IRANIAN ELECTIONS TODAY: Iranian shows up wearing "God Bless America" T- Shirt

Live blog on Iranian Parliamentary elections:

www.pbs.org...

1 p.m. - Ayatollah Khamenei and others turn up to vote, including this young man sporting a "God Bless America" T-shirt, taken today by Mehr News Agency.

The semiofficial news agency is also reporting that former President Mohammad Khatami, who called for a boycott of elections unless they were "fair and free," also cast his vote today in a village called Vadan, which is in Gilavand close to Damavand, north of Tehran.

However, the Mehr News Agency has since pulled down the article stating that former President Mohammad Khatami voted. What's up with that?

In the meanwhile, Iran has allowed foreign journalists into the country to cover the elections....well, kind of.

Iran is busing journalists to election sites only and according to Twitter, has now sent them all back to their hotel rooms and told them to stay put!

RT @jrezaian: Visiting foreign journalists covering #iranelection in Tehran have all been sent back to their hotels & told to stay put #Iran

twitter.com...#!/search/%23iranelection

In the meanwhile, Fars News Agency has it's top three pages of headlines showing what a huge turnout there is.

english.farsnews.com...

While, others twitter that polling sites are dead.

Josh Shahryar ‏ @JShahryar Reply Retweet Favorite · Open #Iran: "A lot of polling stations in Mashhad [second largest city] are simply empty." -friend on FB | #IranElection

What?

Josh Shahryar ‏ @JShahryar Reply Retweet Favorite · Open #IranElection: The election commission has asked election workers to let people vote, even without ID cards: (link tracking not allowed)/wrmJRS

The Tweet below sounds typical of Iranian propaganda...

Josh Shahryar ‏ @JShahryar Reply Retweet Favorite · Open "Miracles of the Islamic Republic: 85% of the people, siting at home, watching 70% of the people go out and vote." -from FB |

Here's what other Iranians are saying about the election:

Technician | 50

"You know what they [candidates] do. They are buying votes but to make it legal they put the money between Qur'an pages and offer it to people at their [campaign] meets. [In Iranian tradition, money is placed inside the Qur'an and offered as blessed gifts, or tabarok.] Twenty thousand rials may not seem that much but it goes a long way when you have three kids and one on the way."

Other reports are showing that some are voting just so they can keep on working, as their ID's show their voting records on them and are afraid of not being able to do business if they don't show that they voted.

Plus, Khamenei came out a couple of days ago and issued a "Fatwa" stating that all must vote.

So, who will turn up and who will sit out?

The live blog and twitter will give us a pretty good idea!

Originally posted by Deetermined
Live blog on Iranian Parliamentary elections:

www.pbs.org...

1 p.m. - Ayatollah Khamenei and others turn up to vote, including this young man sporting a "God Bless America" T-shirt, taken today by Mehr News Agency.

The semiofficial news agency is also reporting that former President Mohammad Khatami, who called for a boycott of elections unless they were "fair and free," also cast his vote today in a village called Vadan, which is in Gilavand close to Damavand, north of Tehran.

However, the Mehr News Agency has since pulled down the article stating that former President Mohammad Khatami voted. What's up with that?

In the meanwhile, Iran has allowed foreign journalists into the country to cover the elections....well, kind of.

Iran is busing journalists to election sites only and according to Twitter, has now sent them all back to their hotel rooms and told them to stay put!

RT @jrezaian: Visiting foreign journalists covering #iranelection in Tehran have all been sent back to their hotels & told to stay put #Iran

twitter.com...#!/search/%23iranelection

In the meanwhile, Fars News Agency has it's top three pages of headlines showing what a huge turnout there is.

english.farsnews.com...

While, others twitter that polling sites are dead.

Josh Shahryar ‏ @JShahryar Reply Retweet Favorite · Open #Iran: "A lot of polling stations in Mashhad [second largest city] are simply empty." -friend on FB | #IranElection

What?

Josh Shahryar ‏ @JShahryar Reply Retweet Favorite · Open #IranElection: The election commission has asked election workers to let people vote, even without ID cards: (link tracking not allowed)/wrmJRS

The Tweet below sounds typical of Iranian propaganda...

Josh Shahryar ‏ @JShahryar Reply Retweet Favorite · Open "Miracles of the Islamic Republic: 85% of the people, siting at home, watching 70% of the people go out and vote." -from FB |

Here's what other Iranians are saying about the election:

Technician | 50

"You know what they [candidates] do. They are buying votes but to make it legal they put the money between Qur'an pages and offer it to people at their [campaign] meets. [In Iranian tradition, money is placed inside the Qur'an and offered as blessed gifts, or tabarok.] Twenty thousand rials may not seem that much but it goes a long way when you have three kids and one on the way."

Other reports are showing that some are voting just so they can keep on working, as their ID's show their voting records on them and are afraid of not being able to do business if they don't show that they voted.

