March 4, 2024
On Friday, March 1, 2024, the "elections" of the twelfth term of the Parliament and the sixth term of the Assembly of Experts were held in the style of the Islamic Republic to send the hand-picked candidates of the Guardian Council to these two bodies. These "elections" faced such a strong boycott that it included the regime's opposition as well as the regime's internal forces.
In this round, the Guardian Council acted more actively than before and removed all those who had doubts about obeying and listening to the absolute command of the Supreme Leader and tried to make the hand-picked beads as uniform as possible. On the other hand, corrupt officials were mobilized to drag people to the polls with threats and bribes. The phenomenon of buying and selling votes by handing over birth certificates increased sharply compared to the previous round. The collection of these tricks, as well as casting fake votes, using any identification card, from driver's license to national card and passport, and even collecting birth certificates in old people's homes to vote in their names, etc., were used to increase the number of participants. Raising the number of voters has always been one of the common frauds of the Islamic Republic, which was also used in this round. The struggle of fake "anti-imperialist" "leftists" and sympathizers of the regime did not get anywhere. Motahari's "Voice of the Nation" list could not get much share. But with all these tricks and despite empty constituencies across the country, the regime announced the participation of the people at 41 percent. Despite many frauds compared to the previous rounds, the same announced figure is the lowest number of people's participation in voting for the election of the Parliament members. Finally, there were so many irregularities and fraud in the votes that the officials were forced to announce different statistics in the past two days.
The remarkable phenomenon in this round was the competition between the invalid votes and the appointed candidates. It seems that the invalid votes of the people participating in this round are much more than in the previous rounds. Although in the presidential election show in the previous round, the main rival of Raisi was invalid votes, but in the case of the Parliament, which is less political due to local, ethnic and tribal rivalries, especially in small towns, the number of invalid votes has been unprecedented. In many cities, including Yazd, invalid votes have competed shoulder to shoulder with the highest votes of the representatives who entered the parliament.
In this period, the Islamic Republic also sought complete unification. At the same time, it also wanted maximum participation for inside and abroad propaganda. These two goals are contradictory and against each other.
Considering the huge wave of opposition to the regime after the "Woman, Life, Freedom" revolutionary movement, it is impossible to achieve them even with the most fraud, deception, threat and enticement. People are looking to take the regime down. The regime itself knows this. But these lies will not inspire the internal forces and intimidate the people, nor will these appointments be of much use to the regime's international relations. Everyone, whether inside or outside the country, is an eyewitness to these criminal acts of the regime, including the arrests and trials of civil activists, activists of social movements, and the daily news of looting the property of the country and the people, at the same time, the spread of poverty and darkness prevailed over the society. The public opinion of the world is not so unaware of the situation in Iran.
The Parliament does not have a decisive position in the Islamic Republic. In the Islamic Republic, with this constitution and political structure under the control of Velayat-e-Faqih, even the best Parliaments, if they disobey the "leader's" command, their mouths will be shut by an order from the above. Even the insider forces are eliminated when they find the slightest disagreement with the Supreme Leader. It is not without reason that all the past presidents (except Khamenei himself) have been eliminated without exception. They disqualified a person like Ali Larijani, who had a history of three terms as president of the 8th, 9th, and 10th Parliament, secretary of the National Security Council, Ministry of Guidance and head of the Broadcasting Organization and member of the Expediency Council.
The outcome of this "election" tells the reality behind the scenes. The most extreme faction in favor of the current political structure was able to take over the majority of the seats of the Parliament and Assembly of Experts and win the "election" in which the executors and most of the participants were dependent on the unified ruling force and the officials of the Ministry of Interior and other regime’s institutions. These "elections" created new alignments within the ruling body that will fuel instability and new internal crises that will be difficult for Khamenei to contain.
The Left Party of Iran, welcoming the turning away of a large part of the people from the election show of the Islamic Republic regime, believes that even if others are unaware of the dimensions of the unprecedented boycott of this election, the main security officials, the regime's military and its dictatorial leader know very well that the regime has no legitimacy among the people. Undoubtedly, this time the voice of "NO" to "election" will resonate in the ears of the repressive agents of the regime and will intimidate them. This auspicious action was the resonance of the regime's failure and the people's victory. We congratulate the people of Iran on this victory.
Political-Executive Board of the Left Party of Iran
March 4, 2024
Add new comment