Presidential election in Iran 2009

Declared election winner Mahmud Ahmadinejad on June 16, 2009 in Russia

The Iranian presidential election in 2009 took place on June 12, 2009. 46.2 million Iranians aged 18 and over were eligible to vote. The Iranian electoral authority announced incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner late in the afternoon of the following day . As a result, he received 62.6 percent of the vote, while his strongest adversary, Mir Hossein Mousavi , won 33.8 percent of the vote.

Mousavi expressed suspicion of election fraud and therefore rejects the election result. Protests against the official election result led to riots and street battles between the opposition and the police. The EU Council Presidency and the US are calling for an examination of the manipulation allegations and expressed concern about the violence following the publication of the results. Due to the ongoing protests, the Guardian Council ordered some of the votes to be recounted. This concerns the ballot papers from the approx. 50,000 ballot boxes that are "the subject of objections". On June 20, the Guardian Council announced that ten percent of the votes would be counted at random in the presence of representatives of the three defeated candidates. The highest legislative body of the Islamic Republic received a total of 646 objections from the three candidates who, according to the official result, had lost. The 12-member committee has excluded new elections. On June 22nd, the spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, stated that there had been no record of any major irregularities in the election and that, in the opinion of the panel, there was no way to cancel the election. On June 29, the Guardian Council officially declared Mahmoud Ahmadineschad the winner of the election after having previously counted almost ten percent of the votes cast.

International election observers were not allowed in Iran.

prehistory

For a long time, the former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami was a promising candidate from the reformist camp. On March 16, 2009, however, he surprisingly announced that he would withdraw his candidacy and instead support the moderate candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi . According to a survey from March 2009, Khatami was with 51.7% far ahead of the incumbent President Mahmud Ahmadinejad with 15.1%. He himself justified his decision not to want to divide the electorate critical of the government. The two largest reform organizations, the Participation Front of Islamic Iran and the Organization of the Mujahideen of the Islamic Revolution , then also expressed their support for Mousavi.

A total of 475 people registered as applicants for the presidency, including 42 women. The Guardian Council , a spiritual supervisory body controlled by the head of state and revolutionary leader Seyyed Ali Chamene'i, checked all candidates for their reliability, suitability and integrity as well as for their conformity, as prescribed in elections in Iran, in accordance with Article 115 of the Iranian constitution with the aims of the Islamic Republic of Iran. No admitted candidate was allowed to agree to a separation of state and religion. On May 20, 2009, the Guardian Council officially admitted four candidates for election.

Three weeks before the election, the Iranian authorities banned access to the online network Facebook , which mainly Mir Hossein Mousavi's supporters had used to spread his views, for three days . Ahmadinejad's supporters also tried to reach voters via the Internet and special blogs , but with rather moderate success.

Election campaign

The Islamization of society, the dress code requirement for women, significant cuts in the freedom of the press and freedom of expression, as well as diplomatic confrontations in the nuclear dispute , an ongoing confrontation with Israel, the USA under George W. Bush and Europe ( Holocaust denial ) became programmatic positions in the election campaign of the presidential candidate Mahmud Ahmadinejad or the subsequent government. Inflation, the growing divergence of rich and poor classes, and isolation from foreign policy became the main areas of discussion in the 2009 presidential elections, which, after Mohammad Chātami's withdrawal, essentially resulted in a confrontation between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hussein Mousavi. For the first time, the presidential candidates faced each other in a television duel and President Ahmadinejad was sharply attacked by the “Center for Strategic Research”, which is subordinate to the Arbitration Council. The opposition in particular used modern media such as the Internet, SMS and telephone to mobilize their supporters, and for the first time the wives of the candidates, Zahra Rahnaward as the wife of the candidate Mousavis and Fatemeh Karrubi, appeared in front of the public and talked about topics related to women. After Ahmadinejad's election victory, allegations of the state coup and election fraud led to unrest across the country.

Admitted candidates

The incumbent, Mahmud Ahmadineschad , portrayed himself in the election campaign as a Persian nationalist with a strong Islamic program. The moderate conservative Mohsen Rezai , the former leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard , strongly criticized Ahmadineschad in the run-up to the election and described his policy as "a direct path." into the abyss ”. He promised to change the “miserable economic policy” and to correct the “wrong behavior in international relations”.

