Radio Australia Today Editorial

Iran. A protest that leads to a protest.

19 June 2009

The Iranian leaders are in a spot of bother this morning, and they know it.

After thirty years of having virtually absolute power, the Mullahs are faced with a conundrum.

They allowed elections to take place, elections which went the way they would have liked, with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being re-elected. The problem for the Mullahs is that tens of thousands of their citizenry were not content with the election result. Within days of the election, hundreds of official complaints about electoral impropriety were lodged. When it appeared that the complaints would be ignored (which often happens in totalitarian countries), the protests got louder and bigger.

At some point, someone in authority decided the best way to deal with this bit of fledgling democracy was to act violently against the demonstrators. The result has been horrendous, with up to fourteen people killed by security forces.

If history tells us one thing, it is that rule by fear works for only so long. It takes a cathartic moment for dissent to become ill-will. We have seen overnight that the protests against electoral processes turning into protests against authoritarian bloodshed.

In light of this escalating tension, Iran’s Guardian Council has finally agreed to accept and examine the 646 complaints about the election.

One of our analysts, Professor Amin Saikal from the Australian National University, said that there was little chance of the Mullahs agreeing to a new election, even if substantial irregularities were proved in the last one. He says more likely is a role being offered to the Opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, with an outside possibility of a Government of National Unity being formed, with shared responsibilities between the current government and the current Opposition.

He does make one point though: something will have to give, because neither side wants civil war. There are obviously plenty of aggrieved Iranians this morning, and the actions of the past week have proved that forcing them into silence will only make them louder.

– Phil