NCRI – As the Iranian regime’s sham election is being ignored and faces popular boycott, Ali Khamenei has resorted to issuing ridiculous fawas to at least get the regime’s discouraged forces to partake in the elections.
In a series of fatwas published by the state-run Fars New Agency, Ali Khamenei declared: “Participation in the elections is a religious, Islamic and divine duty” and an “obvious obligation”. He insists in his fatwas that casting blank votes is ‘haram’ (proscribed by Islamic law). Concerning women he stipulates that “husband’s consent is not needed to participate in the elections”. This is while according to fatwas by Khomeini, the founder of the regime, and other state clerics, a woman “should not leave home without the permission of her husband even if to see her relatives, pay a visit to her sick father, or to participate in her father’s funeral”.
While the candidates of rival factions have been eliminated by the Guardian Council on Khamenei’s orders, many forces and circles associated with the regime publicly describe participation in the election as useless. Issuing these ridiculous fatwas by Khamenei is nothing but an acknowledgement of the loath and abhorrence of the people for the entirety of this sinister regime and its election theatrics.
In tandem, on February 17, Khamenei whole-heartedly defended the Guardian Council and called for widespread participation in the sham elections. “Enemies want to ruin the elections; to ruin the Guardian Council; to question the decisions of the Guardian Council. To spoil the Guardian Council is to spoil the elections or to spoil the parliament. Election is for defending the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic system; it symbolizes defending the country and the national honor; it is for this reason that I tell the Iranian nation to participate and declare your opinion,” he said.
Khamenei’s demagogic remarks and fatwas and regime’s deceptive and oppressive measures shall only aggravate popular abhorrence for this anti-nationalistic theatrics and doubles the popular resolve for the establishment of democracy that will only come about with the overthrow of this regime. Whatever the outcome of this election, it will only exacerbate the crises within the religious fascism and severely weaken the regime in its entirety.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
February 18, 2016
