Different responses towards Iranian presidential election
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On June 13, 2009, Iran's official news agency announced that the current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won Iran's tenth presidential election with about 63 percent of the votes cast. His opponent Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the independent reformist candidate, received 33 percent of the votes and issued a statement claiming there were some frauds in the ballot.
Protests erupted after the election results were announced. The protestors were mainly youths and intellectuals eager to reform the current domestic and foreign policies and improve Iranians' living standards and international environment. Therefore, Mousavi is also welcomed in the Iranian domestic political structure.
It is quite natural that there would be some quarrels and protests in a national election with multiple political parties. The ordinary voters are free to choose its favorite nominee who behaves best before or during the election. Iranian women, who usually are reluctant in the election, actively came out to exercise their voting rights this time. The wives of Ahmadinejad and Mousavi tried their best to help their respective husbands win more support.
But the protests also caused some deaths, which shocked both Iranians and the international society. No one expected that the supporters of the opposite parties were too fierce to control themselves in the clashes. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the nation to unite behind Ahmadinejad. The police and the government had to take some tough measures to maintain social stability.
On June 29, Iran's electoral board completed a partial recount of the votes and concluded that Ahmadinejad won the election. The struggles caused by the election are cooling and coming to an end, although there still will be some complaints in Iran. After all, there is no use to protest again when there is a decisive mandate from authorities.
This election fully expounds that there is tension between the so-called conservatives and reformists, the secularist and religious regimes in Iran, which have existed for a long time. Even Iranians are much perplexed about its current national political regime while they enjoy their physical and spiritual daily lives.
The election has also induced different international responses. From the beginning, the media have strongly criticized the current Iranian political regime, consistently claiming election frauds and challenging the legality of Ahmadinejad's presidency.
Governments are much more prudent about the election, although some Western governments are not satisfied with the result. They have to accept the de facto reality. But when the clashes caused deaths, especially when bloody pictures and videos appeared on the Internet, some countries, including the United States and Germany, became tougher toward the Iranian government for its impotence with its domestic security affairs.
Condemning the election has little to no effect. It was no less "democratic" than elections of Western democracies. There have been quarrels about election results in the United States and other Western countries in recent years. No authority can govern the voters to decide who is best in the campaign.
Some Western countries are much more polemical, connecting the election with Ahmadinejad's tough policy toward Iranian nuclear projects and proclaiming that it will be more difficult to resolve the nuclear issue. They are deliberately blind to the progress international society, including Iran, has made in recent years. Iranian government declared that Iran only seeks to develop nuclear projects of civilian use, which it has been conducting since the 1950s.
Western countries cannot offend Iran by applying too much pressure. Iranian domestic politics are always alert to outside interference. The Iranians will consider connections between activities of foreigners in Iran and the Iranian protests as threats to Iranian national and social security.
There is little trust between Iran and Western countries. Iran will become more indignant if international community shows enmity toward Iran. If Iran is much more obstinate during international negotiations on its nuclear program, the international community will be more disappointed with Iran's tougher stance, policy and behaviors.
The international community should remember that the stabilizing power is strong in Iran. Iran cannot be changed by outside forces, only by its citizens. Innovation is attractive to a lot of Iranians, but it can only be accepted when social stability is assured. Not just Mousavi, but Ahmadinejad, too, will initiate reforms. The only distinction between them is how and what they will reform.
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