Friday, December 15, 2006

What will happen today?

I have already said what I think of the so-called elections in the Islamic Republic that are being held today.

After all these years and despite the selection criteria of the candidates getting more and more ridiculous every time, a section of Iranian "intellectuals" still encourage people to take part in the elections. Their reasoning is always the same, "dont let the worst ones get in to power, lets pick the best of a bad bunch!".

Yet those of us that advocate a boycott of the elections, say "the best of the bunch" were in power for 8 years. What good did they do? And if a boycott serves the hardliners, as they argue, why does the regime always go out of its way to mobilise the people to vote? Why is it that people turning up at the polling stations is so important to the regime's propaganda that they are now holding the elections for the assembly of experts, the mid term election of MPs and the councils all on one day?

One only has to watch state Islamic Republic TV in the election days to see how important it is for the regime to broadcast images of large queues at the polling stations. Suddenly the programs are more relaxed and jovial. Presenters smile more. Teasers of participation by the people in previous elections are shown repeatedly. Selective people are interviewed, especially 15 year olds who can vote for the first time, who give the standard cliche replies of why turning up at the polling stations is so important. Actors and artists appear on state TV, emphasising that they will cast their "vote" as a "patriotic" duty :)

For the last 27 years, dubious Iranian intellectuals have encouraged Iranians to vote in Islamic elections, where has it got us? How many times must an experiment prove to be wrong before the theory is shelved as obsolete? Scientifically only once, but with these dubious intellectuals there seems to be no limit.

The truth is that the Islamic regime, even despite the most restrictive candidate filtering, will pull out whoever it wants out of these dummy ballot boxes.

Foreign broadcast media will be told which polling stations to go with the permits issued by the Guidance Ministry and the police. The regime will bring bus loads of people from other areas to these selected booths for the sake of TVs and cameras. No TV or radio or even printing media will be allowed to stay more than 15 minutes in each polling station. Images of long queues outside polling stations will be broadcast, and the truth about Iran will not be reported by the correspondents.

Yet the real truth lies in this logic:
If the clerics in Iran were as popular as they claim, there would be no need to filter candidates and every Iranian would be allowed to stand as a candidate and to choose who they want to vote for. This however is the biggest fear of the mullahs.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

هيچ يک از انتخابات مسخره و تقلبی رژيم فاشيستی اسلامی قانونی نبوده و نخواهد بود. از آن همه پرسی ساختگی که رژيم جمهوری را برقرار کرد تا اين آخرين انتخابات که صحنة ديگری از تئاتر لوس و بی مزة سياسی است انتخابات واقعی نبوده است. شرط نخست يک انتخابات درست، آزادی است. آزادی احزاب، آزادی تجمعات، آزادی روزنامه ها، آزادی بيان و ديگر آزادی های معمول که ما در دنيای متمدن غرب شاهد آن هستيم.ـ

Anonymous said...

These people who advocate for the sham elections and (ES-HAL TALABAN) are the ones who care about the existence of their beloved regime. They are not for genuine reforms either. They just want the IRI to stay there since it is paying them to be the IRI advocates out of iran

Anonymous said...

I wrote this using one of your paragraphs.

Shahrokh said...

Voting in election just has one meaning and that is: a legitimacy sign for this regime. We don’t want this regime, so we won't vote.
Voting in election means that Islamic Republic is a legitimate regime.

شركت در انتخابات يعني مشروعيت دادن به رژيم آخوندي. چه خوب سر كار بيايد و چه بد آن شخصي كه آن با نشسته كار خودش را ميكند و اجا نميدهد هيچ خوش خدمتي در ايران صورت گيرد.

Anonymous said...

وينستون، به خاطر درست کردن و بکاربردن واژة «اسهال طلبان» در مورد دوم خردادی ها به شما تبريک می گویم. بسيار عالی و به جا است.ـ

Bardia said...

to elect or not to elect?
the answer is so obvious.
no,no,no. because to get the election in islamic regime is so comic action for people who want to protest. many people yet fly in hopes to arrive great situation in evils system. where the leader select the candidates to elect, so no need to election.
so funny, people who get the election of shooooora, have to elect khobregan (gorbegan) candidates.
very funny democracy!