Not Tweeting In Green

[hmmm_tea]

So, staying with Iran, but moving onto the bigger news item about the place at the moment... the elections.

OK, there are some distinctly odd things about the election, to the extent that I would agree that it would be good to see it run again more openly.

However, even given this, there doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence to suggest that Mousavi should have won (although I haven't looked into it in that much detail). The BBC even suggest that independent international pollsters came up with a similar 2-1 result toward Ahmadinejad compared to Mousavi a few weeks earlier with the others only getting a small proportion of the vote.

OK, there are vocal supporters of Mousavi, as there are for Ahmadinejad, but you cannot assume they are representative of the population.

I'm not Iranian and as such have no right to have any say in there elections, so I am not going to show my support for a politician who I have not seen any evidence to suggest that they would have won in a fair and democratic election, by adopting his colours. However, I do certainly agree that the elections should be re-run in a fair and open way.

Comments

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that fair elections depend on fair media, which Iran doesn't have even before you get into direct rigging.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Where does have fair unbiased media though?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Compared to Iran? Almost everywhere.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Iran may be worse, but even our media isn't really unbiased when it comes to these things and it does have a significant effect on our vote.

Re-running the election in a more open fashion is a possibility, changing the whole society to fix the media, etc, is just not going to happen though.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

That was my point. Just re-run the elections and the state's power over the media, the internet etc gives the incumbent a large advantage. Our media may not be 100% objective at all times but it's much more practical for a wide spectrum of views to be heard.

Actually I suspect that Iran is one of the places where given a chance it could change rapidly: eastern Europe after 1989 may be a better model than, say, Iraq.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

If an independent international pollster phoned me in Iran, and I thought the government could well be bugging phones and trying to identify people who were going to vote against them and conveniently prevent them from voting, and said "Who are you going to vote for, the scary guy who's in charge or the other guy?" I would probably lie and say the scary guy in charge.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

OK, the poll may not be entirely accurate, but that doesn't necessarily will Mousavi would have won.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

The timezone thing?

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

That sounds sensible. I would be willing to support people doing that, as they are essentially just allowing people their freedom of speech.

[gothic-violin.livejournal.com]

You've added me! How'd ya find me? We do have some stuff possibly in common, looking at you icons of molly and morris and ceilidh dance. You on the Londonfolk scene? :)

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

I was looking through interests last night to see which random people it came up with. Lots of people list Morris Dancing as an interest, but very few list Border Morris.

I dance with 3 sides (Molly with Gog Magog, Border with Wild Hunt and Rapper with Thrales) and get out and about to a few other folk things in and around London.

[gothic-violin.livejournal.com]

Ah! I might have met you. Did you come to Boggarts Breakfast weekend last autumn in Tideswell? I know Mj of Thrales and I know Charlotte who's recently joined Wild Hunt. Ace. Actually, it's quite coincidental, as I was just thinking a couple of days ago, damn I need more morris dancers on my friends list, so some of the lsit gets the crazy posts about morris. Excellent. Welcome aboard.

Abigail. :)

[gothic-violin.livejournal.com]

Ps I just read your info page, *rofl*. That's absolutely spot on, that first bit. *Much applause* :)

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

Great quote isn't it?

Shame I can't claim to have made it up myself.