The clergyman Mehdi Karroubi was counted among the reformers. He advocated equal rights for the Baha'i and, if he won the election, wanted to appoint women to his cabinet. Every Iranian should also receive a guaranteed annuity of around 50 euros per month. Whether the architect and painter Mir Hussein Mousavi could also be counted among the reformers was controversial. The last prime minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran counted himself “both among the reformers and among the conservatives” before the election and also criticized Ahmadinejad's economic policy. According to his own statement, he relied on the “barefoot and have-nots”, for whom the “values of the Islamic revolution are of far greater importance than daily bread”. During election campaign appearances, Mousavi was often accompanied by his wife Zahra Rahnaward , who by his side demanded the dissolution of the Islamic moral police and the end of discrimination against women in Iran.

Shortly before the election, only Ahmadinejad and Mousavi were given realistic chances of victory. If no candidate had achieved an absolute majority in the first ballot, the first two would have run for a runoff election, which, according to the constitution, would have taken place on June 19, 2009.

Official election result

Observers like the German-Persian journalist Bahman Nirumand assessed the outcome of the election as “completely open” at the beginning of June 2009. Most of the Western media described the clear result as "surprising". According to the Interior Minister and election officer Sadeq Mahsuli , the turnout was 85 percent; it achieved a new record in Iranian presidential elections.

Candidates	be right	%
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad	24,592,793	63.1%
Me Hossein Mousavi	13,338,121	34.2%
Mohsen Rezai	681.851	1.75%
Mehdi Karroubi	338.278	0.87%
invalid votes	420.171
total	39.371.214	100%
Source: princeton.edu

Results in the individual provinces

According to the Iranian authorities, President Ahmadinejad was victorious in almost all provinces. Only in West Azerbaijan and Sistan and Balochistan did more people vote for Mousavi than for Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad achieved his best results in Kerman and Semnan , each with over 77% of the vote. There was less approval in the areas with Azerbaijani , Kurdish and Baloch populations in the northern, western and southeastern peripheral areas of the country and in the capital Tehran. Observers consider the results in the provinces of Ardabil , East Azerbaijan and Lorestan to be indications of election fraud. In the province of Ardabil, Ahmadinejad won only 7% of the votes in the 2005 presidential elections, but in 2009, according to official figures, well over 50%. Similarly in Mousavi's home province of East Azerbaijan: In 2005 Ahmadinejad received 10% of the vote here, in 2009 over 56%. In Lorestan in 2009, Ahmadinejad allegedly received almost 71% of the vote. In 2005 he had to accept a defeat here with 9%, while candidate Mehdi Karroubi triumphed in his home province with 55% of the vote. According to official information, this fell to 5% of the vote in 2009.

Results of the election of the Iranians abroad

According to official figures, a large majority of Iranians living in Germany voted for the opposition candidate Mousavi. According to the Iranian embassy in Berlin , incumbent Ahmadinejad received 1,246 of a total of 9,609 votes, or 13%, among the Iranians abroad who cast their votes in Germany, while the challenger Mousavi received 7,817 votes, or 81.4%. Worldwide, 234,812 Iranians abroad cast their votes, of which 78,300 voted for Ahmadinejad, 111,792 for Mousavi, 4,647 for Karroubi and 3,635 for Rezai.

Reactions in Iran

The spiritual leader of Iran, Seyyed Ali Chamene'i, congratulated Ahmadinejad on his victory on Iranian television on June 13th: “The fact that 24 million Iranians have voted for him is an occasion for celebration and an affirmation for the republic. [...] The election result is proof that the people are resisting the psychological war of the enemy and that they are remaining independent. ”He thanked the Ministry of the Interior, the police and everyone who had contributed to the outcome of the election.

Alleged election fraud

A protester with the poster "Choice is not choice"

Even before the election, the chairman of the Council of Experts Ayatollah Akbar Hāschemi Rafsanjāni warned in a letter to revolutionary leader Seyyed Ali Khamene'i of election fraud and let him know: “Tomorrow it may hit you.” There are also documents circulating from “anonymous circles” of the Interior Ministry on a possible one Election fraud in which Mousavi was the clear winner.

