Skip to main content

Home/ Iranian Election Fallout/ Group items tagged karroubi

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Frank Gallagher

Karrubi, the Election, and Facebook - 0 views

  • An interesting thing is that Mehdi Karroubi is not alone in his campaign photo (see above). He is pictured with the former mayor of Tehran, Gholamhossein Karbasschi's in the circle just behind him. Perhaps the “change” slogan is not the only thing that Karroubi borrowed from the U.S. election. Has he created himself an unofficial running mate?
  •  
    Karrubi's facebook page has just 300 fans, most loggers supporting Musavi - so far so dull. More interesting... Karbaschi's face appears in the background of promotional materials. Given how much Karrubi is trying to model his campaign on Barrack Obama's, this is being interpreted as the additon of a 'running mate'. I dont think it's as new as is being suggested here though. As I recall, Musavi's image appeared behind Khatami's in 1997...
Frank Gallagher

Excellent Review of the Campaign and the Elections- MERO (via Zmag - 0 views

  • The morning after Iran's June 12 presidential election, Iranians booted up their computers to find Fars News, the online mouthpiece of the Islamic Republic's security apparatus, heralding the dawn of a "third revolution." Many an ordinary Iranian, and many a Western pundit, had already adopted such dramatic language to describe the burgeoning street demonstrations against the declaration by the Ministry of Interior that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the sitting president, had received 64 percent of the vote to 34 percent for his main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi. But the editors of Fars News were referring neither to the protests, as were the people in the streets, nor to the prospect that the unrest might topple the Islamic Republic, as were some of the more wistful commentators. Rather, the editors were labeling the radical realignment of Iranian politics that they wish for. This realignment would complete the removal of the old guard, as did the "first" revolution of 1978-1979, and consolidate the rule of inflexible hardliners, as did the "second revolution" symbolized by the US Embassy takeover of 1979.
  • The number of deeply conservative voters, of the sort who back Ahmadinejad, has not exceeded 12 percent of the electorate since 1993. True, in 2003, these voters seized control of the city councils of major cities, not because of a surge in the popularity of their agenda, but because of the widespread abstention of those who had lost hope in the effectiveness of reformist candidates.
  • But instead greater mass participation in the local elections of 2007 cost the hardliners their grip upon local councils. In Tehran, Ahmadinejad's men lost two thirds of their seats and had to share power with reformists and moderate conservatives.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Khatami, then president, promised he would reveal details of election irregularities before leaving office, but this was a promise he did not keep. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, another contestant who later replaced Ahmadinejad as mayor of Tehran, announced that $330 million of the municipal budget was unaccounted for, hinting broadly that the monies had been illegally diverted to the Ahmadinejad campaign. Parliament formed a commission to investigate, but the new speaker, loyal to Ahmadinejad, suspended the investigation.
  • Incredulously, the ex-premier exclaimed: "They keep telling me, 'They used to cut neckties in your era.' Who do you think used to cut neckties? Who do you think Imam Khomeini forbade from interfering in people's lives? It was the same people who are in the administration now!"
  • Unlike in previous elections, the Ministry of Interior authorized deployment of 14,000 mobile voting booths, making it very difficult for candidates to send monitors to observe the balloting at every booth. Some 14.5 million extra ballots, by some reports, were printed and no clear system was delineated to track them. When several polling stations in urban centers ran out of ballots, Mousavi supporters asked where the extra ballots were, but they could not be found, and remain unaccounted for to date.
  • Yet the clearest violation of the law would be Mousavi and Karroubi's claim that their observers were not allowed to be present when ballots were counted and the ballot boxes sealed. By law and custom, these observers confirm that the boxes are empty before voting starts, and they are present at the count, sign the result sheet and take away a copy. They are also supposed to be present when the ballot boxes are finally sealed and sent to the Interior Ministry.
  • Unlike in previous elections and despite the enormous turnout, the Ministry of Interior was quick to declare a victor and the Leader officially congratulated Ahmadinejad before a final tally was released or the Guardian Council could make time to review complaints. The "result" generated sub-controversies as well. To highlight just a few, Karroubi is said to have won less than half a million votes (less than the number of spoiled ballots), when in 2005 he earned about 5 million votes, or 17 percent of the total vote. The initial count, oddly, did not include any ruined ballots.
  • During the campaign, opposition candidates repeatedly argued that Ahmadinejad had flaunted regulatory procedures in attempts to circumvent the constitutional checks and balances on the powers of the presidency. Today, it is apparent that this major campaign theme has been borne out in the election itself.
  •  
    Great detail on the political background (inc. 2003, 4 and 7 elections); no the campaign, and on the result. Some good points on electoral processes as well, and the congruence between Ahmadinejad's circumlocation of proceedures for accountability whilst in office, and the conduct of the election.
Frank Gallagher

