common denominator for factions is
involvement in murder and suppression What is more interesting is how the Western media spins the elections as being something between “hardliners” and “moderates”, but when the so called reformists are viewed under the lens, it becomes clear that the whole election process in nothing more than a blue smoke and mirrors charade.For example in today’s Helsingin Sanomat, journalist, Eveliina Saarinen, clearly takes the line that the Iranian election is one of the “Old Guards” pitted against the “Reformers”, though the hard line Mullahs control all of the political strings. Once again, lessons from history have not been learnt concerning how much emphasis one can reasonably put on an election taking place within a dictatorship.FrontPageMag has an interesting article on it, by Lisa Daftari, who does the needed job of brushing away the hype over the vote. What’s left is a clear image of what remains, a badly, but tightly run state that maintains its slight of hand artistry as did the Soviet Union before its happy implosion. Read up and don’t be fooled by the media’s hype of the direction Iran will take if Ahmadinejad gets the boot, the Mullahs’ have more than one leash in their hands. KGSIran’s Sham Elections
In the final hours before Iran’s 10th presidential race, some political groups inside the country and abroad were urging Iranians to boycott the election, calling it a “sham,” “another means to consolidate the religious fascism’s domination over the country” and “already been predetermined by the mullahs.” These were some of the reasons cited in a statement put forth by the National Council of Resistance of Iran in support of their boycott of the election, one of a long list of opposition groups working to keep Iranians out of the polls.
This year’s election, to be held today, Friday June 12, has been a unique one in the 30-year lifeline of Iran’s Islamic regime. The race is between four candidates who have been under-examined and oversimplified into a neat package of two conservatives—incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Mohsen Rezai and two so-called moderates—former Prime Minister Mir-Hussein Mousavi and former Speaker of the Majles Mehdi Karoubi.
“The common denominator for factions is their involvement in murder and suppression of the Iranian people, plundering the national wealth, as well as exporting terrorism and fundamentalism abroad,” said the Secretariat of the NCRI. “That is why the Iranian nation’s response to such theatrics, which are performed under the banner of elections, is nothing but a boycott.”
Those in favor of boycotting comprise a long list of mostly opposition groups as well as prominent individuals such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, student activist Heshmat Tabarzadi, the longest serving political prisoner in Iran’s history Abbas Amir Entezam,famus writer Simin Behbahani and Dr. Mohammad Maleki, former head of Tehran University.
There were similar movements to boycott the last Iranian election in 2005 that brought Ahmadinejad to power. In 1997, 80% of Iranians came to the polls to overwhelming put their support behind Mohammad Khatami. Disappointed that Khatami, a highly publicized and zealous reformist candidate was not able to live up to the hopes and dreams of Iranians yearning for change and new freedoms, many boycotted the next election, allowing Ahmadinejad to take the presidency. Most young Iranians recall that the boycott was actually to the detriment of Iran’s political and social well-being, however, it seems that for some disillusioned Iranians, it is still the only way their voices can be heard.
“The creation of these elections is degrading to people because it’s all fake. There are no publicly elected positions. The supreme leader calls all the shots,” said a 23 year old Iranian American from Los Angeles whose current Facebook status says: “Keyvan Mehrabi is not voting in the Islamic Republic’s election out of principle. I will not entertain the constitution drawn up by a ruthless tyrant who butchered our people.”
Though Mehrabi is eligible to vote in Iran, he “did not bother to register,” he said. Mehrabi would have been able to cast his vote at one of 35 voting stations that the Islamic Republic has planned to station in the United States alone. There are rumors that American Iranians will attempt to shut down these polls through protests and other legal action.
“They try to keep people occupied with this fake political system on the outside while they run a corrupt government in the background, and to entertain this system is to just indulge in their corruption,” Mehrabi said, frustrated at how the elections might give off a false impression to the international media about Iran’s government.
