BY Bahman Badiee
Source: The Miami Herald, June 3, 2009
Controversial elections may be all too familiar for Floridians. But the often adultered Iranian presidential contest transcends mere controversy. Despite what a few in the West may think, the Iranian people will not partake in the June 2009 presidential vote, and regrettably, we are not witnessing an evolution toward democracy in that country.
Three of the regime's top candidates are part of the ''principalist'' faction led by the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has secured a vote of confidence from the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad, and the other two principalist contenders, Muhammad Qalibaf and Mohsen Rezai, are all former commanders of the regime's feared Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The so-called reformist camp has nominated Mirhossein Moussavi, a former prime minister during the Iran-Iraq war. It is widely believed that he has moved the political fault line in favor of principalists. A government sanctioned poll released on April 13, 2009, predicted he would receive only 28.9 percent of the votes. The final candidate is Mehdi Karoubi, a cleric, who complained bitterly last time around about vote rigging and ballot irregularities after his loss in the 2005 elections.
In the midst of this race, some argue that Iran is at the precipice of an evolutionary leap, where the turbaned elites have apparently been marginalized by plain-clothed pragmatists. To these experts, moreover, the ongoing debate about election fraud is an indicator of a healthy and competitive campaign. Iranian leaders, they say, are overcoming a steep learning curve toward democracy.
Opponents of this view offer an entirely different set of facts to suggest that the ruling mullahs are incapable of engaging in any truly democratic exercise. They point out that since the early 1980s, Iran's electoral system and people's voices have been rendered insignificant by the totalitarian doctrine of velayet-e faqih, or absolute clerical rule, which firmly grounds the full authority of the supreme leader in all political, economic and social spheres.
In fact, the mullahs' rule is not in any way progressing, but rather faltering, primarily because of a lack of popular support. The mullahs of Iran preserve their power primarily through spreading fear among the population, for example through executions (nearly 400 in 2008). The mix of candidates is not a sign of genuine pluralism, but demonstrative of the inevitable deadlock gripping the ruling mafias vying for power. Only rhetoric and the degree of Khamenei's confidence toward them separate the three leading principalists, for example.
The false ''reform'' promises of Mohammad Khatami, who was in office from 1997 to 2008, indicate that the so-called reformist Moussavi's pledges of greater freedom and democracy ring hollow to the people's ears. Iranians recall that during his premiership in the 1980s, tens of thousands of dissidents were brutally executed.
In an open letter this month, Dr. Mohammad Maleki, the first post-revolution chancellor of Tehran University, articulated the absurdity of Iran's ''comical'' election drama, saying, “They [the candidates] pretend that they had not even the slightest role or responsibility during the past 30 years for creating all this poverty, prostitution, theft and bribery, which has gripped this society.''
The regime feels vulnerable at home. In 2008, there were more than 7,000 reported acts of protest across Iran. As the IRGC's commander, Gen. Ali Jafari, recently warned, ''We are not afraid of foreign threats. We are more worried about domestic ones.'' Additionally, the sharp slump in oil prices has devastated the regime's economic policies, leading to a $44 billion budget deficit.
In light of these facts, Iranian voters will almost certainly boycott the 2009 presidential election as they have done in the past. So, instead of investing in the mullahs' sham elections, President Barack Obama should empower the Iranian people. The United States should remove restrictions placed on Iran's largest opposition group, the People's Mojahedin of Iran, as a gesture of friendship toward the Iranian population. By recognizing the legitimacy of the Iranian peoples' struggle for democracy and truly free and fair elections, the U.S. president would encourage democracy in Iran while also strengthening his hand in diplomacy.
Bahman Badiee is president of the Iranian Society of South Florida in Miami.