Profile of Mojtaba Khamenei - Tehran Bureau - 0 views

  • Karroubi was certainly not the first senior figure to protest Mojtaba Khamenei’s intervention on behalf of the extreme right. Before him, Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, another former Speaker of the Majles and a close aid to Ayatollah Khamenei, had quietly protested the younger Khamenei’s meddling in the political process. (Nategh Nouri, a mid-rank cleric, heads the Supreme Leader’s Office of Inspection)
  • In the last year before the 1979 Revolution, Ayatollah Khamenei and two other clerics, Abbas Vaez Tabasi and Sayyed Abdolkarim Hasheminejad, formed a sort of leadership ring that led most of the demonstrations and political activities against the Shah in Mashhad and the Khorasan province, which was Iran’s largest province at that time.
  • Vaez Tabasi is now a powerful cleric who runs the shrine of Imam Reza (the Shiites’ 8th Imam), in Mashhad. He is believed to be a Rafsanjani ally.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • His son, Mojtaba, attended Alavi High School, a private religious school with a rigorous course load. (The school is located on Iran Street in central Tehran, where the author grew up.) Many of Iran’s present leaders are graduates of this high school.
  • His first teachers were his own father and Ayatollah Sayyed Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the current judiciary chief. Mojtaba was not a cleric yet. In 1999, he moved to Qom to study to join the ranks of clerics. He was taught there by conservative and ultraconservative clerics such as Mesbah Yazdi; Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpayegani, the first Secretary-General of the Guardian Council in the 1980s; and Ayatollah Sayyed Mohsen Kharrazi, the father of former foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi. (Kharrazi’s real name is Sayyed Mohsen Agha Mir Mohammad Ali and his daughter is married to Mojtaba’s younger brother, Mohsen, a junior cleric.)
  • Mojtaba Khamenei is also very close to Ayatollah Abolghasem Khazali,
  • One link is a mysterious figure not known to most Iranians. His name is Ayatollah Aziz Khoshvaght, who is a great supporter of Mojtaba Khamenei. Ayatollah Khamenei’s third child, Mostafa (Mojtaba’s older brother), is married to Khoshvaght’s daughter.
  • Khoshvaght is the prayer leader of a large mosque in northern Tehran, and a radical hardliner. Saeed Emami, the notorious figure who was responsible for the infamous Chain Murders in the fall of 1998, which resulted in the murder of six Iranian dissidents (and the murder of close to 70 other dissidents from 1988-1998), was a follower of Khoshvaght.
  • Khoshvaght is also close to and influential in the affairs of Ansar-e Hezbollah,
  • Mojtaba Khamenei and the paramilitary groups is Brigadier General Sayyed Mohammad Hejazi,
  • The third link between Mojtaba Khamenei and the paramilitary groups is Hassan Taeb, the current commander of the Basij. A hardliner and cleric, he is also linked with Mesbah Yazdi and his followers.
  • Other relatively young radicals and disciples of Mesbah Yazdi include Mohsen Gharavian and Ghassem Ravanbakhsh. The former always attempts to present a moderate and reasonable image of Mesbah Yazdi and his thinking, whereas the latter who is the editor-in-chief of Partow Sokhan, the weekly published by Mesbah Yazdi, is virulently opposed to the reformist-democratic movement.
  • However, many clerics in Qom dispute Mojataba Khamenei’s religious credentials.
  • There have been persistent rumors that Brigadier General Ali Fazli, who lost his left eye in the Iran-Iraq war, the commander of the IRGC forces in the Tehran province, has been opposed to the harsh crackdown on the protesters and demonstrators (reportedly ordered by Mojtaba Khamenei). Both he and Major General Mohammad Ali (Aziz) Jafari, the top commender of the IRGC, are said to be opposed to Mojtaba Khamenei’s meddling and power plays.
  • Mojtaba Khamenei is married to a daughter of Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, a university professor and former conservative Speaker of the Majles. After he was elected the Speaker of the 8th Majles in 2004, Haddad Adel once said, “We were told [by Ayatollah Khamenei] to be here [in the Majles to control it for the Ayatollah],” for which he was widely mocked by the reformists. But this statement indicated how the Ayatollah was putting his loyalists everywhere. Ayatollah Khamenei’s oldest daughter is married to Hojatoleslam Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, his chief of staff.
Frank Gallagher

