Iran's own June 12

By Reuben Abati

THE unfolding electoral crisis in Iran reminds us of the crisis of democratization in our own context and the people's response to electoral outcomes. All of a sudden, Iranians are looking like us, some 17 years ago when Nigerians trooped out en masse to insist on respect for the people's will and sovereignty. On Friday last week, Iran had its own version of June 12 when it held its general elections. No election has been annulled, that is one critical difference, but the people's insistence that the integrity of the ballot should be respected and that the people's vote should be allowed to count are issues that Nigerians, faced with the transposition of electoral fraud into state art, can relate to. Iran is in great turmoil, witnessing in the last week alone, demonstrations and protests of a scale unseen since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The streets of Tehran have been taken over by hundreds of thousands of angry youths who insist that the Presidential election of Friday June 12 is fraudulent and the result is unacceptable. "We will die but count our votes", they said. At the end of the June 12 election, the theocratic Council of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, a body that wields more power than the elected President, awarded victory to incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadijenad, with 62. 6% of the votes, and the main opposition leader former Prime Minister Hossein Moussavi got 33.7%. The protesters are mainly supporters of Moussavi. For a week, many Iranians have been wearing the colour green, the colour of Moussavi's party, even the Iranian national team in the first half of a World Cup qualifier match against South Korea, wore the green armband. Yesterday, which was declared a day of mourning, the protesters wore black.

How come the Iranians held their own Presidential election on June 12? What concidence! I think of the practical symbolism of the date for Nigerians but I also lament how the spirit of protest, of outrage and righteous indignation appears to be dying slowly in our land. In 1993, Nigerians stood up to the military dictatorship in Nigeria and challenged the junta's attempts to annul a democratic election. What we are seeing in Iran is equally an expression of rebellion against dictatorship. Their rebellion is against the mismanagement of the economy by Ahmadijenad's government, and the over-bearing authority of the Council of Guardians which uses theocracy as a tool of fascism. Before now, the world had witnessed this kind of people power on display in Czechoslovakia (the Velvet Revolution, 1989), in Georgia (the Rose Revolution, 2003), in Ukraine (the Orange Revolution, 2004/2005) and in Brazil when the people chased out President Fernando Collor de Mello (1992). It is a subtle reminder of how democracy rests on the power of popular opinion.

But in witnessing this people-dimension of democracy, we wonder what is it that has gone wrong with Nigerians. The same Nigerians who protested against electoral fraud in 1965 in Western Nigeria, who also rebelled in Ondo State in 1983 when the National Party of Nigeria attempted to steal the people's mandate; the same Nigerians who in 1993 -up till 1998- threw eveything that they could summon into anti-military protests, have suddenly become apathetic. Worse electoral fraud has been committed in Nigeria since 1999. But after every election, Nigerians crack jokes out of the theft of the people's votes, and move on with their lives. As soon as the protests in Iran began, someone sent me a text titled BREAKING NEWS with the following content: "Just to let you know that Professor Maurice Iwu returned from Tehran at the weekend after offering the Iranians Nigeria's technical assistance on how to conduct elections".

I had once argued that democracy for Nigerians has become a kind of blackmail. The politicians and their agents manipulate the votes and declare the results that they want, but the people allow it to pass, because they do not want to create more tension in their lives. Elections that have been held since 2007, after the various rulings by the electoral tribunals have been just as problematic but there are no large numbers of Nigerians taking to the streets to voice their opinions. In the recent re-run Gubernatorial elections in Ekiti, there was a semblance of protest, and a few electoral observers got their heads battered, but protests these days are synthetic. Half of the protesters are rented; they defend democracy for a fee. When will Nigerians rediscover the urge to defend their own future? Rediscovering our capacity to be shocked and outraged is crucial to the task of electoral reform.

It is not always that protests lead to a fulfilment of the people's expectations, In Iran, it won't. Not now. But a momentum is afoot which may eventually in the future lead to the displacement of the fascistic Islamic regime. Protests make loud statements and put the dictator on notice. Ahmadinejad may have a Ph.D in engineering, and he may have mastered the rhetoric of provocation, but he is a stooge of the clerics. By last year, long before the election, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's Supreme leader, had predicted that Ahmadinejad will be in power for another five years. But the sub-text of the on-going protest is that the people are saying they no longer want that kind of democracy that is vetoed by the mullahs. The Council of Guardians has ordered a recount of the votes in some of the constituencies, today, Khamenei will address the people at Friday worship. There is no likelihood that the elections will be cancelled, or that Moussavi's share of the votes will increase. But the underbelly of the power class in Iran has been exposed.

