What if nobody voted?
How large a voter turn out is necessary to make an election legitimate?
Iran bans make for flat election"The election rally was a desultory affair. It was the last one as campaigning ended in Iran ahead of Friday's general election.
"But barely 100 people gathered in the private car-parking space under a small block of flats.
"The interior ministry would not let them hold the meeting in public.
"Hardly any of the audience were women. They feel even more disconnected from politics than Iranian men.
"And the party itself, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, has no candidates anyway...
"This is no fringe party. It had the single largest group of members in the Iranian parliament until just four years ago...
"The election itself is being held less than a week before the country shuts down for the Iranian new year holiday of Norouz. At the moment most Iranians are more interested in shopping than politics.
"On the streets of Tehran there has been almost no evidence an election is about to happen...
"The suspicion is that the authorities are in two minds about what sort of turnout they want.
"They need enough voters to endorse the legitimacy of what they still insist is a democratic process.
"But too high a turnout might encourage those who have given up on the government to go out and register their protest, if they can find a like-minded candidate who has not been disqualified...
"Control of parliament is almost certain to remain with the conservatives, or "principalists" as they prefer to call themselves - how can you be a conservative, and a revolutionary at the same time, after all?
"Precisely which of the conservatives will win is a more complicated question - fiendishly complicated in fact.
"There are five main groupings or 'lists' battling for seats. But many candidates have been endorsed by two or more groups.
"Some candidates are even standing for apparently opposing groupings..."
Labels: elections, Iran, legitimacy, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:49 AM
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