a report by Chatham House
21 June 2009
Authors:
Ali Ansari, Daniel Berman and Thomas Rintoul,
A survey of Iran's election results, published today by Chatham House and the University of St Andrews, raises serious questions about the plausibility of the claimed victory and demonstrates irregularities in the official results.
According to this report:
Even the official statistics - obtained from the Ministry of the Interior - indicate that:
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votes cast exceeded the number of eligible voters in two provinces
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claims that Ahmadinejad swept the board in rural provinces flies in the face of previous results
The plausibility of Mr Ahmadinejad's claimed victory is called into question by figures that show that in several provinces, he would have had to attract the votes of all new voters, all the votes of his former centrist opponent, and up to 44% of those who voted for reformist candidates in 2005.
Irregularities are found in conservative Mazandaran and Yazd provinces, where votes cast exceeded the number of eligible voters.
Professor Ali Ansari said: 'The analysis shows that the scale of the swing to Ahmadinejad would have had to have been extraordinary to achieve the stated result'.
Thomas Rintoul said: 'The claimed results in minority provinces are particularly extreme, the numbers from Ilam, Lorestan and Hormozgan almost defy belief.
Read paper @ Chatham House
Download the report here
