Fanon and Iran

The fact that protests are continuing in Iran leads me to several conclusions.

One, my initial guess as to what would happen has proved fairly correct, and my hopes disappointed. Those in power have clamped down, rather than reaching out, conducting a runoff election, and settling the matter with Mousavi, who is no radical; instead, it looks just a little more like revolution. With Mousavi and other approved candidates trying to distance themselves from the protests, there's no clear outlet left within the system, and so pressure has built.

And even though Iran is not by any means a colonized state, I always think of Franz Fanon when it comes to the question of revolution. Fanon very boldly asserted that it was better that the colonial powers were violently overthrown, rather than giving up power in a peaceful and bloodless transition; better to make a clean break with the past.

I sometimes wonder if he was right in that judgment. Violent revolution is a terrifying thing - but as dearly as it is sold, one wishes that something be gotten for the monstrous cost in blood. I suppose soon, when we start reaching forty day marks, we will see whether the pace of the 1979 Iranian revolution and this one are one and the same; I do not suppose that we will know soon, however, what to expect.

I will go as far as to predict this, though: The longer and harder the fight, the more radicalized it will become, and the sharper the changes that Iran will face. Whether or not the existing establishment falls, whether or not Mousavi or any other moderate tries to ride the tiger to tameness.

Continuing to watch Iran

The latest news I've caught regarding Iran is that the Guardian Council performed a partial (closed-doors) recount and announced that the election results hold, that while there were irregularities, they weren't significant enough to warrant a full recount or a runoff election.

Based on what I said earlier, I would take the position that the magnitude of irregularities the Guardian Council has already admitted to are significant enough that recounting merely shifts the possibilities a little, especially doing a small partial recount. Moreover, a recount only fixes counting errors; it does not cover the margin of outright fraudulent votes.

If a significant fraction of ballots are fraudulently cast, recounting the same partly-fraudulent ballots will not test whether or not the fraud altered the election. I am somewhat discouraged to see that the Guardian Council is trying to close off the idea of holding a runoff. I do even take it as a sign that they are worried Ahmadinejad would lose such a runoff. If he enjoyed the level of popular support they claim, he would easily win a runoff election, and I should think that holding a runoff election - normally warranted in Iranian presidential elections - would shut the mouths of many complainers.

I'm still hoping that this all works out nicely in the end, but I am growing quite pessimistic.

The latest developments out of Iran

In what Nate Silver is calling the worst damage control effort ever, the Guardian Council admitted that the votes collected in 50 cities exceeded the number of eligible voters in those cities, "only" affecting 3 million odd votes.

Even given that the reported turnout was a historic high - over 80% - that's an indication of fairly massive fraud in those cities. While local turnouts, counted by the number of ballots, of more than 100% necessarily imply fraud, it is not necessary for the number of votes to exceed the number of voters in order for fraud to happen - and to do so is a strong indication of the strength of fraud in those cities. If turnout was about average in those cities (and actually a historic high of ~80-85%), then fraud accounted for more than 15-20% of all votes cast in those cities.

And if that figure held in many areas - with or without red flag overturnouts - turnout may not have been at record highs, and we're seeing the sort of degree of massive falsification that could swing an election so dramatically. And if the Guardian Council is admitting that massive fraud happened, I think the case is now quite materially convincing that the sitting president cheated. Not only that, but that the cheating was extensive enough to make a difference.

If I am convinced that fraud was indeed definitely present, and of an order of magnitude large enough to potentially swing nearly any contested election, I doubt that supporters of the opposition are anything but convinced that it did swing the election, and I hope that a peaceful runoff election, rather than violent revolt, is the outcome of this.

About that Iranian election...

A friend of mine made the following comment: "Obama wins 52.9% of popular vote, CNN calls it a resounding victory. Ahmadinejad wins 62.6% of popular vote, CNN portrays scattered opposition protests as a revolution."

There is a point to be made in that the US media are sometimes reluctant to question those in power in the US, and that has lead to an imbalance in scrutiny. A better example would be the elections of 2004; the famous differences between exit polls and official ballot counts cast a shadow over both the US and Ukrainian presidential elections. The difference?

US media by and large buried the story of irregularities within the US election; the very same indicators, however, were taken as proof positive of fraud in the Ukraine. What we saw happen in the Ukraine was a national re-vote under intense scrutiny from international and domestic observers - and that's what we should see happen every time we see significant irregularities whose magnitude is large enough to potentially change the election.

In the case of the Iranian election just past, I think the allegations of massive fraud in reporting the results deserve investigation; the Huffington Post has been assembling everything they can. What I find particularly striking is that all the international media, from Al-Arabiya to ZDF - not just, in other words, US media - are finding their ability to report in Iran sharply curtailed. I do not expect the current Iranian government to conduct a revote; Iran, like the United States in 2004, is a nation with a proud incumbent government willing to hold itself aloof from the wishes of the rest of the world, with little interest in transparency and accountability.

I'm pretty sure elections are stolen on a regular basis, all around the world. There's certainly fraud and voter suppression in every US presidential election, and it has probably changed the result of our presidential elections a half dozen times or more; I hate to think of how many state and local elections are decided fraudulently. And for that reason, whenever there's probable cause to question the results of an election, a full investigation - followed by a recount and a revote - is the right thing to do.