About twenty years old, thin, petite, long dark hair loose, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. This is the description of the young woman who addressed a team from Iranian public television in Tehran at the intersection of Vali Asr and Azadi main streets last Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. (3:30 p.m. in mainland Spain). The girl tore off her obligatory veil and T-shirt in front of the camera, and, dressed in a bra, began waving the garment over her head and shouting: “Elections without votes” and “[los iraníes]We will not vote.” According to the account of two witnesses accessed by this newspaper, members of the Iranian security forces beat her while they tried to cover her with a chador, the black robe that covers women from head to toe. They then dragged her to a van, which drove off with her on board.
The cameras were there to cover a student debate about the two elections taking place in Iran this Friday: the legislative elections and those of the Assembly of Experts, the body that is renewed every eight years and is responsible for choosing the Supreme Leader's successor is .of the country, something that could happen in this mandate; the current one, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 84 years old. Both elections are the first in the country after protests sparked by the death on September 16, 2022, of Mahsa Yina Amini, a young Kurdish woman who was arrested in Tehran three days earlier and accused of not wearing her hijab have. His death in police custody sparked a wave of anti-regime demonstrations that were crushed with a repression that left at least 500 people dead in exile, according to Iranian human rights NGOs. Another 22,000 were arrested and eight young men were hanged.
The rejection expressed by these protests can still be seen today in gestures of civil disobedience, such as the thousands of Iranians who forego the veil. Added to this distancing is a severe economic crisis with inflation of around 50%. In this context, the challenge for authorities is to achieve an acceptable participation rate. Especially since the result of the vote is known in advance: an overwhelming majority of ultra-conservatives in parliament and complete control of these candidates by the assembly of experts. The regime's prior pre-selection of candidates for both bodies has eliminated any other possibility, as almost all reformist candidates who believe that Iran's political system can be changed from within were rejected.
Since the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, declared in 1979 that the popular vote was “the measure of the policy of the state,” the country's leaders have used participation data from previous election rallies, in cases exceeding 70%. to legitimize yourself. Iran expert Saeid Golkar, professor of political science at the University of Tennessee (USA), describes it as a “facade of democracy” in which the ballot boxes are set up, but which do not decide on the distribution of power, “just like…” Others Authoritarian regimes do that.”
“Facade of Legitimacy”
“Elected institutions in Iran are only there to create this façade of legitimacy. They have no other function than to enable a clientelistic distribution of wealth among the supporters of the regime and especially Ayatollah Khamenei,” says the expert.
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If, as forecasts predict, a very high proportion of Iran's 61 million voters abstain from voting, this legitimation mechanism would be disrupted. The regime's crisis of legitimacy, already reflected in the poor voter turnout in the 2020 elections (42.57%), would worsen. The suppression of the protests caused by the death of Mahsa Amini is another factor that suggests that this number could be even lower this Friday, Golkar emphasizes: “Each new cycle of oppression convinces more and more Iranians not to vote, Because they know that. “Nothing will change.”
Less than 28% of Iranian voters were confident about voting in December, according to a survey by the ruling Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA). Another poll from the same agency this Wednesday pushes that number to 41%, while another poll from the Washington-based Middle East Institute estimates turnout at 34% of voters. Golkar believes those numbers will be even lower in major cities like Tehran, where he says participation could drop to 10 to 15 percent.
Political scientist Ali Alfoneh of the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington (AGSIW) points out: “In Iran, the mere fact of participating in elections, regardless of who the people elect, is perceived by the regime as a renewal.” “Loyalty” to the supreme leader, he assures. From Tehran, Iranologist Raffaele Mauriello, professor at Allameh Tabataba'i University, underlines that voting “is a fundamental element of legitimacy in the Iranian political system, along with other elements such as religious legitimacy.”
On Tuesday, the Supreme Leader again urged people to vote, calling those who called for abstention “enemies of Iran.” This Thursday, the Iranian exile media Iranwire reported on the arrest of 50 bloggers in the northwestern province of Azerbaijan. They are accused of “inciting abstention”.
No opposition
Both the more than 15,000 candidates for the 290 seats in parliament and the 144 candidates for one of the 88 positions in the Council of Experts were preselected by the Guardian Council, an institution consisting of twelve Islamic jurists, six of whom are elected directly by Khamenei. The vast majority of reformist candidates had previously been disqualified, meaning they could not even stand for election. Only about thirty have been approved to take part, with even fewer expected to be elected, meaning their presence in Parliament will be irrelevant. Even some conservative candidates were excluded because they were not seen as sufficiently loyal to the supreme leader.
The preselection of candidates for the Assembly of Experts was even more restrictive than for parliament, which some analysts interpreted as an attempt to maintain the status quo after the death of the supreme leader. Even former President Hassan Rouhani was barred from running for re-election to the assembly that will elect Khamenei's successor.
Under these circumstances, the Reform Front, which brings together about twenty reformist organizations, refused to take part in elections that it described as “meaningless, non-competitive, free or fair.” According to the Persian edition of the Voice of America radio station, this Thursday teachers unions called on teachers not to vote.
Activists who supported the recent protests against the regime also called for a boycott. 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi posted a letter on her Instagram account earlier this week with this request: “Boycotting elections under a despotic religious regime is not a political act, but a moral obligation for Iranians who love justice.” Mohammadi is serving a 10-year sentence in Evin Prison in Tehran.
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