While expressing his fear over a big “NO” to the sham elections by Iranians, he blamed enemies of the regime for encouraging boycott of election and said, “Their aim is to get the election ignored … diametrically opposed to the desire of enemies, we must actively participate in the election… the election is the pride of our nation… this is a very important issue.” (State-run television, May 12)
In the meantime, Ahmadinejad continued with his measures to prepare for rigging ballots. Within the Interior Ministry, he has widely reorganized the body responsible for the conduct of election. He has already removed 16 personnel from this body and replaced them with people closely affiliated to him. Commenting on the reorganization, Behzad Nabavi, leader of the “Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization,” a faction within the regime, said, “The new appointees are mainly inexperienced individuals with no professional expertise in running elections.” (State-run daily Aftab, May 12)
Mousavi Ardebili, former head of the regime’s judiciary, also unveiled other forms of forging ballots and said, “They give money to people to buy their votes. You cannot gain votes by lies and giving away money.” (Aftab daily, May 10)
People of Iran will boycott the regime’s sham election decisively as they did in previous cases. This is basically due to the fact that elections in Iran are only aimed to consolidate the religious dictatorship and settle the share of power among factions within the regime. The common denominator among the factions is their involvement in killings, suppression, export of fundamentalism and terrorism and plundering of the wealth of the Iranian people.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
May 13, 2009