Why Weren't Iran's Election Results Rigged in a Less Brazen Way?

[tekisui]

2-5% instead of 30% would have not been as strongly protested, I would think.

Did the hubris of Ahmedijad's backers lead to this reaction? Or, would close results have received the same reaction?

[WeDidIt]

1. This is just a guess...

but I suspect Ahmadinejad and Khamene'i were taken completely by surprise and panicked.

They were so pissed off by it they decided to get in Mousavi's face about it.

That's assuming, of course, that it was actually rigged.

[havocmom]

13. And 'leaders' who deny the Holocaust & existence of gay people are fools

who might just project their foolishness onto others.

[T Wolf]

2. After the "lesson" of our elections in 2000, 2004, etc., they did not see the need for subtlety. nt

[area51]

10. That was my thought too. (n/t)

[get the red out]

3. Lack of planning

They didn't take the time to send someone to the US to hire the best. It's what they get from trying to avoid outsourcing.

[endarkenment]

4. If you are going to lie, lie big.

No point in going half-way. Not when you intend to back up your lies with truncheons and bullets. A cynic such as myself would consider the theory that this in your face farce has drawn the opposition out onto the streets and into the open where they can be dealt with using the iron fist to restore 'law and order'. After Tienanmen, a generation lost all interest in challenging the regime.

[K Gardner]

5. They forgot to consult Karl Rove.

[blm]

6. Knowing you control almost all the country's media would add to the air of not 'giving a flyingfock'

Bush, Cheney and Rove proved that repeatedly.

[Captain Hilts]

7. They're new at it. Shouldn't have had the opposition losing their home districts by 70%. nt

[shadowknows69]

8. That's baffled me a bit too. Corruption breeds arrogance?

You'd think they would have learned from the masters themselves (Yeah, the Rovian Party) and made it a couple of points, but maybe they wanted to outdo our former election thief's swagger.

[CJCRANE]

9. It's a gamble either way.

Close result means more believable but easier to overturn with a few tweaks to the figures.

A "mandate" gives you more political capital.

[HamdenRice]

11. Then the govt would not be saying, "See? We can do anything we want"

Outrageously one-sided electoral results serve a purpose other than just making the candidate win; they serve the purpose of demoralizing the electorate.

There was this great blog entry I think by the once active "Rigorous Intuition" that argued that the 1960s political assassinations weren't just for the purpose of getting rid of inconvenient political leaders, but of telling the public's partly conscious/partly unconscious mind, "see? we've done it to you again."

That's the purpose of "dear leaders" winning one sided victories. 51% will suffice to exercise power; 60%, 80%, 99% results are designed to tell the public elections count/elections don't count.

It's a psy-op, basically.

[Billy Burnett]

12. Who's psy-op?

The more important question - Who benefits from an Ahmadinejad win? (Aside from Ahmadinejad.)

[tekisui]

16. That make sense.

It wasn't solely to win, but to demoralize and show the strength of the oppressor.

[Xolodno]

14. Probably some really bad thinking....

They didn't take the election seriously enough and believed the masses as stupid and ill informed as they come (after all they control the television and radio air waves...guess they forgot about that digital age occurring or something).

Probably thought if it was "close" it may have the result you see today...so make it a landslide and everyone will have to shut up....or so they thought.

Why does the "supreme leader" want this whack job in office? Well lets turn to that old and proven adage...Power corrupts, and absolute power, corrupts absolutely. The clerical like the whack job because he antagonizes the west (their principal enemy)and the west knows he's nothing more than a dog with all bark and no bite, but he still is a huge annoying factor. So what the people want be damned, the Supreme Leader really knows what they need because he's essentially their "Pope" and has divine guidance. Only now it looks like the clerical order has gotten way out of touch of the populace.

Question is, will they realize they have become what they ousted in 1979? And then reform themselves? Or...do what most do, pretend it didn't happen and use a bigger hammer.

[Douglas Carpenter]

15. Robert Fisk commented on exactly that last night on Al Jazeera

Mr. Fisk actually believes that it is plausible that Ahmadinejad could possibly have legitimately won, by a modest amount. But the hardliners were determined to completely humiliate the opposition and they definitely didn't want to take any chances. So they very foolishly went for brazen fraud that had Ahmadinejad winning by large margins even where it was absolutely implausible to the point of the ridiculous. They might have thought this would put an end or greatly curtail any talk of a popular opposition. Clearly their plan backfired.