Plus, Khamenei came out a couple of days ago and issued a "Fatwa" stating that all must vote.

So, who will turn up and who will sit out?

The live blog and twitter will give us a pretty good idea!

yeah . I was wearing it.

Haven't you seen the B-Shirt yet ?



illusion

reply to post by Deetermined

Josh Shahryar ‏ @JShahryar Reply Retweet Favorite · Open "Miracles of the Islamic Republic: 85% of the people, siting at home, watching 70% of the people go out and vote." -from FB |

I can imagine, that while those 85% were sitting at home...they were watching the 70% of the voters that did turn out to vote climb out of their graves and shamble over to put their X on the dotted line.

Oldest trick in the book, outdated trick at that but it still works in countries who do not give crap about using computers when they go to rig an election.

I imagine here in the U.S. we will see some people that have been dead 20 years or more turn out at the polls, people still try to get away with that.

reply to post by Deetermined


Regarding the title point, I have come to three conclusions.

A) This person is seriously crazy
B) He is a comic genius. Iranians are very funny people after all.
C) He genuinely love America.

I'm gonna go with either A or B .

ALS

reply to post by hmdphantom


No illusion.

The picture of the guy wearing the t-shirt was in my first link.

Hmmm, sounds like American elections!

Maybe we do have common ground with the Iranians!

ETA: I found this quote quite interesting from the OP's link.

One thing is for certain: things are going to get much worse (mostly economic) over the next six months and it could get really ugly if Israel does bomb, which would be a huge mistake because this regime is on its last legs, and one thing that would save it would be a military strike. Read more: www.pbs.org...

If you want to see voter fraud then look no further than the USA but i'm not into voting for piles of # stacked 6 ft high and given the lable of a politician.

A vote in the USA is just a vote for one zionist puppet or another and you wonder why the place is falling to bits.

In blow to Ahmadinejad, rival hard-liners take lead in early returns in Iran parliament vote

www.washingtonpost.com...

Out of 189 winners that emerged by Saturday noon, at least 97 were conservative Ahmadinejad opponents. Also elected were six liberal-leaning candidates opposed to Ahmadinejad. The remaining 86 seats were split between Ahmadinejad supporters and centrists. Authorities said 15 seats will have to be decided in runoffs.

The split among the conservatives, who were once united, dates back to last year when the president fell out of favor with the supreme leader after he dared challenge Khamenei over the choice of intelligence chief in April.

Many conservatives, who had supported Ahmadinejad’s re-election, then turned against him. In parliament, lawmakers moved on a petition to summon Ahmadinejad for questioning over a long list of accusations, including corruption.

Ahmadinejad — the first Iranian president ever to be summoned by lawmakers — is expected to be grilled in parliament early next week.

Friday’s vote was also a curtain raiser for next year’s presidential election. With Ahmadinejad’s camp sidelined, it practically assures the presidency will go to a Khamenei loyalist. Ahmadinejad, who cannot run for a third term, will have less of a chance to exert any influence over the choice of his successor.

“Ahmadinejad’s era will be over if final election results show a defeat for his supporters,” said prominent political analyst Davoud Hermidas Bavand. “We have to wait for the final results but it can be said that Ahmadinejad is almost politically spent.”

11:45 p.m. From a north Tehran resident:

I went out around 11 [in the morning] and was out walking along Pahlavi (Vali Asr) until Vanak Square and there was no one out! The street was pretty much deserted and I did not see any polling stations with anyone outside.

Vanak Square was full of police cars all circled around. The turnout is low and they are playing the usual game of showing pictures of a lot of people and saying this has been the greatest! Unfortunately, the lies here are so big and we are all so used to it that there is no longer an outrage factor. My friends tell me that the regime is counting on the villages and small towns. Tehran and [other] major cities will end up [with] secondary runoff elections.

The joke is the lists have 30 or more names on them and to expect anyone to know about this many candidates and select and elect from the lists is nuts. So I am certain that those who vote by the lists just go down and vote along the lines -- nothing more and nothing less. What a shame to have all this infrastructure and to have taught the general populace for over 30 yrs about voting and to abuse it to this level.

www.pbs.org...

10 p.m. An Iranian contact writes us, "I checked 5 voting places in Tehran. In the first one which was in a school, a few people were voting and in the second place (metro station) I just saw about 5-10 people. In another place in a mosque I saw a short line of people...they went in and voted easily and were back and there was no long line.... In all the places that I saw, I did not see a long line or crowd of people."

Journalist Negar Mortazavi reports from an eyewitness in west Tehran: "Participation looks a bit less than the 7th and 8th parliamentary elections. This is only west Tehran. Northern Tehran was less and east Tehran was more. [Turnout for] the 6th Majles [elections] was 64%. The 7th and 8th were around 30%."

Mortazavi also tweets, "They have announced that they will close schools tomorrow because the turn[out] was so high, they need to use these schools (polling stations) for counting votes tomorrow."

