NCRI

Iran Regime’s Parliamentary Elections, a Major Failure

Mansoureh Galestan
Iran Regime’s Parliamentary Elections, a Major Failure for Khamenei
Iran Regime’s Parliamentary Elections, a Major Failure for Khamenei

The Iranian regime’s sham parliamentary elections, held on Friday, was met with an unprecedented general boycott. This boycott thwarted the regime’s attempts to legitimize its rule and maintain its absurd democratic facade.

After two days of utter confusion while fabricating figures and statistics, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the regime’s Minister of Interior, announced that 42.5 percent had voted in the sham parliamentary election. Even this completely bogus figure shows a 20 percent drop relative to the 2016 election. 

“Given the political situation and such issues as the crash of the (Ukrainian) airliner, the incidents in November and January, and other these circumstances, this level of presence and participation by the people is totally acceptable,” he said.  

Despite his shameless effort to present the bogus elections of a medieval regime as a real democratic procedure, Rahmani Fazli’s remarks confirm the Iranian people’s utter hatred of this regime.  

This boycott was a positive answer to the call made by Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). “The Iranian people had cast their real vote in the November 2019 and January 2020 uprisings with chants of ‘death to the principle of the velayat-e faqih, and death to Khamenei,’” Mrs. Rajavi had said.

This call was followed by various activities by the Resistance Units, a network affiliated with the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI, Mujahedin-e Khalq or MEK). There were also numerous protests against the regime’s sham elections, such as the one of the students of the University of Science and Technology of Tehran on Tuesday. They held banners which read: “We will neither vote, nor boycott, we will be in the streets,” and “The people’s rage is the measure,” (a play on the regime’s slogan: “The people’s vote is the measure”). They also paid tribute to the martyrs of the Iran protests.  

Since the regime’s brutal crackdown of the nationwide Iran protests in November 2019, the killing of over 1500 protesters, and the increasing social and economic crisis, due to the regime’s plundering of the national wealth to continue its warmongering policies in the Middle East and around the globe, the conflict between the people and the regime has reached an irreversible point.  

While downplaying the coronavirus crisis and the regime’s inaction, the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tried to justify his crushing defeat in having a mass turnout during the elections and said: “A collective campaign was undertaken against people’s participation in the election. On social media, a variety of entities used every factor possible… Since a month, two months ago, they said this was not an election, not a real election, the Guardian Council has done this or that… And this latest illness (COVID-19) became an excuse. In other words, they did not miss the slightest opportunity and did not even waste a few hours.” 

Despite his massive purge of the rival factions’ candidates, and while seeking to justify his murderous rule, Khamenei failed to prevent further crisis by reducing factional feuding and by holding the election masquerade with a large turnout.  The long-time game of so-called “reformists, hardliners” was rejected by the Iranian people who chanted during their uprising that “reformists, hardliners, the game is over.” This made it clear, especially after the Iran protests, for Khamenei that he must consolidate power around his own faction. 

More than 80 percent of the new so-called members of parliament are Khamenei loyalists. They are mostly members of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), criminals involved in suppression, the export of terrorism, and warmongering. IRGC Brig. Gen. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the leading candidate from Tehran, is vying to become Parliament Speaker. He was among the IRGC commanders during the unpatriotic Iran-Iraq war, commander of the IRGC’s air force, the State Security Force, and the mayor of Tehran.

In a nutshell, despite fabricating figures and taking all the necessary actions to prolong the regime’s life, the regime is doomed to be toppled by the Iranian people, who consider regime change as the only solution to the socio-economic crisis.  

As Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the NCRI’s president-elect said: “The figures announced by the regime, after long delay, astronomical rigging and contradictory statements, reflect a reluctant admission to defeat in the sham election.”  

“In boycotting this charade, more than 90 percent of the Iranian people voted for the overthrow of the ruling religious fascism and welcomed the slogan of Resistance Units that “my vote is overthrow.” This crushing defeat will only aggravate the mullahs’ internal feuding and their deadly impasse, expediting their overthrow by the Iranian people and Resistance,” she added.

  

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