Moussavi's supporters are mostly young people and women. Young Iranians want a different country in which they can have a voice. Iranian women want greater freedoms, but these freedoms are denied by the Council of Guardians and Ahmadinejad under whom even little freedoms hitherto enjoyed by Iranian women have been withdrawn. For 30 years the mullahs have dictated the pace in Iran, what is happening is a showdown between the conservatives and the reformists. And yet no one has burnt down houses, the protesters are not wielding machetes, and there has been no indication that the protesters are on the pay-roll of a political party.

Dictators everywhere behave the same way. General Abacha threw people into jail. He burned down newspaper houses. He gagged the media. Ahmadinejad's government is clamping down on the people. The basiji- the band of thugs who try to enforce the will of the state- target people's faces and testicles. Eight demonstrators have died in the last week. Opposition figures have been clamped into detention. International journalists have been advised to leave the country and internet sites have been blocked. But still in the age of information technology, the Iranian crisis still gets out to the world. It is on Twitter. It is on Facebook. It is on CNN. Technology has changed the face of governance and human relations forever. It is amazing to see how in Iran, the revolutionaries of 1979, the successors of the Ayatollah, are losing grip, just because they didn't allow a transparent electoral system. The clerics selected the five candidates that took part in the June 12 Presidential election out of a total of 140 candidates. What criteria did they use? They didn't have to explain. The grandchildren of the revolution want a different template of power and control. In the last week, they have managed to convey their discontent.

In the end, there will be no regime change, the incumbent President won most of the votes in rural Iran, and he is still very popular among the people, but it is clear that there are fissures in that society. The legitimacy of the present governance arrangements has been effectively called to question. There is a message here for all forces that hold on to power at all costs: sooner or later, there will be a time and ocassion for accounting.

The West, which has never liked Ahmadinejad is triumphant. Newspapers in Europe are celebrating the supposed wind of change that is sweeping across Iran. Well, not quite. There is a touch of mischief in Western responses to the Iranian situation. Ahmadinejad is not a friend of the West. His anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist statements including a declaration once that Israel should be wiped off the page of time has made him a persona non grata. His insistence on Iran's uranium enrichment programme has brought him into conflict with the United States, Israel and the United Nations. Israelis say he is a modern-day Amalekite. Moussavi's name sounds Jewish and there are Jews in Iran, but regime change may not resolve the question of Iran. The mullahs are not about to disappear. And Ahmadijenad's dismissal of all this as "passions after a soccer match" may be informed by the ineffectuality of earlier protests in 1999, 2003, 2006, and 2008.

The United States has been cautious not to be seen to be supporting the opposition, for were it do so, that would immediately unify the proud Iranian nation. Moussavi is promising a detente in diplomatic relations, greater freedom for women - he holds hands with his wife in public (!). His wife has also called for an end to misogyny. But like many Iranians, his views about Israel and the future of Palestine as well as Iran's nuclear weapons programme, are typical. President Obama is right: there isn't much difference between Ahmadinejad and Moussavi. If change must come to Iran, it will come from the people themselves not through the promptings of the Western media imposing its own notions of democratic governance. The worst case scenario is a drawn out civil conflict in Iran between supporters of the status quo and those who want change. But can the world afford such implosion in the Middle East? Can the world afford to have Iran go the way of Iraq? The West and the United States must make no bones about it: If Iran has become an axis of evil, they helped in building its foundations with their duplicitous politics of expediency, dating back to the 1950s.

Robot  # 1 | 19.06.2009 08:04

Iran's own June 12 By Reuben Abati ://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45944000/THE unfolding electoral crisis in Iran reminds us of the crisis of democratization in our own context and the people's response to electoral outcomes. All of a sudden, Iranians are looking like us, some 17 years ago when Nigerians trooped out en masse to insist on respect for the people's will and sovereignty. On Friday last week, Iran had its own version of June 12 when it held its general elections. No election has been annulled, that is one critical difference, but the people's insistence that the integrity of the ballot should be respected and that the people's vote should be allowed to count are issues that Nigerians, faced with the transposition of electoral fraud into state art, can relate ...Read the full article.

