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Friday, 24 June 2005 |
 These election results as the regime's attempt to tighten its
control and to present a united, hard-line front as it sprints to
develop the bomb under cover of the talks.
A rigged election, no reformist victory.
The Wall Street Journal
The most astonishing aspect of Friday's presidential vote in Iran is
not that the elections will go into a second round but that Tehran
managed to convince so many in the West that this is a real
demonstration of democracy.
All power is held by Supreme Leader Ali Khameni, his Council of
Guardians and the small clique of military officers and businessmen
around him. The Council disqualified more than 1,000 candidates before
the election, vetting only contestants who support the regime's
ideological lines. The example of outgoing "reformist" President
Mohammad Khatami, who presided over eight years of economic decline and
worsening repression, has proven that the President cannot change
anything against the Council's will.
The one number worth parsing in Friday's election is that of voter
participation. Many Iranians had called for a boycott as the only way
of showing resistance. Knowing this, the mullahs seem to have taken
their usual election manipulations to another level. Intimidation by
the Revolutionary Guards and the fact that proof of voting is needed
for certain jobs and welfare payments have always pushed up turnout.
Still, voter participation has steadily declined in the past few years
to barely 50%.
But this time turnout was 62.7%, exactly the level Supreme Leader
Khameni had predicted. "Something is fishy here," Patrick Clawson, who
follows Iran for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told
us. Contradicting all reports about the mood in the country ahead of
the vote, hard-line candidates received unprecedented support, while
the main reformist candidate, Mustafa Moin, came in fifth. Mr. Moin
also suggested the elections were rigged, but since the regime allows
no neutral observers the real extent of fraud or Iranian discontent
can't be known.
The runoff election will now have former President Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani facing hard-line Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who
surprised Western observers by finishing second. Neither man is a
moderate in any Western sense. Mr. Rafsanjani stood by the late
Ayatollah Khomeini from the first day of the Iranian revolution and was
in power as Iran promoted international terror and rounded up political
prisoners. He is also the father of Iran's nuclear program and openly
mused in 2001 that the Islamic world would need only one nuclear bomb
to destroy Israel.
The temptation will be strong, especially in Europe, to consider Mr.
Rafsanjani to be the regime's "pragmatist" and someone who can be
trusted to agree to end Iran's uranium enrichment program in return for
the right "economic incentives." But it's more accurate to read these
election results as the regime's attempt to tighten its control and to
present a united, hard-line front as it sprints to develop the bomb
under cover of the talks.
Writing on these pages last week, Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian Nobel Peace
laureate, warned the West against offering any concessions to the
regime, urging Europe and the U.S. instead to help Iran's democracy
movement by highlighting Iran's human rights violations. One day before
the vote, President Bush finally reached out to the Iranian people:
"Today, Iran is ruled by men who suppress liberty at home and spread
terror across the world. Power is in the hands of an unelected few who
have retained power through an electoral process that ignores the basic
requirements of democracy. .. And to the Iranian people, I say: As you
stand for your own liberty, the people of America stand with you."
Unfortunately, Iranians are still waiting to hear from Europe. |
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