On June 12, shortly after 11 p.m., when the last polling stations were still open, the state news agency IRNA announced the “landslide” victory of Ahmadinejad. Three hours later, the Ministry of the Interior announced that 20 million votes had already been counted and that Ahmadinejad was way ahead with 69 percent. Bahman Nirumand doubts that a vote was counted at 11 p.m. on election night, and that 30 million votes could already be counted 5 hours after the polls closed.

Ahmadinejad's challenger Mir Hussein Mousavi , but also Iranian journalists, expressed suspicion of election manipulation after the preliminary results were announced. He spoke of a "farce" to which he would not bow. He also criticized the officials, whose behavior endangers “the pillars of the Islamic Republic” and incites tyranny.

As an indication of possible influence by the Ministry of the Interior, it was assessed that the sending of SMS short messages was prevented on election day. Al Jazeera reported that Ahmadinejad had officially received 57% of the vote in Tabriz , Mousavi's hometown. The broadcaster called this result "extremely unlikely". Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Institute for International Peace compared this defeat against CNN to an election defeat for Barack Obama against John McCain among African Americans. The fact that Mehdi Karroubi is said to have been chosen as a lure in his home province only by 20,000 lurs seems to Navid Kermani "unreal". “The allegation does not concern manipulation in individual polling stations. The point is that in the Ministry of the Interior, where the results came together, the numbers should have been arbitrarily exchanged. "

The opposition calculates that, according to the electoral authorities, Ahmadinejad won around 7 million more votes than in his historic victory in 2005. Mohammed Ali Abtahi , the campaign manager of Mehdi Karroubi, described the election on June 13 as a “huge fraud” and wrote in his blog, the number of votes cast for Karroubi is lower than the number of his registered election workers. Mohsen Rezai describes the accusation of election manipulation in concrete terms on his website using two excerpts from state television . The first picture, taken on Saturday, June 13 at 9:47 a.m., attributed 633,048 votes to him, the second picture, taken on the same day at 1:53 p.m., recorded 587,913 votes for Rezai. Mir Hossein Mousavi presented a report on the fraud cases for election, questioning that the ballot boxes were empty before the start of the election and that the ballot papers were without serial numbers, which has never been seen in Iran. According to the FAZ , 63 million ballot papers were printed for 40 million voters.

The Minister of State in the Foreign Office , Gernot Erler , explained on Deutschlandfunk that “the final result was actually much too early to be announced than could not have been counted. When adding up the votes, there was once 108 percent and once 94 percent. "

None of the Iranian Grand Ayatollahs congratulated Ahmadinejad on his election victory. Four of them ( Hossein Ali Montazeri , Naser Makarem Shirazi , Mousa Shubairi Zanjani , Mousavi Ardebili ) publicly complained about electoral fraud. The oldest and conservative Grand Ayatollah Lotfollah Safi Golpaygani, in turn, criticized both sides in the election dispute. He stated that the Guardian Council must be impartial in its decisions and not favor a candidate, and that the opposition must not adamantly insist on their rights.

In the eagerly awaited Friday sermon on June 19, Khamene'i commented on the presidential election. He declared the election legal, stating that the Islamic Republic "would never betray or manipulate the people's voices". The legal structures and electoral laws in Iran would not allow electoral fraud. At the same time, he called on all parties to end the violence and admitted that he was closer to the views of the election winner Ahmadinejad than those of the other candidates.

The renowned British think tank Chatham House carried out a noteworthy analysis which attempts to show the implausibility of the election results. However, there is also a study that defends Ahmadinejad against allegations of election fraud. Two surveys by American polling institutes ( World Public Opinion and Tomorrow Free Terror ), which carried out a telephone survey using the state-owned Iranian telephone company, obtain similar figures that are close to the official results.

Protests against the election

Mass demonstration by Mousavi supporters in Tehran

Massive police presence during protests against the election result

As a result of suspicion of electoral fraud and Mousavi's refusal to recognize the election result, his supporters took to the streets in many Iranian cities. Street battles between demonstrators and the police broke out in Tehran just one day after the election . The protests turned into the largest unrest in Iran since the Islamic Revolution . On June 15, up to three million Iranians took part in demonstrations and protests. The security forces sometimes used gun violence. Several people were killed.

In the following days there were repeated demonstrations and clashes with the security forces. The government emphasized the legitimacy of the election result, and the Guardian Council allowed a recount of 10% of the votes cast. Mousavi rejected this proposal and continued to call for new elections. The government responded by banning the protests and promising crackdown on anyone who should oppose the ban. According to government reports, at least 10 people were killed in renewed clashes between Mousavi supporters and the police. This number was revised up to 30 over the next few weeks; the opposition, however, speaks of 69 named victims. Many opposition activists were imprisoned.

