Disqualification and Dismay in #IranElection2016
A look at social media reactions to “mass disqualification” of candidates
Iran will hold two important elections, for Majlis (Parliament) and Assembly of Experts, in less than 30 days. As expected, social media is playing a key role in this upcoming political event.
Telegram and Twitter are among the main networks that have been utilized in order to publish both serious and satirical election news among the masses.
The following piece is a review of the way disqualification of the election candidates was reflected on Twitter in the past month.
A total of 15, 229 tweets were published in three distinct waves about the disqualification of election candidates in early 2016 (January 01–31, 2016):
Wave 1 : 876 Posts
About the news of disqualifications by the executive committees
Wave 2: 3377 Posts
Reactions towards disqualifications of the Majlis and Assembly of Experts Election candidates by the conservative Guardian Council
Wave 3: 1304 Posts
echoing the public reactions towards disqualification of Hassan Khomeini, who had registered as a candidate for the Assembly of Experts election.
Who was doing the tweeting?
We took a look at the demographic information associated with the posts in our analysis.
The graph clearly shows that an overwhelming number of users in this section are males in their 40s. There is also a small number of youth in their 20s who express their views in the cyber sphere and twitter. However, the population of Iranian youth in their 30s was significantly absent from the twitter conversations about the disqualifications. It is important to note that not all tweets in our analysis have geolocation and age information. In this analysis only 12% of the total number of tweets or close to 2000 tweets have demographic information.
How did the reactions unfold?
In our analysis, we have identified and separated the tweets based on subject and reviewed the reactions to the disqualifications. We found President Rouhani’s reaction to the disqualification to one of the most prominent amongst these trends.
However, in this graph, it is clear that President Rouhani’s objection to the first and third wave of the disqualifications (executive committee disqualifications and disqualification of Hassan Khomeini) come with more delays and are less noticeable amongst the tweet waves. On the other hand, reactions to Hassan Rouhani’s objection to the main wave of mass disqualifications by the Guardian Council emerges almost simultaneously and has been ongoing.
Retweeted Tweets
The following are a selection of widely retweeted tweets:
All in all …
Disqualification of the candidates is not a new phenomenon in Iran’s elections, but social media will remember the 2016 election as year of “mass disqualification”.
The left and right factions and known independent figures have passed through the Guardian Council’s ultra-orthodox vetting process and their disqualifications were accompanied by viral reactions in social media networks such as Twitter. The reactions echo the deep shock from all walks of Iranian society, both the general public and politicians were greatly surprised by the council’s veto and ultimately mass elimination of the candidates.
In his interview about the election, Sadegh Zibakalam, reformist analyst has said “I had already predicted that a large number of election candidates will be disqualified, I had even said that the process in which the Guardian Council veto the candidates and its elimination process is similar to fall of autumn leaves from the trees, it is noteworthy however that this round of disqualification is even more serious and wider than I had anticipated.”
Public response to disqualifications will ultimately depend on the Election Day and people’s motivation to participate in the voting process. It is also possible that the political scene will face another surprise. In either case, It will be the people of Iran who will surprise the politicians.
