Vol. 73/No. 25      June 29, 2009

Iran’s Guardian Council, which is made up of 12 clerics and lawyers and supervises elections, may authorize a second count in areas where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory was questioned, state television quoted Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, the council’s spokesman, as saying.

It was the latest sign of the deep fissures in the Iranian capitalist class, which divided sharply over the two main presidential candidates, Ahmadinejad and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi.

Less than a day after the polls had closed, the Interior Ministry reported the results of the election, giving Ahmadinejad 63 percent of the vote to 34 percent for Mousavi, a difference of some 10 million votes. Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei, the most authoritative religious and political figure in Iran, declared June 14 that the elections were “a divine miracle” and a blow to Iran’s enemies, according to Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting.

In the final weeks of the election Mousavi held very large rallies in Tehran and other cities and won broad support on campuses and in the urban middle class. Reports in the capitalist press have highlighted Mousavi’s promise to ease up on censorship and jailing of political dissidents, his call to negotiate with Washington, and the pro-women’s rights stance of his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, as the key strengths and attraction to his campaign.

A sizable section of the country’s rulers saw him as the best candidate to reknit ties with Washington and end the economic and financial sanctions on Iran. The Iranian rulers are also concerned about the instability that could result from such moves.

However, a survey conducted for the London-based Guardian in all 30 of Iran’s provinces prior to the election showed that among responders who said they supported Ahmadinejad, most also favored more democratic reforms, and better relations with the United States. Ahmadinejad campaigned on his record of providing some aid to peasants in the countryside and to low-income workers, his denunciations of wealthy politicians and clerics, and the advances of Iran’s nuclear program under his government. He also held very large rallies and had support among youth in the basij, the volunteer militia organization that operates under the command of the Revolutionary Guards.

Reporters from U.S., British, and French media carried virtually no election coverage from rural areas or the working-class areas of south Tehran where Ahmadinejad was likely to do well. Nor did they conduct many interviews with workers or peasants about their opinions on the race.

Mousavi supporters, many of them students, who had expected victory or at least a runoff with Ahmadinejad, began protest demonstrations in north Tehran, where more affluent Iranians live. Mousavi himself called on the Guardian Council, which certifies candidates and the elections, to annul the results and hold a new election.

Mohsen Rezaei, a longtime commander of the Guards and until recently an ally of Ahmadinejad, also contested the elections. He ran a distant third.

When riot police and paramilitary assaults on the demonstrators failed to deter them, Khamenei decided to meet with Mousavi. He announced June 15 that the Guardian Council should “carefully probe” the election results.

That same day, a march in Tehran addressed by Mousavi drew hundreds of thousands, despite the fact that it had no permit. It was peaceful, ABC News reported.

At the end, however, some individuals tried to set fire to a building of the basij. Members of the basij fired their weapons and at least seven people were killed, according to Iranian state radio.

That same night at Tehran University thugs burst into a dormitory and killed four students protesting the election results, eyewitnesses told Reuters. They appeared to be from the basij or were plainclothes cops. A sit-in of 800 students protested the attack June 16.

Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani convened an investigation of the Tehran University deaths. “The Interior Ministry is responsible for this and should answer for it,” he said. Rezaei, who commanded the Guards until a decade ago, called on the government to treat protesters “peacefully” and “kindly.” Ahmadinejad, Larijani, and Rezaei, who have been described in the capitalist press as “hardliners” each rose up from the ranks of the Guards but have taken different stances in the elections. Mousavi supporters had called for another demonstration June 16. Ahmadinejad backers immediately called on their supporters to rally at the same spot an hour earlier. Mousavi issued a statement urging his supporters to stay away, calling the situation a “trap.”

Meanwhile, the Interior Ministry announced the arrest of several prominent politicians, including Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who was Iran’s vice president under Mohammed Khatami.

Sam Manuel contributed to this article.  
 
 
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