Iran, where voter turnout really matters, could deal a blow to Ahmadinejad on 12/15
A big set of regional elections is coming up on December 15 in Iran. Amir Taheri reports that these elections could deal a serious blow to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and provides some interesting insight on just how small the revolutionary theocratic voting bloc is in Iran:
elections in the Islamic republic must be treated as important for two reasons. The first is that they provide a more or les accurate picture of the relative strength of the various rival factions within the regime, thus providing an insight into the current mood of he ruling elite. The second is that the “Supreme Guide” and his security services could arrange every election in a way to reflect the new mood and open the way for policy changes.
In 1997, for example, the “Supreme Guide” and his services felt the need for a smiling face and arranged for Khatami to be elected president. In 2005, shaken by student revolts, workers’ strikes and growing American pressure in the region, they decided that a return to radicalism would be the better ticket. That helped Ahmadinejad become president, despite the fact that his initial mass base consisted only of five million votes, out of 46 million eligible voters….Four years ago, Ahmadinejad won control of the Tehran Municipal Council, the largest local government in Iran, and became mayor of the capital, in an election that attracted only 15% of the qualified voters.
Taheri says that the current election could have a voter turnout of 30%, and thwart Ahmadinejad’s plan to get a majority of local governments in Khomeinist party hands (as opposed to the 33% that currently have); he says “A higher turnout could mean more middle class voters going to the polls to counterbalance the peasants and the urban poor who constitute the president’s electoral base.”
UPDATE
One would think that the middle class in Iran would be utterly fed up with a regime that has produced nothing but poverty for a quarter century for its people. The smart and industrious Iranians must be furious that their economy has stagnated at a $100 billion GDP since the time of the Shah, while a country like China, for example, has gone from nothing to a $2 trillion economy in the same time frame. Meanwhile, unemployment is over 30% among the young in Iran, and the Iranian economy has not seen even the benefits of the oil price rises over the last several years because of the backwards-looking sharia rule of the revolutionary theocracy.