A few weeks ago, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced that he had not won his re-election cleanly, meaning that there had been some kind of fraud, meaning that Abdullah Abdullah, his main opponent, had probably won the election.
A few months ago, I had my first new post in a while called "Election Fraud (?) in Iran" about another controversial election in the middle east, but there it was between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir-Hossein Mosavi.
The Iran election was similar and different to the Afghan election.
It was similar because they were both suspected to have election fraud and both of them were extremely shady.
It was different because Hamid Karzai actually admitted that there was some kind of Election Fraud going on in the election.
Now, some might argue that that means that there wasn't any fraud in Iran. They'll say that the election in Iran was older than the Afghan election, and if Ahmadinejad hasn't said that he didn't win cleanly, then he probably did win cleanly.
This is exactly what Ahmadinejad wants you to think. Karzai coming out and saying that there was corruption in the Afghani election was probably the best thing for Ahmadinejad's corrupt win.
But anyway, back to Afghanistan, Abdullah Abdullah is against everyone in the Afghan government right now since, right now, everyone in the Afghan government works for Hamid Karzai. Although Abdullah is probably supported by most of the country, he has to get through the government before he becomes the next President of Afghanistan.
Since Afghanistan is still a developing democracy, it isn't exactly where the U.S. is since we've had a democracy for more than 200 years.
Now, we do know from 2000 and 2004 that we don't have a perfect democracy either.
This is a bad thing for us and for the rest of the world.
For us, we don't win clean elections and we get the wrong guy to run our country for 4 years.
For the rest of the world, we set an example for democracy worldwide, and if we don't have clean elections, the rest of the world doesn't have clean elections
What do I think? Well, as I said earlier, since Hamid Karzai has come out and said that the race had fraud in it, Karzai has said without saying that Abdullah Abdullah won the Afghan election.
But now, according to nytimes.com, Abdullah has quit the race, and according to CNN Newsroom, it's because he feared that there would be even more fraud the second time around.
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
Showing posts with label Election Fraud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Election Fraud. Show all posts
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Election Fraud (?) in Iran
Iran, ever since the Bush administration, (God am I happy that those years are done) has been the only country the world that they hate that they haven't invaded.
Iran has been a country that ever since the years that the U.S. decided that all Muslims were terrorists, has been on the list of countries that the U.S. wants to eliminate.
And with the recent stuff with Iraq, that has fueled another hate of Arabs.
And since Ahmadinejad was in the Presidential position most of the time Iraq was invaded, the U.S. hates him.
Unfair? Yes.
But don't get me wrong, Ahmadinejad has many, many problems. Such as he is a Holocaust denier.
So with the Iranian Presidential Election on its way, where the Election was between Ahmadinejad and someone else, you can see why the U.S. was so thrilled and exited to get the results.
Who exactly was this "someone else"? Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister.
Mousavi is considered a much more reform figure than Ahmadinejad, and was supposed to be a favorite amongst young voters. Young voters who, if they were basically unanimous, could decide the election.
When the Washington Post took a poll, it showed Ahmadinejad leading by a 2-1 margin. Two thirds of the country.
However, early voting spoke otherwise. It had a lead towards Mousavi.
So, at this point, it could go either way.
On my opinion, neither source has much use.
Nationwide polls are rare for Iranian people, so they may have felt as if the Government was going to come and get them if they didn't say that they were voting for Ahmadinejad.
And most people don't vote early, most people vote on election day.
On June 12, millions of Iranians lined up to vote for someone who was going to help lead their country for the next four years.
And when the results came in, millions of Iranians were surprised.
The election showed a strong victory for Ahmadinejad.
Mousavi demanded a recount.
In just a few days, thousands of people around the world were protesting, most of them showing picket signs that said "Where's My Vote?"On them.
Although Mousavi, and thousands of people worldwide demanded a recount, it wasn't granted to them. And Ahmadinejad was sworn in.
Was there election fraud involved, well, based on the polls, no. However, in statistics, it showed Ahmadinejad and Mousavi close on young voters, which wasn't expected, it was expected that Mousavi would completely destroy Ahmadinejad in that field.
Another thing that fueled protest was that Mousavi lost, by a great margin, in his home district. Which is very rare for a serious competitor in any serious election.
Another election fact that I was suspicious about was that Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran wasn't going to let Ahmadinejad loose, who he has favored all along.
And lastly the fact that there was no recount that was granted to Mousavi makes me think that the results of the recount would probably in Mousavi's favor.
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
Iran has been a country that ever since the years that the U.S. decided that all Muslims were terrorists, has been on the list of countries that the U.S. wants to eliminate.
And with the recent stuff with Iraq, that has fueled another hate of Arabs.
And since Ahmadinejad was in the Presidential position most of the time Iraq was invaded, the U.S. hates him.
Unfair? Yes.
But don't get me wrong, Ahmadinejad has many, many problems. Such as he is a Holocaust denier.
So with the Iranian Presidential Election on its way, where the Election was between Ahmadinejad and someone else, you can see why the U.S. was so thrilled and exited to get the results.
Who exactly was this "someone else"? Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former Prime Minister.
Mousavi is considered a much more reform figure than Ahmadinejad, and was supposed to be a favorite amongst young voters. Young voters who, if they were basically unanimous, could decide the election.
When the Washington Post took a poll, it showed Ahmadinejad leading by a 2-1 margin. Two thirds of the country.
However, early voting spoke otherwise. It had a lead towards Mousavi.
So, at this point, it could go either way.
On my opinion, neither source has much use.
Nationwide polls are rare for Iranian people, so they may have felt as if the Government was going to come and get them if they didn't say that they were voting for Ahmadinejad.
And most people don't vote early, most people vote on election day.
On June 12, millions of Iranians lined up to vote for someone who was going to help lead their country for the next four years.
And when the results came in, millions of Iranians were surprised.
The election showed a strong victory for Ahmadinejad.
Mousavi demanded a recount.
In just a few days, thousands of people around the world were protesting, most of them showing picket signs that said "Where's My Vote?"On them.
Although Mousavi, and thousands of people worldwide demanded a recount, it wasn't granted to them. And Ahmadinejad was sworn in.
Was there election fraud involved, well, based on the polls, no. However, in statistics, it showed Ahmadinejad and Mousavi close on young voters, which wasn't expected, it was expected that Mousavi would completely destroy Ahmadinejad in that field.
Another thing that fueled protest was that Mousavi lost, by a great margin, in his home district. Which is very rare for a serious competitor in any serious election.
Another election fact that I was suspicious about was that Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran wasn't going to let Ahmadinejad loose, who he has favored all along.
And lastly the fact that there was no recount that was granted to Mousavi makes me think that the results of the recount would probably in Mousavi's favor.
Post questions and comments as comments
Sam
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