Advertisement

IRAN: Independent study finds irregularities in election results

Share

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Chatham House, a British think tank, has published a study indicating irregularities in the disputed June 12 election.

The country’s highest electoral authority, the Guardian Council, acknowledged today that ‘votes collected in 50 cities surpass the number of people eligible to cast ballots in those areas,’ state-owned Press TV reported. But a spokesman for the council maintains that the votes were not enough to reverse the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Advertisement

Chatham House researchers compared the official provincial returns from 2009 and 2005 against the 2006 census published by the official Statistical Center of Iran. They found:

• In two conservative provinces, Mazandaran and Yazd, a turnout ofmore than 100% was recorded. • At a provincial level, there is no correlation between the increasedturnout and the swing to Ahmadinejad. This challenges the notion thatAhmadinejad’s victory was due to the massive participation of apreviously silent conservative majority. • In a third of all provinces, the official results would require thatAhmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, all formercentrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of formerReformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these twogroups. • In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, andAhmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas.That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claimthat this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provincesflies in the face of these trends.

Download the study from Chatham House.

-- Alexandra Zavis in Los Angeles

Advertisement