Word: voting
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...reformist movement - by a staggering 50% but also managed to win in Azerbaijan, the birthplace of his chief rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, by a 4-to-1 margin. (As an Azeri friend of mine said, this would be akin to Senator John McCain winning the African-American vote against Barack Obama.) It seems odd that the election was called so soon after the polls had closed, despite the many millions of ballots still to be counted, most of them by hand. (Read "Thirty Years After the Revolution, U.S. Still Struggling to Understand Iran...
...campus or lining the surrounding streets in his first public address since the outcome of last Friday's disputed presidential election. He insisted there had been no fraud in the result, describing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's election win as "definitive." He added that the "Islamic establishment would never manipulate votes and commit treason. The legal structure in this country does not allow vote-rigging. If the difference was 100,000 or 500,000 or 1 million, well, one may say fraud could have happened. But how can one rig 11 million votes?" For Khamenei, the election was proof positive that...
...Such intransigence - and the tarnished election results - makes the question of negotiations harder for Obama, but also easier in some ways. The U.S. President was appropriately cautious after the elections - criticizing the use of violence against the protesters, but not the results of the vote. It seems clear that his Administration will continue to seek negotiations that will, among other things, attempt to increase the transparency of Iran's nuclear program. If the Iranians are smart, they will respond quickly. If they continue to dally, Iran's electoral embarrassment will make it easier for Obama to rally other countries behind...
...Khamenei, who has since backtracked by ordering an investigation into claims of voter fraud. Despite violent attacks on demonstrators and arrests of political figures, security forces have in the main refrained from unleashing their repressive might on demonstrators who are openly defying the law. The partial recount of the vote has bought Khamenei time, but the crisis of legitimacy facing those in power grows by the day. (See pictures of Iran's presidential election and its turbulent aftermath...
...investigate claims of electoral fraud. If the combination of escalating street demonstrations and the politicking of Mousavi's backers inside the regime's councils prompts Khamenei to conclude that an Ahmadinejad victory is untenable, he could press the Guardian Council to heed the opposition's demand for a new vote - or, more likely, "adjust" the result so that no candidate has a clear majority, forcing a runoff election between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi. Such a course would be a bitter pill for the Supreme Leader, dealing a body blow to his efforts to install Ahmadinejad and mocking his authority by forcing...