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Mullahs set the stage for large-scale fraud in presidential election sham |
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Wednesday, 15 June 2005 |
 Parallel with the public’s widespread apathy toward the
presidential election sham and the enthusiastic response to the call
for a boycott by the Iranian Resistance, the clerical regime has
resorted to new ploys to engage in fraud, vote fixing and inflating the
turnout.
The Iranian Resistance’s President-elect Maryam Rajavi urged a boycott of the election three months ago.
One of the transparent tactics to understate the scale of the boycott
is to lower the number of eligible voters. Four days ago, the Interior
Ministry put that number at 46.7 million (Mehr news agency, June 11).
Before the February 2004 parliamentary election, the Interior Ministry
put the number at 46.35 million. This means that in the 16 months since
then, the number of eligible voters grew by only 350,000 people.
Yet, according to government figures, 1.25 million are added the
country’s over-16 population every year, meaning that since the
parliamentary elections, the number of eligible voters grew by 1.7
million. Needless to say, the actual number of eligible voters in
February 2004 was more than the figure announced by the Interior
Ministry.
So extensive is the dimension of the fraud that Gholamhossein
Karbaschi, a confidant of Hashemi Rafsanjani and former Mayor of
Tehran, said yesterday, “We hear from various corners that some have
mobilized their forces and intend to engage in unlawful actions and
fraud” (IRNA, June 14).
Officials have also sanctioned voting with birth certificates that
carry no photographs, paving the way for casting ballots with fake
birth certificates and those of deceased persons. They have also
sanctioned voting abroad with both birth certificates and passports so
that their operatives could vote twice.
At the same time, there are reports of widespread intervention by the
Revolutionary Guards and para-military Bassij force in the election
sham. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered each of them to take 10
people to the voting stations. Judiciary spokesman said last week that
the Bassijis were not considered as military personnel and could take
part in the election campaign actively.
The Interior Minister Abdolvahed Moussavi-Lari also claimed that more
than 50 percent of the eligible voters would take part in the election
masquerade, setting the stage for inflating the turnout several fold.
Such an absurd claim comes at a time when terrified of a nationwide
boycott, the mullahs’ leaders have resorted desperately to an
assortment of propaganda schemes and marketing techniques as well as
hollow promises to inject some life into the election farce.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
June 15, 2005 |
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