And a Tehran resident tells her, "It's not important if people vote or not, it's important that even if they do, it's because of the stamp on their ID."

www.pbs.org...

So, in reality, this person says the turnout is less than the 7th & 8th Parliamentary elections, which only had a 30% turnout.

Originally posted by Deetermined
reply to post by hmdphantom

 

No illusion.

The picture of the guy wearing the t-shirt was in my first link.

The illusion is that your guys here get one guy here wear that ..... and then they just magnify it.

And you think all Iranians are like him ?

That is illusion.

reply to post by hmdphantom

What's more important is that this man was able to wear a pro-American shirt without being drug into the street and beaten or shot.

Some people on this website believe Iranians are savage beasts that dare not deviate from the government-mandated norms.

What is most important is that the elections show that Ahmadinejad has lost most of his backing. Next year he will be done. Not sure if the Ayatollah's party will be much of an improvement.

However it is quite clear that Ahmadinejad will not be the next Hitler.

Originally posted by sheepslayer247
reply to post by hmdphantom

 

What's more important is that this man was able to wear a pro-American shirt without being drug into the street and beaten or shot.

Some people on this website believe Iranians are savage beasts that dare not deviate from the government-mandated norms.

Who is to say they didn't do that after the picture was taken? We do not know if this guy is still alive. Just like how Bin Laden died 10 years ago but they still kept showing videos of him alive so they could keep wagging the dog.

reply to post by lonewolf19792000


Ok, then why wasn't he beaten when he walked out his front door...or a block away?

Sure we don't have proof that this man was not killed after the pic was taken. But if someone wanted to do so they would have had plenty of time.

I'm going to give the Iranian people the benefit of the doubt because they are not what US media portrays them as, and are not barbaric murderers. They are people just like you and I, and they live under oppressive masters.....just like you and I.

reply to post by sheepslayer247


My point is, we don't know whats going on, were not there and all were getting is hearsay.

Update:

The results of the ballots in small towns and cities have been announced and vote counting in 150 electoral constituencies indicate a landslide victory for the Principlist camp for the 290-seat parliament.

Of the winners so far, 28 candidates are from the reformist camp, 10 from the team supporting the government [Ahmadinejad administration] and 112 [from the] Principlist team comprising...the United Front, Perseverance Front and independent candidates.

Prominent reformist figures including Mostafa Kavakebian, Mohammadreza Khabbaz and Qodratollah Alikhani have not won the vote in their constituencies. Parvin Ahmadinejad, the sister of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and long-time Principalist lawmaker Ahmad Nateq-Nouri, brother of former Majlis speaker Ali-Akbar Nateq-Nouri also failed to get a seat in parliament.

www.pbs.org...

I'm expecting some kind of discreet retaliation from Ahmadinejad on this.

Here's what an Iranian has to say about it, and I totally agree.

"If Ahmadinejad's faction wins, he could claim more power and follow a Putin-Medvedev setup with [his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim] Mashaei or some other close associate becoming the president," said Reza, a 30-year-old media expert.

"Underestimating Ahmadinejad is wrong and considering him only a puppet is even more wrong. He has his own agenda." The president, he explains, is adept at manipulating and exploiting the disagreements between other political camps.

Ali, a middle-aged teacher, voted expressly to restrain Ahmadinejad. "Last time I did not vote he became president," says Ali. "Since then, we all are trying to dislodge this man from the presidential office, but he seems to be having too good a time to go anywhere."

www.pbs.org...

Election Chief Slips? States Turnout Near '34 Percent'

Read more: www.pbs.org...

7:30 a.m., 14 Esfand/March 4 - An intriguing clip from Iranian state TV. Election Headquarters Director Seyyed Sowlat Mortazavi states the turnout for Friday's Majles elections as "34 and a few tenths of a percent," then corrects himself and recites the officially reported figure of 64.4 percent. Transcript below the video.

The truth was bound to come out somehow.

I expect more "slips" from Iran in the near future.

Ahmadinejad reduced to Lame Duck?

Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has tightened his grip on Iran's faction-ridden politics after loyalists won more than 75 per cent of seats in parliamentary elections at the expense of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a near-complete count showed.

The widespread defeat of Ahmadinejad supporters — including his sister, Parvin Ahmadinejad — is expected to reduce the president to a lame duck after he sowed divisions by challenging the utmost authority of Khamenei in the governing hierarchy.

The outcome of Friday's vote, essentially a contest between conservative hardline factions with reformist leaders under house arrest, will have no big impact on Iranian foreign policy, notably its nuclear stand-off with the West. But it will boost Khamenei's influence in next year's presidential election.

With 90 per cent of ballot boxes counted, Khamenei acolytes were expected to occupy more than three-quarters of the 290 seats in the majlis (parliament), according to a list published by the interior ministry yesterday.

Source: gulfnews.com...

Thanks so much for the thread and keeping us updated on this.