Deja Vu?: The Irony of the Iranian Election Controversy

On June 13, reform candidate Mir Hussein Moussavi suffered a resounding defeat at the hands of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Although Mr. Moussavi's campaign had gained significant support in the weeks leading up to the election, coupled with the fact that several polls and political observers predicted that this had the potential to be a very close contest, Ahmadinejad was declared the victor with over 60% of the vote. However, much evidence suggests that the election results may have been riddled with fraud. For example, in his hometown of Tabriz, in which Mr. Moussavi enjoyed a groundswell of support, he surprising lost to Ahmadinejad by the highly suspect margin of 57%-43%. In addition, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei certified the election results and even congratulated Mr. Ahmadinejad before the polls had closed. Immediately upon hearing the news of Mr. Moussavi's defeat, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in the streets of Tehran to voice their outrage at the electoral irregularities.

Sitting here in the comfort of our homes in the democratic Western world, we often feel far removed from events occurring in places on the other side of the world that we can barely comprehend or even imagine. At least to some degreee, we are all ethnocentric: even those of us who are enlightened enough to have engrossed ourselves in the comprehensive study of the geographic, social, and religious contexts of Middle Eastern politics are still unable to truly understand what it is like to live in the tumultuous environment of Iran. Thus, in order for an event occurring on the other side of the world to grab hold of our attention, we generally have to be able to relate to it in a fundamental way. While at first look the Iranian Presidential Election may seem to be a far cry from our own experiences with electoral politics, one need not think too hard in order to uncover astonishing parallels to the American electoral system. By looking at the Iranian election from this unique perspective, we can at least begin to understand that the actual differences between the Iranian electorate and the American electorate may not be nearly as great as we once thought. Many of these perceived differences may simply be imaginary misconceptions derived from our Western exceptionalist tendencies.

The 2000 Presidential Election between George W. Bush and Al Gore provides a case in point. A number of striking similarities can be seen by analyzing the 2000 Presidential Election in conjunction with the current Iranian contest. For one, the liberal/conservative voting disparities evident among people of different ages, genders, religions, social classes, and educational levels during the 2000 election are effectively analogous to the progressive/traditional voting trends observed among the Iranian electorate earlier this week. For example, just like in the 2000 presidential contest, members of the younger generation spearheaded the campaign of the more progressive candidate. The members of this more enlightened generation are in general much better educated and more urban than the more traditional generations, just like the generation of youngsters that supported the Gore-Lieberman ticket in 2000. In fact, most of Moussavi's grassroots campaigning took place in the city of Tehran. Not suprisingly, members of this age cohort express significantly more moderate religious views than do their parents. Thus, the phenomenon of newer generations as the primary agents of radical change, which has been exemplified over and over again in U.S. history, is by no means confined to the exclusive realm of Western society. Maybe we're really not so different after all.

Another similarity can be seen in the fact that just like during the 2000 election, the outcome of the Iranian contest is uncertain. We will never know for certain what would have happened if all of the ballots in the disputed Florida counties had been recounted. In a similar sense, the actual results of the Iranian election may never be disclosed to the general public. Also during both elections, allegations of widespread fraud and irregularities led hundreds of thousands to hit the streets in protest of electoral injustices. During the Bush-Gore contest, the recount was never completed since the Supreme Court voted along partisan lines to issue an injunction halting the recount procedures. In Iran, the government panel authorized by Ayatollah Khamenei to investigate the election results announced this morning that only a partial recount would be conducted. Although early statements made by the council indicate that fraud has been committed, the council dismissed the possibility of conducting a new election in light of these findings, and instead held that it would investigate specific allegations of wrongdoing at only a few of Iran's numerous disputed polling stations. The parallel here to the 2000 election is hard to miss: before the Supreme Court intervened, only Florida's Palm Beach County was seriously investigated for wrongdoing for its infamous "Butterfly Ballot," although electoral fraud and corruption were clearly rampant throughout several other counties as well. For example, although Florida's Secretary of State Katherine Harris "mistakenly" labeled tens of thousands of citizens residing in largely Democratic counties as felons, thereby purging them from the polls on election day, no investigation whatsoever was conducted into arguable the most egregious instance of disenfranchisement in the past fifty years. Therefore, both the U.S. and Iranian governments are alike insofar as they found it sufficient to conduct a mere sham of an investigation in the aftermath of highly controversial elections.

Furthermore, the saddest similarity between the two elections is the realization that in all likelihood, the outcome of the Iranian election will soon be decided not by the people of Iran, but instead by the Guardian Counsel appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei. The council is composed of twelve like-minded conservative jurists and mullahs who are required by law to certify the election results. The American media has rightfully chastised the counsel for being an unelected impervious body that is unrepresentative of the Iranian people. Indeed, the entire concept of vesting such an unreliable body with the ultimate power to determine the results of a crucial presidential election should seem both counterintuitive and comtemptible to us all. Yet upon further reflection, this situation is certainly not foreign to us. In the infamous case of Bush vs. Gore, the nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court actively decided to intervene and end the recount (in a 5-4 decision), and in turn declared George W. Bush the winner of the 2000 Presidential Election. The votes cast by more than 100 million Americans on election day ultimatly did not count in the process of determining our Nation's next president. All that mattered were the nine votes registered by the justices of the Supreme Court. Thus, in reality Al Gore lost the presidency by merely a single vote. I know that it initially seems unfathomable, but at least under certian circumstances, U.S. presidential elections are no more representative and democratic than the outrageous election that we have just witnessed in Iran.

So where does this ultimately leave us? Do these striking similarities between our own electoral system and that of Iran tell us something about our own system? I believe they certainly do. I am not arguing that we should halt our criticism of Iran until the time at which we finally overcome our own internal hypocracies and contradictions. Instead, we should continue to adamently voice our collective disagreement and disgust at the tainted results of the Iranian election, but at the same time take a critical look at our own electoral system. Apparently the excessive fraud and irregularities of the 2000 election were not quite sufficient to force us to initiate major changes in the way we go about electing our leaders. Numerous flaws are still inherent in our approach to choosing the next president. Just to name a few; campaigning starts on the day the new president takes the Oath of Office; the president's primary goal is to get reelected, and thus he is forced to pursue the most popular available policy alternatives, not necessarily the most beneficial; electoral fraud, voter intimidation, and the intentional misinforming of voters are still far too common; voting malfunctions, whether caused by old fashioned or newer electronic voting mahines, are widespread and give some citizens a higher chance of having their votes counted than others; the archaic winner-take-all system still used today in all but two states effectively disenfranchises everyone who votes for the losing candidates; voting power is disproportionately concentrated in only a few states, forcing candidates to neglect the interests of significant portions of the country; our leaders are not directly elected by voters, but rather slates of electors (who are not technically legally bound to vote in concert with the public results); and most importantly, the popular vote does not necessarily determine the ultimate winner of the election (as shown so brilliantly by the 2000 electoral debacle). But maybe, just maybe, by taking a serious look at how similar we really are to a Nation that we all despise and castigate as a member of the "Axis of Evil," we will be provided with the impetus necessary to motivate us to finally undertake this daunting task.