Arrests

Opposition officials reported that more than 100 arrests were made following the official announcement of the election results. Affected were Mohammad Reza Chatami , a brother of the former President Mohammad Chātami , Mohsen Mirdamadi , General Secretary of the Participation Front of Islamic Iran . In addition to the former cabinet members Mohammad Chātamis: Vice Interior Minister Mostapha Tadschadeh , Vice Foreign Minister Mohsen Aminsadeh , Vice President Mohammed Ali Abtahi , Government Spokesman Abdolah Ramezanzadeh and Advisor Said Hajjarian , employees of Mousavi were also affected, so Behzad Nabavi (former Miners of Mines and Mining Ministers) Advisors to Mohammad-Reza Jalaipour and Saeed Laylaz .

Further arrests concerned Ebrahim Yazdi , first foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Nuremberg Human Rights Prize winner Abdolfattah Soltani . A total of around 500 opposition members, journalists and intellectuals had been arrested by June 17. More recent figures from June 25th assume that more than 600 have been arrested, the opposition speaks of several thousand.

Some political observers and journalists compared the process to a coup .

Ashura wave of arrests

Another massive wave of arrests took place on December 28, 2009 after protests at the Shiite Ashura festival.

International reactions

green: countries that recognize the election

While most western states expressed reservations about the legitimacy of the election, Hezbollah , Syria , Afghanistan and the Secretary of the Arab League congratulated the next day. It was followed by Venezuela , Turkey , Russia , North Korea , China , Brazil and the United Arab Emirates . On June 24th, Algeria , Libya , Senegal and Sudan congratulated .

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she wanted to investigate allegations of electoral fraud, which is why the US does not recognize an election victory for Ahmadinejad for the time being. The EU Council Presidency commented on the election result with skepticism: "The presidency is concerned about alleged irregularities during the electoral process and (...) the violence that broke out immediately after the official election results were announced." After the announcement of Ahmadinejad's victory, Israel again pointed to the danger a nuclear threat from Iran. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that "after the re-election of President Ahmadinejad, the international community must act" without concessions "against the Iranian nuclear program and the support of" terrorist organizations "by Tehran."

literature

Stephan Grigat et al. (Ed.): Iran in the world system - alliances of the regime and perspectives of the freedom movement , Vienna 2010 ISBN 978-3-7065-4939-4
From the Osten Sacken et al. (Ed.): Freedom betrayed - The uprising in Iran and the response of the West , Verbrecher Verlag, Berlin 2010 ISBN 978-3-940426-51-2

Web links

Commons : Iranian Presidential Election 2009 - Pictures, Videos and Audio Files Collection

Wikinews: After the presidential election in Iran: protests escalate - news

Dossier: Presidential election in Iran ( Memento from June 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
Controversial election result in Iran: Why the Ayatollahs are silent about Bahman Nirumand
Christiane Hoffmann: The Revolution of the Revolutionary Children FAZ from June 22, 2009
Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election Chatham House and the Institute of Iranian Studies, University of St Andrews, June 21, 2009 (PDF file; 369 kB)
After the presidential election - unrest in Iran on the information portal for political education

Individual evidence

^ Election fraud allegations and protests after Ahmadinejad's landslide victory, Focus Online, June 13, 2009

↑ US troubled over Iran election

↑ ^a ^b Ulrich Pick: Ahmadinejad clear election winner ( Memento from June 16, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) www.tagesschau.de from June 13, 2009.

↑ Iran's Guardian Council wants to recount ten percent of the votes, Reuters of June 20, 2009

↑ Tens of thousands marching in silence in Tehran Tagesspiegel of June 18, 2009

↑ Guardian Council rules out vote nullification Press-TV of June 22, 2009

↑ Guardian Council confirms Ahmadinejad's election victory ( Memento from July 3, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Die Zeit online from June 30, 2009

↑ ^a ^b ^c Iran Report 04/2009 of the Heinrich Böll Foundation ( Memento from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 106 kB)

↑ Presidential election: Power struggle in Iran: Chatami backs down , Die ZEIT online, March 16, 2009

^ "Ahmadinejad's path leads straight into the abyss" , Tagesspiegel, May 10, 2009

↑ Four candidates admitted to the Iranian presidential election ( memento from January 24, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), AFP, May 20, 2009

↑ Ahmadinejad's competitors confirmed ( Memento of May 24, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 20, 2009

↑ Iranian presidential candidates confirmed. reuters.com, May 20, 2009, accessed April 23, 2013 .

