Iran Special Analysis: The "Invented" Election
Saturday, March 3, 2012 at 11:16
To modify Voltaire's famous statement about God, "if the 60% turnout did not exist, it would have to be invented". Beyond the battles within the establishment that will soon re-emerge --- reduced to "Supreme Leader v. Ahmadinejad", but going far beyond this amongst the conservative and principlist factions and politicians --- the immediate demand on the regime was to establish its legitimacy.
The truth is that we will never know exactly how many Iranians --- amidst economic problems, worries over corruption and mismanagement, political in-fighting, restrictions on dissent and communications, imprisonments and harassments --- decided that voting might make a difference.
What we do know is that Iranian authorities went to great lengths to set up and control the show.