As Iranian regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei continues his theatrical engineering of his regime’s sham elections, he continues to fumble in ways that further humiliate his regime.
On December 27, in an address to a group of women, Khamenei said, “In the matter of elections, you, dear women, can play a role. The most important role you can play is inside the home. Mothers can play a role and encourage their children and spouses to be active in the field of elections.”
This is coming from the leader of a regime that has one of the worst track records of violating the most basic rights of women. Yet he is so desperate that he is reaching out to women to help bolster his sham elections. But even when he wants to praise women, Khamenei cannot hide his nature of considering them as second-class citizens who have no rights or role to play in the society.
On December 30, Ali Ehtesham Kashani, a prominent cleric in the regime, also voiced concern about the elections becoming less and less appealing, even for the regime’s own follower base. Ehtesham Kashani said, “If God forbid, God forbid, God forbid, the seminary, university, scholars, and society fall short, and this time it comes down even lower, who is responsible?”
Referring to the explosive conditions of society, he added, “This year we have a difficult situation ahead. I have repeatedly told the people, even if you have demands and criticisms, but God forbid, if the attendance statistics decrease, it will please the enemies of the regime.”
So basically, Ehtesham Kashani confesses that first, the people hate the regime (but he still pleads with them to participate in the elections), and second, even the seminaries and clerical circles that were one of the key pillars of the regime’s support are not interested in the elections.
The concern about the decrease in voter turnout comes at a time that even regime officials are mocking the regime’s structure of power and elections. On December 30, Hamdeli newspaper quoted MP Massoud Pezeshkian as saying, “When no one remains, any action is praised and will not be criticized. Even if you make a mistake, they say it’s the best thing to do. If anyone criticizes, they are silenced and accused of being anti-regime and its interests.”
On December 31, the state-run Arman wrote, “The issue is not that the Guardian Council [the body that oversees the elections and candidates] should be more flexible and allow independent candidates and educated individuals with experience to participate in the elections to some extent. Rather, the issue is a matter of trust that has been damaged among educated classes and segments and youth regarding the benefits of voting and participating in the electoral process.”
On December 29, the state-run Didar news website quoted the cleric Hadi Ghabel, member of the central council of the Participation Front, complaining about the consequences of successive purges in the past 40 years and saying, “These conditions, where we keep tearing apart the society, it all started since the beginning of our revolution, we kept on dividing the society as ‘us’ and ‘them,’ we kept eliminating them one by one until we reached the point that they are discussing purification and they are now at each other’s throats… Now they have reached the point where they want to target [Mohammad Baqer] Qalibaf [speaker of Majils (Parliament)] in this very election. Now you see what kind of war will unfold among themselves… We kept eliminating and eliminating, we carved them out, and what remains in the end? Nothing!”
Regime politician Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani warned, “God forbid the day when people, instead of heading towards the elections, head towards chaos and turmoil and choose a non-peaceful method… If, God forbid, the country falls into this predicament, how dangerous it is for the regime, for the Islamic Revolution. We are all in the same boat in one way or another, and if this happens and extremists keep poking holes in the boat, we won’t have many hands left to plug the holes and prevent the ship from sinking.”
These scandals are the result of inherent contradictions within an oppressive and medieval tyranny that simultaneously seeks to adopt the facade of a modern democracy and reap the political benefits of elections. As a result, each election becomes more disgraceful than the previous one, and each electoral spectacle becomes a catalyst for deeper crises within the regime and more intense and widespread uprisings in society.
Source » mojahedin