The 2009 Iranian presidential election was held on 12 June 2009 in Iran,[1] the tenth presidential election to be held in the country.[2] The President of Iran is the highest official elected by direct popular vote, but does not control foreign policy or the armed forces. Candidates have to be vetted by the Guardian Council, a twelve member body consisting of six clerics (selected by Iran's Supreme Leader), and six lawyers (proposed by the head of Iran's judicial system and voted in by the Parliament).[3]
With two-thirds of the votes counted, the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's official news agency, announced that incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the election with 66% of the votes cast.[4] Mir-Hossein Mousavi received 33% of the votes cast.[5][6] The European Union said it was "concerned about alleged irregularities" during the vote,[7] and some analysts and journalists from United States and United Kingdom based media expressed doubts about the authenticity of the results.[8][9][10][11]
Mousavi issued a statement saying, "I'm warning that I won't surrender to this charade," and he urged his backers to fight the decision as well as to avoid committing acts of violence.[9] Protests, in favour of Mousavi and against the alleged fraud, broke out in Tehran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad, labeling his victory as a "divine assessment".[12] Mousavi lodged an official appeal against the result to the Guardian Council on 14 June.[13]
Election process
Ahmadinejad became President of Iran after the 2005 election. The losing candidates at that time claimed irregularities at the polls, but the charges were not investigated.[12] His victory had surprised most observers of the campaign.[14] At that time, the reformist camp had mostly either boycotted elections entirely or held back out of disillusionment with past lack of progress.[15] The voting for the 2009 election was scheduled for 13 June 2009 and ended up being extended until midnight that day because the turnout was unexpectedly high.[3]
The President is elected by direct vote, however candidates for the presidency must be approved by the 12-member Council of Guardians. Candidates need to win a majority (more than half) to become President. Iran has a two-round system: if none of the candidates wins the majority in the first round, the top two candidates will go to a run-off. The first round was held on 12 June 2009, and the run-off, if necessary, will be held one week later, on 19 June 2009.[16] All Iranian citizens of age 16 and up are eligible to vote. Both the Iranian Center for Statistics and the Iranian Ministry of the Interior have stated that there are around 46.2 million eligible voters.[17]
[edit] Candidates
On 20 May 2009, the Guardian Council officially announced a list of approved candidates, while rejecting a number of registered nominees.[18]
[edit] Approved candidates
Conservatives
Reformists
[edit] Rejected candidates
Conservatives
Independents
[edit] Withdrawn candidates
[edit] Potential candidates
The following people were said to be possible candidates in the election, but did not register within the five days allowed for registration.[24] Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former President and chairman of the Assembly of Experts, would have been over 75 years old on the election day and therefore ineligible to run by election law.
Conservatives who declined to run
Reformists who declined to run
[edit] Campaign
[edit] Background
The incumbent was Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The Iranian reform movement attempted to unite behind a single candidate; former President Mohammad Khatami had been the leading opponent to Ahmadinejad in some opinion polls until he withdrew and endorsed former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi.[31] Former Speaker of the Majlis Mehdi Karroubi, another Reformist, was also running, as was former Commander of Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rezaee, a Conservative with a reputation of political pragmatism.[17] The election marked a return to the public spotlight for Mousavi, who had not received much attention since he served as Prime Minster in the 1980s.[32] Reformist opinions galvanized around him as the election grew nearer.[3] He became the symbol for a groundswell of youthful democratic sentiment, despite his personal background and his political views.[33]
The Telegraph has described the campaign as "unusually open by Iranian standards, but also highly acrimonious."[10] It was marked by heated rhetoric between the incumbent and his challengers. Mousavi and two other candidates said Ahmadinejad had lied about the state of the economy, which was suffering from high inflation and a fall in oil revenues from last year's record levels. Ahmadinejad responded by comparing his opponents to Adolf Hitler, adding that they could be jailed for their comments. "No one has the right to insult the president, and they did it. And this is a crime. The person who insulted the president should be punished, and the punishment is jail... Such insults and accusations against the government are a return to Hitler's methods, to repeat lies and accusations... until everyone believes those lies," Ahmadinejad said.[32]
Debates about the economy played the biggest role in the campaign, with the global economic recession looming in people's minds.[17] About one in five Iranians live under the poverty line, inflation is at about 25 precent, and unemployment is at over 12.5 percent.[34] Mousavi advocated further privatization of the economy towards a free market with a tight monetary policy in comparison to Ahmadinejad's pro-interventionist fiscal policy, with Ahmadinejad making measures to fight poverty a key principle in his campaign.[35][14] Mousavi drew his electoral base from the middle and upper classes while Ahmadinejad drew support from the urban poor and rural residents.[17] Civil servants, police officers, pensioners, and others dependent on the government also contributed to Ahmadinejad's base.[36] He made financial support from the business class against him into a theme of attack.[34] BBC News has described his campaign as "one that foresees the death of capitalism".[9]