Tough Times Ahead for the Iranian Economy - Brookings Institution - 0 views

  • Iran’s economy is facing at least three large imbalances. The most acute is in the balance of payments.
  • Already some candidates are whispering that they favor lowering the exchange rate (increasing the value of the rial relative to other currencies) in order to fight inflation. These candidates would lead voters to believe that they can have their cake and eat it too
  • In these times of frozen international credit markets and economic sanctions against Iran, the second option of foreign borrowing is less likely than it was in the 1990s, but the risk of state-owned enterprises racking up foreign debts using short-term credit from eager overseas suppliers is not altogether gone. This is precisely what they did in the early 1990s, which deepened the post-oil boom slump and halted Rafsanjani’s reforms. Anticipating devaluation and government bailout, these enterprises incurred $10 billion in new short term debt alone between 1991 and 1993. Their actions forced the highly anticipated devaluation of the rial by a factor of 27 during the same period and forced the government to accept this debt as its own.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Repeating the past is more likely to come in the form of the politically more palatable option of simply cutting imports. Such a policy will be costly in terms of jobs and growth, but will unfortunately appeal to any one of the current leading candidates (Mehdi Karroubi, Mir Hossein Moussavi, and Ahmadinejad), all of whom have strong dirigiste tendencies and would welcome the power over the private sector which comes with overseeing the allocation of the anticipated $40 billion of oil earnings to industries and individuals.
  • The second imbalance is in the government budget.
  • if the past is any guide, investment will take the biggest hit.
    • Frank Gallagher
       
      This pattern has been repeated during Ahmadinejad's term. Soft loans were given out in order to spur the construction of new businesses, but investment levels fell as the new money was either consumed (from imports) or poured into the real estate bubble.
  • The third imbalance is in the country’s financial markets
  •  
    Good backgrounder on the economic hurdles for whoever wins this Friday
Oriol Andres

Quién es quién en las elecciones presidenciales de 2009 en Irán - 0 views

  •  
    Breve presentación biográfica y programática de los candidatos a las elecciones presidenciales en Iran
Frank Gallagher

Shahrudi Publically Backs Ahmadinejad - 0 views

  • During a campaign gathering in Tehran, the hardline head of Iran's judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, threw his support to Mr. Ahmadinejad, as well.
  • Karroubi has gained some notoriety among the four candidates for proposing a novel economic plan which would grant shares in Iran's oil wealth to all Iranian citizens.
  •  
    Generally thought to be no fan of the President... considers him to be too extreme and is irritated by his unorthodox religious views.
Frank Gallagher

Iran protests: live |News |guardian.co.uk - 0 views

  • 6.15pm: Iranian filmmakers Marjane Satrapi and Mohsen Makhmalbaf just held a press conference in Brussels to say they have a document proving election fraud, Adnkronos news agency reports.The document, seen here, says that Mousavi won the election with 19m votes, with cleric Mehdi Karroubi coming in second and Ahmadinejad coming in third. Satrapi and Makhmalbaf said the document had come from the Iranian electoral commission, and is dated June 13, the day after the election.
    • Frank Gallagher
       
      Makhmalbaf is Musavi's Spokesman.
  • Saeed reports that Mousavi's wife Zahra Rahnavard today joined injured students at Tehran University, and condemened violence by the government and riot police.
  • A friend of the Guardian in Tehran writes that her Gmail account has been filtered, and that her internet service provider said it has been ordered to cut all emails, messaging software and many websites, especially foreign news outlets.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • 11am: The man who leaked the real election results from the Interior Ministry - the ones showing Ahmadinejad coming third - was killed in a suspicious car accident, according to unconfirmed reports, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan in Tehran.Mohammad Asgari, who was responsible for the security of the IT network in Iran's interior ministry, was killed yesterday in Tehran. Asgari had reportedly leaked results that showed the elections were rigged by government use of new software to alter the votes from the provinces. Asgari was said to have leaked information that showed Mousavi had won almost 19 million votes, and should therefore be president.
Frank Gallagher

Karrubi hits Basij and Guardians Council - 0 views

  • Karroubi who has faulted the Secretary of Iran's Guardian Council Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati for canvassing support for President Ahmadinejad, urged the council to comply by its supervisory obligations.
  • criticized the recent statements of the IRGC Chief-Commander, Major General Mohammad-Ali Jafari about the division of Basij into two segments -- military and non-military -- the second which has reportedly been allowed to be involved in political activities.
Frank Gallagher

Poor Policy, Not Sanctions, Weaken Iran's Economy - CFR - 0 views

  • I think that both Mr. [Mehdi] Karroubi and Mr. [Mohammad] Khatami, when he was running, and the new entrant, Mr. [Mir-Hossein] Mussavi, have not been very specific about what is wrong with the economy and how they would fix it. When asked by an interviewer, Mr. Mussavi singled out the dismantling of the Management and Planning Organization as the major problem. But it is way down on the list of problems that I would consider serious.
  •  
    American-Iranian Economist lays into economic policy. Points out that none of the reformists have offered any realistic plan as to how they would resolve matters
1 - 9 of 9
Showing 20 items per page