more examples to long to list !
Our Leaders have bamboozled our public and effectively censored our media.
They have one message for you and one for us. We here in America are proud
to have our first half -African Leader (The New world Leader), he is a very effective and crafty speaker.
As a Christian people we know that all races are sacred and that we should mind our own business, but many of our leaders have no real lasting commitment. Each word that is spoken is carefully planned to manipulate a certain audience.
If anyone thinks USA doesn’t have a hand in this -seriously reconsider-. We will compromise on the “peace process”, and leave the Mid-East in turmoil as long as it serves our leaders purposes.
The American war protesters are now silenced entirely and human rights have been forgotten, for that we are sorry. We are however proud of our Presidents and doubt you will break from their spell.
In America we say “yes we can” and abroad “we are doing it”.
Mohammad ,
explain to me how they counted 40 million ballots in 2 hours? It’s very suspicious that Khamenei, who as far I know, has the last say in anything related to the future of Iran, openly claimed Ahmedinejad’s vitory as a “divine assesment”. The math just doesn’t add up. There are too many people out there in the streets who are upset to say that this election wasn’t rigged.
85% turnout and out of that 60+% voted for Ahmadinejad? Give me a break, if that was the case you wouldn’t see this many people nationwide in the streets clashing with police.
Now on what you said in regards to the revolution failing. You say that have yet to act. I’ve heard that over 50 people have died so far, so I think that shows that they in fact HAVE acted. However, if this is nothing compared to whats to come, then the reason they haven’t acted would probably be because the government is scared. They know the world is watching as Obama has stated today, and they can see that the people are willing to die for this cause.
But you are right, the truth will reveal itself soon.
Mideast Youth: A Failed Velvet Revolution or a Political Coup? http://tinyurl.com/m4j97t
Hamid,
it’s technically possible. counting the votes in a polling station doesnt take much time. and for this election, an online system was devised so that the officials could send the results directly to the ministry of interior affairs once the counting was done.
let me make one point; I’;m not here to justify hardliners’ ideas. i just wanna explain views of both sides, and surely I have my own thoughts which are not conforming to state-sponsored propaganda.
the unrest is mainly in Tehran right now. and you know, Mousavi won more votes in Tehran than Ahmadinejad did.
exactly. at least 10 people were killed in yesterday demonstration in Tehran, according to state tv.
Mohammad,
can you blog all this from Iran? I thought the internet censorship wouldn’t allow such texts with keywords like “Revolution” or “Green Wave”. Please tell me something about the way you’re blogging and, if you know, how come all these amateur internet videos of the protests into the world wide web.
Thanks,
Martin
Martin,
Yes, I blog from Iran. Censorship is mainly about Persian sites and some famous english ones. there is a so-called “intelligent filtering” that analyzes texts (finding keywords, etc) and blocks some sites. MEY is not blocked yet.
people record an event with cellphone and send the file to some sites (such as VOA, BBC, etc) or friends abroad and they publish it. (such as this one, reportedly Neda Salehi, who was shot in the chest and died right where she was shot on saturday demonstrations in Tehran.)
Thanks a lot!
Mohammad,
just two more questions: Do you use (or do you know Iranians using) malicious/anonymity proxy server? And what can happen to you if someone might notice you’re writing here?
All the best,
Martin
there are several ways to bypass filters: proxy servers, VPN and some softwares (such as Freegate freely provided by VOA for Iranian users).
I personally try to be careful in what I write for I write under my real identity. Recently Revolutionary Guards’ office of Cyber Crimes issued a warning… surely some bad things would happen to people whose ideas are found to be provacative by officials. in past years several bloggers have been arrested and sentenced to prison, etc, for what they posted in their blogs (some of them for sexual content, some others for political and reliugious reasons).
Very very interesting. Thank you so much.
Mohammad,
Do you know how do they pursuit Cyber crimes? Is there any threat for those who like me write under their nicknames?
it’s technically possible. there are rumours that emails are monitored. in addition, they can trace IPs. To improve security, it’s better to use cafenets.