Mousavi also criticized Ahmadinejad for diplomatically isolating Iran by denying the Holocaust and making anti-Western speeches. He opposed the government's current strict enforcement of Islamic dress and social behavior as well.[35] He advocated letting private individuals and groups own Iranian media.[14] Both candidates strongly supported further development of the Iranian nuclear program.[35] However, Mousavi advocated a less combative and tense tone with other nations about the program.[32] He also floated the idea of an international consortium overseeing uranium enrichment in Iran.[14] BBC News has stated about Mousavi that "[i]n foreign affairs, he seems to be offering little change on major issues".[17] Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Mohamad Bazzi has stated that "[i]f Mousavi wins, it could create a new opening for dialogue with the United States. Ahmadinejad's continued presence would be a major obstacle".[3] Robert Fisk has also remarked that a Mousavi victory would mean closer ties to the U.S.[14]
U.S. President Barack Obama posed a direct challenge to Ahmadinejad during his early June 2009 visit to Buchenwald concentration camp. He stated that Ahmadinejad "should make his own visit" to the camp and that "[t]his place is the ultimate rebuke to such thoughts, a reminder of our duty to confront those who would tell lies about our history". Analysts at the Fox News Network speculated that reformists within Iran could have been boosted by the rebuke.[37]
The campaign was the most expensive in the Islamic republic's history, with the two main candidates spending more than tens of millions of dollars in bid to convince voters to support them. Funds were spent on, among other things, a mass distribution of computerized propaganda, such as CDs and DVDs. Another interesting phenomenon which took place during the campaign was a dramatic rise in the number of text messages sent to Iranian cell phone subscribers, from 60 million messages a day to some 110 million.[34] Mousavi adopted the traditional Islamic color, green, as a campaign symbol. Young male supporters wore green ribbons tied around their wrists and young female supporters wore green headscarves. Activists used the term 'Change' as his main slogan, chanting phrases such as "Green change for Iran", "Together for change", and "Vote for change".[38]
[edit] Debates
Between 2 June and 8 June 2009 Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting broadcast nightly debates on TV channel IRIB 3 between two candidates at a time, with each candidate facing the others once. This was the first time Iran had held televised debates between candidates.[39] Each debate lasted for around one and half hours. During the debate on 3 June between President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and reformist rival, former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad made accusations regarding former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and the Iranian Revolution. Rafsanjani responded to these charges on 9 June in an open letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei requesting the he step in to rebuke Ahmadinejad for his comments at the debate.[40][41]
[edit] Opinion polls
The opinion polls in Iran have been considered unreliable.[42][43] A number of polls conducted between relatively small voting groups, like university students and workers, have been reported as election propaganda. More general polls reported in the media do not state the polling organization nor the basic facts about the methodology. The results show a high variance and depend heavily on who is reporting the poll.[44][43] In 2002, the polling organization Ayandeh and another polling organization was closed and its directors were arrested.[45] The director of Ayandeh, Abbas Abdi, spent several years in prison.[46]
Mousavi's and Karroubi's campaign posters in Tehran claimed that a high turnout would reduce Ahmadinejad's chance of winning the election.[38] Karroubi's campaign manager, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, claimed that the chance of Ahmadinejad losing the election would be over 65 percent if over 32 million people voted, but less than 35 percent if less than 27 million people voted.[38]
Immediately before the end of the election, the former Iranian president, Khatami, predicted that Mousavi would win.
The election had seen huge candidate rallies in Iranian cities,[16] and turnout was very high with over 80 percent of the electorate reportedly voting.[75] If no candidate had received a majority of support, a run-off election would have been held on 19 June 2009.[16] At the closing of election polls, both leading candidates, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, claimed victory, with both candidates telling the press that their sources have them at 58–60% of the total vote.[76] Early reports had claimed a turnout of 32 million votes cast.[77][78] Ahmadinejad's rival, Mousavi, warned the Iranian people of possible vote fraud.[79]
According to Reuters, several noted political analysts contested the results immediately.[11] Mousavi announced on his website that he in fact was the person that received the majority of the voting and that his name was replaced by Ahmadinejad's.[80] He urged his supporters to reject what he saw as "blatant violations" of democracy and its replacement by "the rule of authoritarianism and tyranny." He declared on Friday:
"The results announced for the 10th presidential elections are astonishing. People who stood in long lines and knew well who they voted for were utterly surprised by the magicians working at the television and radio broadcasting". [75]