The front page magazine in a report on its March 1st issue, titled “Iranian Elections: The “reformers” didn’t win”, slams the claims about a win by “moderates” in the recent elections in Iran.
Frontpage magazine writes, as for the parliament, there may be a more “moderate” tilt as a result of the apparent strategy of “moderates” and “reformists” to join forces in order to take seats away from the more doctrinaire hardliners. However, this will not move the parliament in any real reformist direction. The “moderates” themselves are fairly conservative and have shown little interest of their own in any human rights driven agenda. Neither President Rouhani nor the centrist “moderates’ supporting him, who will be taking seats in the Assembly of Experts and the parliament, are likely to endanger their own positions by advocating a too far-reaching “reformist” program. To the contrary, executions have actually spiked during the “moderate” Rouhani presidency. The situation for religious minority groups – including Baha’is, Christians, and Sufi Muslims – remains “dire,” according to Robert P. George, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. More “moderates” in Rouhani’s image in parliament or the Assembly of Experts will not change the Iranian theocratic regime’s iron rule over its people.”
The article in FrontPage acknowledges the wide boycott of the so called elections by the Iranian people. It also reported on what has been in the social media during the day of the elections and after, saying: “Needless to say, Iranian exiles do not share the Supreme Leader’s enthusiasm. In tweets, they claimed that the high number of voters heralded in the government press was significantly inflated. They also claimed that some of those who voted did so in order to avoid expulsion from their schools or jobs. Many Iranian youth reportedly boycotted the election.
An exiled resistance leader Maryam Rajavi called the elections a “sham.” She said: “The so-called election did not mean to elect the people’s representatives, but it was a competition between the incumbent and former officials in charge of torture and executions.”
In any event, irrespective of the election results, Ayatollah Khamenei and his hardline allies, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, will continue to run Iran as they see fit.
“Ayatollah Khamenei, who of course was not popularly elected, has the final say on all major foreign and domestic policy decisions. The nuclear deal would not have happened, for example, without his consent, which the Supreme Leader granted only after receiving many concessions from the Obama administration and its negotiating partners. “ Frontpage wrote.
Referring to the rigged elections the magazine explains:” to preserve the hardliners’ power bases even if they lost some seats. Iran’s conservative-dominated Guardian Council, half of whose members are theologians appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei himself, essentially pre-determined the election conclusion by pre-selecting who was eligible to run in the first place. Almost half of the potential candidates who were initially nominated to run were cut by the Guardian Council. Less than 10% of those allowed to run for the parliament were women. Only males were permitted to run for the Assembly of Experts”
Thus, in reality, the election represented little more than a demonstration of high voter turnout to supposedly prove wide public support for the current theocratic system and to provide the illusion of “democracy.”
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