PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION FARCE IN IRAN

Still reeling in shock from the sudden death, in an obsolete helicopter, of the Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi – the Butcher of Tehran, the mullahs are desperately trying to organize hasty presidential elections to find a replacement. Already the situation has developed into a farce, with state-run newspapers describing the election race as a “stand-up comedy” and “a show”! Out of the 80 people who originally registered as potential candidates, only 6 have been allowed to stand, all deemed to be suitably loyal to the diktats of the ageing and increasingly irrational Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The resulting power-struggle, as the 6 candidates vie for public attention, has become an embarrassing circus, as one after another they repeat identical pledges to “continue the program of the Martyr Raisi” and to “implement the policies of the Supreme Leader.”

Continuing the program of Ebrahim Raisi is hardly likely to be a vote winner amongst the 85 million Iranians who have suffered decades of oppression by the mullahs. Raisi, renowned as a bloodstained executioner of more than 30,000 political prisoners in 1988, demonstrated his expertise in murdering innocent opponents during his term in office. 864 people were executed in Iran last year, a 48% increase on the previous year. He accelerated the fundamentalist regime’s proxy warmongering in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon and Gaza. He sponsored international terrorism worldwide, including almost certainly authorizing the attempted assassination of the leading Spanish politician and vocal supporter of the Iranian opposition – Alejo Vidal Quadras, last November. He endorsed the hostage-taking of blameless westerners, used as pawns in the regime’s ruthless plots to gain the release of convicted Iranian terrorists from European and American jails. He fast-tracked the development of nuclear weapons, ignoring the condemnations of the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA).

The fact that each of the chosen 6 presidential candidates has guaranteed to “continue the path of the Martyr Raisi” is a sure-fired indication that the Supreme Leader has ordered that there should be no deviation from his brutal policy of murderous oppression. Khamenei is terrified of another nationwide uprising, like the one in 2022/23 which saw tens of millions take to the streets following the murder in custody, by the so-called ‘morality police’, of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. He knows that Iran is a powder-keg, ready to explode. He knows that 45 years of tyranny and corruption have impoverished the nation and turned Iran into a pariah state. Khamenei engineered the sham election of Raisi as president, hoping that his reputation as a hard-line executioner would pacify the rebellious citizenry.

In fact, the opposite has happened. Sickened by the mullahs’ cruelty and persecution, the young people of Iran have formed themselves into Resistance Units, fire-bombing compounds of the hated Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the thuggish paramilitary Basij and plastering walls and flyovers with posters of Mrs Maryam Rajavi, charismatic president-elect of the main democratic opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) and its key component the Mojadehin-e Khalq (MEK). Indeed, it is often women who are at the forefront of the insurgency in Iran, chanting “Women, Resistance, Freedom” in defiance of the elderly, bearded and misogynistic mullahs. Such is the growing antipathy to the regime that the recent elections to the majlis (parliament) saw a voter turnout of less than 8%, admitted even by the regime’s own state-run media. The presidential elections will face a similar boycott.

On June 9, the state-run Hamdeli newspaper delivered a bitter judgement on the presidential election farce: “It seems that we have no choice but to watch the forced show of the ‘claimants of service’ doing somersaults! Stage designers who have repeatedly donned the oversized robe of national management over the past decades and, to put it better, for reasons we all know, have draped it over their frail bodies… Uneducated ‘politicians’ who, in the name of service and of course for the sake of power, have entertained people with grand promises, leaving behind nothing but empty rhetoric and fruitless boasting in their memories.”

It is not surprising that the Hamdeli newspaper is concerned. Absurdly, all 6 presidential candidates have appeared on radio and TV saying the same thing, pledging their undying allegiance to the Supreme Leader Khamenei and promising to continue the work of Raisi, the Butcher of Tehran. The Majlis (Parliament) Speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, in a television interview said: “One of the necessities I felt to come here and set aside comfort-seeking is to implement Raisi’s program.” Alireza Zakani, the current mayor of Tehran, claimed: “we all have heavy duties to continue the path of Martyr Raisi.” Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi said: “I consider myself responsible for continuing the path of martyr Raisi.” Meanwhile, Massoud Pezeshkian, the so-called ‘moderate’ candidate, admitted that contenders for the job: “are not supposed to write new programs, we are not supposed to implement new policies in the country, but the general policies issued by the Supreme Leader are clear and development plans exist. Every incoming government must implement the existing programs.” In an attempt to be different, the former chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili claimed that he had a “shadow government” that contained “dozens of specialized working groups…and managers and experts” who had been helping to run Raisi’s government nationwide. 

One of the most notorious of the 6 candidates, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a notorious executioner also responsible for the death of thousands of political prisoners and protesters, released a promotional video in. which, according to the Mehr news agency, he struck “an artistic pose.” Pourmohammadi has certainly mastered the art of hanging political prisoners. In 1988 he was a member of the ‘Death Committee’, created by the then Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, tasked with executing thousands of MEK supporters and members. As a reward for his service, he was promoted to the post of Justice Minister by the former President Hassan Rouhani! When an executioner can become a justice minister and then run for the office of president, you know that comedy has reached its zenith.

Ironically, on Saturday 29^th June, one day after the sham presidential elections in Iran, tens of thousands of ex-pat Iranians will show up in Berlin at a mass rally, where their theme will be “It is no time for election, it is time for revolution.”