A potentially significant turn-of-events regarding the Iranian election crisis comes thanks in part to the work of one of the world's top think tanks.
London-based Chatham House's June 21 report, "Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran's Election," revisits recent and historic Iranian voting data. As the New York Times quotes one of the 'Preliminary Analysis' authors saying about election officials:
“'I don’t think they actually counted the votes, though that’s hard to prove,' said Ali Ansari, a professor at the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and one of the authors of a study of the election results issued by Chatham House, a London-based research group."
Ansari, along with Daniel Berman and Thomas Rintoul wrote the Chatham paper. Filled with tables and graphs, a .PDF of the 19-page complete repot is available for free-of-charge download here.
The report's executive summary includes an updated response to Iran's Guardian Council, as well as the following four original bullet points:
*"In two conservative provinces, Mazrandaran and Yazd, a turnout of more than 100% was recorded.
*"If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory was primarly cuased by the increase in voter turnout, one would expect the data to show that the provinces with the greatest increase in voter turnout would also show the greatest 'swing' in support towards Ahmadinejad. That is not the case.
*"In a third of all provinces, the official results would require that Ahmadinejad took not only all former conservative voters, all former centrist voters, and all new voters, but also up to 44% of former reformist voters, despite a decade of conflict between these two groups.
*"In 2005, as in 2001 and 1997, conservative candidates, and Ahmadinejad in particular, were markedly unpopular in rural areas. That the countryside always votes conservative is a myth. The claim that this year Ahmadinejad swept the board in more rural provinces flies in the face of these trends."
Again, download the full report here.
Also, from the TTLA archives:
Chatham House was named as the top international [non-U.S.] tank by the report, "2008 The Global Go-To Think Tanks: The Leading Public Policy Research Organizations In The World."
And here was a likewise recent Iranian current events and think tank post.
Photo Credit: The image accompanying this post was taken by Flickr user Amir Farshad Ebrahimi. It was used under Creative Commons license.
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I can't help but think that even if a outside report proves the Iranian Presidential Election was fixed, the future course of events in Iran cannot and will not be decided by either the US or Europe, despite widespread claims to the contrary. The dissenting group within Iran will surely not find definite proof that the election was fixed--since the governing power will not give it up--which seems to sadly leave the conflict to develop into a triumph of the wills, rather than a search for the "truth" (whatever that means these days).
It seems like today it does not matter whether or not there were discrepancies in the voting. Think Tanks might prove it so, but its the actions of the Iranians that matter now.