LoveNigeria  # 2 | 19.06.2009 10:39

Just as in Ekiti, the demonstration may fizzle out but a seed has been sown. We wait and see what kind of fruit will come out of it in the years ahead -interesting times we're living in.

saemoenl  # 3 | 19.06.2009 11:22

Very interesting article, In fact, I was in a dream early this month when the same concern happening in Iran took place in Nigeria against the 2011 election. Similarly, what exactly happened in Iran was caused by the same election ringing and Nigerians stood up to defend the masses vote. Many politicians were killed including Policemen. In that dream, it was very aggressive, destruction of property and lives until the masses choose their leader. I want to use this means to inform Mr. president that Nigerians are ready to protect their democracy come 2011 by any means, so He may apply any means to have himself in power but I want to reassure him that it will not be as easy as he thinks as their will be no hiding place for him and his followers come 2011. God bless us.

kalu31  # 4 | 19.06.2009 11:26

I dont know who won the elections in Iran, i dont know if it was rigged, but one has to be impressed with the courage and organisation shown by the women and the youth of Iran to get their votes counted with hardline militia breaking their skulls, a freeze on broadband communications, facebook, U Tube and SMS text, a ban on unauthorized public gathering, these fellas have not given up. it is intresting to see Iranians in jeans, Iranians tech savvy, Iranians daring the suicidial revolutionary guards.... the mullahs should be careful, this is no longer a request for votes to be counted, its now a movement for change, just as a revolution brought in the Ayathollas, a revolution will take them out. let me predict, there will be a violent confrontation and the next action taken by the "green" forces will determine the future of Iran. should the batons break their resolve, then all this would have been a Nigerian home video, full of suspense but lacking in delivery. but shoud they resist in a non violent manner then its curtains for the Mullahs. at this time, Obama and America need to seize the moment, i do not mean they send in the 101 Airborne, but they can use their satellites to reopen facebook, sms and u tube all banned by the mullahs, they should drop video cameras, transistor radios and broadband laptops, if the world see what is happening then, the "greens" will win, if the world looks away and hopes for change, then change will die at dawn.

pappilo  # 5 | 19.06.2009 13:03

You are just comparing the situation in Iran to June 12 for the sake of it. They are completely different situtaions. What we have in Iran is akin to supporters of the Labour Party taking to the streets because the Conservatives are declared winners of an election. I wonder why the Iranian Electoral Commision (dont know what it is called) which has mangaed to stay inpartial for all these years suddenly decides to favour one candiadte over the other and give a margin of victory of 11 million. The whole system will have to be completely corrupt (like in Nigeria) for that to happen and if that is the case, where was the west during the previous elections? The obvious differences are; June 12: Results were never officially published, Iran: Election results were published and the winner was Ahmedinajad. June 12: Courts stopped elections from going ahead, Iran: No such thing happened. June 12: No credible polls before election, Iran: Polls showed Ahmedinajad leading 2 to 1 in most areas of the country apart from North Tehran and other areas where the rich live. Iran is the only democracy in the middle east and it is obvious that the current situation was incited by the west and in particular the western media. There are legal ways to seek redress for electoral grieveances. I wonder why we didnt witness such scenes as is taking place in iran in America when the democrats were robbed. The west dont care about the other 2 dozen countries in the area which are absolute monarchies or dictatorships but are for some strange reason interested in what goes on in democratic Iran. why? because Ahmedinijad is one of the handful of leaders in the world that can stand up to the west. The Ayatollah has spoken today and those who have ears should listen. Any griveances should be addressed in the appropriate manner.

Zanubia Wolf  # 6 | 19.06.2009 19:15

Papilo Thank you for That!!

I Love Nigeria  # 7 | 19.06.2009 20:54

I like the choice of word here (expediency) that is what drives foreign policies of the West aka America and Europe. I used the same exact word, expediency, earlier, in my blog, in which I wondered aloud, why no one in America and Europe seem concerned about democracy in Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Kuwait, Egypt etc. Why for instance, is it, that Mr. Mousavi, the new hero for democracy in Iran, is not seen for who he really is? A part of the antiquity and theocratic regime in Iran? Who said Mousavi is a reformer or democrat? There is a campaign in America and Europe against Iran, and it has Nuclear ambition written all over it! It is quite hypocritical to seek to influence the outcome of Iranian election, not for the best interest of Iranians, but the outsiders who are playing their hands in Iranian affairs. If it is not OK, for Lebanese or Iranians to seek to influence the outcome of American elections, why should Americans seek to manipulate elections in Iran or Lebanon and any where else for that matter? AND, why are we comparing Nigeria to Iran anyway? Nigeria has her challenges, but, Nigeria is surely not Iran, in many positive ways. Oh, I hate the fact that Nigeria is not advanced in nuclear pursuit as Iran is...that is what gets American and European attention.

Araba  # 8 | 21.06.2009 07:50

No matter the opinions expressed on the elections, it is clear why the west will continue to advance on most indices (of measurement). At least the U.S produced Obama whose pedigree is represented by maybe (a guess) 20% of the American population. The Mullahs need to follow the teaching that says remove the mote in your eye before you can remove the beam in someone else's. The Iranian election was not free and fair and I guess Abati was just welcoming Iranians to the Age of Darkness Nigeria had to go through.