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USADI
Commentary
Iran’s
Electoral Travesty
Tomorrow, Iran’s
ruling tyranny will hold it's theocratic version
of “elections” for the Assembly of Experts and
the city councils. Although tomorrow’s elections
could be viewed as a barometer of factional
balance within the theocratic regime, their
first and foremost utility for the ruling regime
is to give it an aura of popular legitimacy at a
time it is faced with mounting dissent at home
and diplomatic isolation abroad.
As far as being a display of popular
sovereignty, elections are meaningless under the
mullahs’ rule. The clerical establishment is
built on the anti-democratic doctrine of Velayat-e
Faqih, the absolute rule of clerics. All
institutions of power in Iran such as the
Assembly of Experts, the Guardian Council, and
the Parliament, provide a veneer of democracy
for Velayat-e Faqih’s tyranny and safeguard the
pillars of the theocracy. Iran’s system of
governance is structurally and intrinsically
incapable of democratic change and its elections
are at the service of solidifying the religious
fascism and therefore it is a travesty of the
democratic process.
Nevertheless, the Friday election is
significant, since it provides Iran’s democratic
opposition with an opportunity to mobilize
Iranians to say “No” to the regime by boycotting
the elections. No wonder the mullahs’ primary
goal in this election has been beg people to
come out and vote.
Thanks to ascendancy of the Islamic
Revolutionary Guards Corp in Iran’s centers of
political and military power, the IRGC’s
organizational and financial resources are at
the disposal of the regime to project high turn
out through rigging and to ensure the “victory”
of its preferred faction. A senior member of
mullahs’ Parliament told the New York Times that
he expected massive fraud. “Rigging does not
take place only when the votes are being
counted,” he was quoted as saying. “It can
happen secretly in different ways.”
Earlier in the week, students in Tehran’s
Polytechnic University, however, expressed the
true sentiments of majority of Iranians when
they disrupted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s speech,
burning his pictures and chanting, “Down with
the Dictator”, “Down with Tyranny”, and “Fascist
President, Polytechnic is not your place.”
This was not the first time that Ahmadinejad was
challenged in public; in his many trips to
provinces, he has been frequently interrupted by
people complaining about rampant unemployment
and economic and social conditions. In some
recent speeches, the audience, instead of
chanting the state-sponsored slogan of “nuclear
energy is our alienable right”, shouted
“employment and food are alienable right.”
While the Iranian people, particularly students
and women, risk their lives under the mullahs’
reign of terror to say ‘No’ to the regime and
struggle for its ouster, the calls for US-Iran
talk undermine Iran’s democracy movement.
Advocates of engaging Tehran bolster the regime
by constantly branding it as “well-entrenched”
with “no visible” serious opposition. Dismissing
democratic movement and demonizing the
opposition groups such as Mujahedeen-e Khalq [MEK]
have always been the flip side of calls for
engagement. The MEK is the largest and most
organized Iranian opposition group and in August
2002, it made the bombshell revelation of
Tehran’s secret nuclear facilities in Natanz and
Arak.
Last month, the Wall Street Journal wrote
that: “Senior diplomats in the Clinton
administration say the MEK figured prominently
as a bargaining chip in a bridge-building effort
with Tehran.” The Journal added that: In 1997,
the State Department added the MEK to a list of
global terrorist organizations as "a signal" of
the U.S.'s desire for rapprochement with
Tehran's reformists, says Martin Indyk, who at
the time was assistant secretary of state for
Near East Affairs. President Khatami's
government "considered it a pretty big deal,"
Mr. Indyk says.
The folly of this policy came to light once
again when according to the New York Times
“Europe’s second highest court on Tuesday
annulled a European Union decision that had
frozen the funds of an exiled Iranian opposition
group [MEK] and called into question the group’s
label as a terrorist organization. The ruling by
the European Court of First Instance was more
than a financial victory for the group, the
Mujahedeen Khalq… which has long argued that its
terrorist label is unfair.”
One hopes that this ruling would lead to the
eventual annulment of the politically-motivated
designation of the MEK by the U.S. Department of
State and the EU. It will immensely empower the
democratic movement in Iran, and the regional
and global efforts to counter Iran’s drive for
nuclear weapons and for wining “the Iraq prize”.
(USADI)
USADI
Commentary reflects the viewpoints of the US Alliance
for Democratic Iran in respect to issues and events
which directly or indirectly impact the US policy toward
Iran |