↑ Iran bans Internet forum Facebook ( Memento from June 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 25, 2009

↑ Iran 'restores access' to Facebook AFP, May 26, 2009

↑ Video auslandsjournal xxl (June 10, 2009, around the 28th minute) in the ZDFmediathek , accessed on February 6, 2014. (offline)

↑ Iran Report No. 07/2009. (PDF; 106 kB) boell.de, archived from the original on January 31, 2012 ; Retrieved April 23, 2013 .

^ "Ahmadinejad's path leads into the abyss" Süddeutsche Zeitung, May 11, 2009

↑ The only real reformer ( Memento from April 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) www.tagesschau.de, June 10, 2009

^ ^A ^b Nasrin Alavi: A dangerous farce Federal Agency for Civic Education, June 16, 2009

↑ ^a ^b "I want to be able to walk hand in hand with my girlfriend" Spiegel Online, June 6, 2009

↑ Chatami ready to give up his candidacy ( Memento from March 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Süddeutsche Zeitung, March 17, 2009

↑ Ahmadinejad wins presidential election Der Tagesspiegel, June 13, 2009

↑ Big crowd at the election in Iran ( Memento from June 14, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) www.sueddeutsche.de, June 11, 2009

↑ Bahman Nirumand: Iran before the "Change"? , in: Blätter for German and international politics, 6/2009, pp. 5–8

↑ Ahmadinejad wins surprisingly clearly DRS, June 13, 2009

↑ Iran continues to threaten the rest of the world Welt Online, June 14, 2009

↑ princeton.edu ( Memento of March 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive )

↑ The Guardian : The contested results

↑ The final results of the 10th presidential elections of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Germany ( Memento from June 23, 2009 in the Internet Archive )

↑ Detailed list of votes cast abroad in Iran election ( Memento from June 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) PressTV from June 15, 2009

↑ Protest against Ahmadineschad: "Lug und Trug" FAZ of June 14, 2009

↑ Ulrich Ladurner: Is there a threat of civil war now? Die ZEIT online from June 18, 2009

^ Unofficial documents are supposed to prove Mousavi's victory - The time of June 15, 2009

↑ Iran Report 07/2009 ( Memento from January 31, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 106 kB) Heinrich Böll Foundation

↑ Loser Mousavi accuses rulers of electoral fraud in front of Spiegel online, June 13, 2009

^ Ahmadinejad wins Iran presidential election BBC, June 13, 2009

↑ Ahmadinejad 'wins second Iran term' June 13, 2009

↑ What the Iranian election rigged? CNN dated June 15, 2009

↑ Navid Kermani: How the election could have been faked. ( Memento from June 19, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Süddeutsche.de from June 16, 2009

↑ Iran's War of Numbers Spiegel online from June 16, 2009

↑ It was a huge swindling weblog by Mohammed Ali Abtahi

↑ عكس: گم شدن تدريجي آراء محسن رضايي در شبكه خبر. Archived from the original on July 7, 2009 ; Retrieved August 30, 2013 .

^ Mousavi submits report to focus.de on June 23, 2009

↑ Unknown codes and rented birth certificates faz.net from June 22, 2009

^ Iran's opposition members fear for their lives Die ZEIT online from June 16, 2009

↑ Doubting clergy ( memento from June 27, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Süddeutsche.de from June 23, 2009

↑ google.com/hostednews/afp ( Memento from September 7, 2012 in the web archive archive.today ) AFP from June 19, 2009

↑ Khamenei disappoints the opposition taz.de of June 19, 2009

↑ Khamenei supports Ahmadinejad Die ZEIT online from June 19, 2009

↑ Khamenei supports Ahmadineschad FAZ of June 19, 2009

↑ Preliminary Analysis of Voting Figures in Iran's 2009 Presidential Election ( Memento of October 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 378 kB)

↑ Did Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Steal the 2009 Iran Election? ( Memento of the original from May 7, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 7, 2016. @1@ 2