Iran’s Raisi Calls For 'Spectacular Election' Amid Rigging Concerns
Expecting low voter turnout, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has called on state officials to make sure that the parliamentary elections on March 1 will be “spectacular.”
Expecting low voter turnout, Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi has called on state officials to make sure that the parliamentary elections on March 1 will be “spectacular.”
On the same day, two former Interior Ministry officials warned about possible election manipulation.
Despite his government's inability to address the country's multiple crises since he assumed office in August 2021, Raisi urged officials "to solve societal issues, inspire hope, and motivate the people to achieve a high turnout," aligning with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's call.
While Raisi's comments may have sounded like mere slogans, they shared a commonality with Khamenei's statement made a day earlier: both leaders addressed officials rather than the people, whom they desperately need to turn out at the polls.
Despite his seemingly agnostic demeanor, it appears that Raisi is aware of the root cause of Iranians' reluctance to vote, which is a lack of motivation and hope. In other words, he recognizes that his government and the entire Islamic regime of Iran have lost their legitimacy. Both leaders' solution to this problem is to rally officials to encourage people to participate in the elections.
Many Iranian scholars and even regime insiders have been saying during the year that long standing political and economic impasses have eroded people's hope the future. Consequently, most individuals and businesses struggle to plan beyond the next week.
Moreover, political biases enforced by hardline bodies like the Guardian Council and excessive pressures on the people through unhelpful legislation that threatens national interests have created significant rifts between the government and the nation, leaving the populace with little motivation for political engagement.
Nonetheless, this is one area where officials cannot take action without the people's active participation. The Iranian government, which has prioritized the interests of Hamas over the long-neglected demands of the Iranian people in the past three months, is now attempting to motivate unpopular officials to drive voter participation.
At the same time, hardliners in Iran, including Raisi and his father-in-law, Ahamd Alamolhoda, the firebrand Friday Imam of Mashhad, deny the existence of this problem. Alamolhoda said last week that economic problems would not stop the people from going to the polls. Some politicians speculate that Alamolhoda is likely to intervene in the election process by issuing a list of his preferred ultraconservatives candidates.
Meanwhile, two former Deputy Interior Ministers for Political Affairs, have warned that the Election Headquarters' decision to accept documents other that official ID cards from voters increases the likelihood of election manipulation in March. They also noted that the off-line voting system in many polling stations could lead to "errors" in vote counting.
The election headquarters has allowed voters to use documents such as driving licenses, smart cards (e.g., certificates of completion of compulsory military service), and passports for identification at polling stations, potentially facilitating multiple voting by individuals.
Ali Asghar Ahmadi and Mohammad Hossein Moghimi, who worked under the Rouhani Administration said only using the smart ID card will effectively eliminate the possibility of multiple voting by one individual.
All those problems aside, some reformists still insist that they are not likely to vote in the upcoming election.Reform Front Spokesman Javad Emam said: "We won't take part in meetings [with top officials] for begging or compromise." Referring to the disqualification of reformist candidates and Raisi's recent meeting with politicians and party leaders, he said: "Even Raisi has questioned the validity of Guardian Council's vetting." At that meeting, Raisi said "everybody is qualified to run for election unless the contrary is proved."
Masih Mohajeri’s comments to a news website in Tehran appear as an indirect message to the country’s 84-year-old ruler Ali Khamenei, although he mentions President Ebrahim Raisi’s embattled government.
Mohajeri, a cleric, was a regime insider since the very early days of the Islamic Republic and the editor of Jomhuri-e Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper for more than 40 years. He also served two presidents in the 1990s and early 2000s as advisor. However, he has been one of the few conservative voices in the country who have been sounding the alarm in recent years, arguing that the regime is going astray in many political and economic areas.
Ironically, his newspaper’s publication permit is registered to Ali Khamenei himself, who established the paper in the early 1980s as the official organ of the Islamic Republican Party, the governing clerical coalition following the 1979 revolution.
"We used to think during [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's time that the worst government this country had seen was Ahmadinejad's government,” Mohajeri said, adding that now he believes the Raisi administration is much worse.
However, what bothers him, Mohajeri indicated, is that "No one listens, and the gentlemen who are in charge do whatever they want, pay no attention to warnings, and don't even consider warnings as friendly advice. They label it as pessimism and negative portrayal of the situation and are not willing to accept that they too are human and may make mistakes."
Many Iranians would instinctively assume that Mr. Mohajeri is addressing Khamenei, since the current political reality is ultimately his creation.
Many of the ultraconservatives currently ruling in Iran are former allies and officials of Ahmadinejad, with an overall bad reputation in terms of mis-governance during 2005-2013, when he was president.
They came to power in the 2020 parliamentary and the 2021 presidential elections, after the all-powerful Guardian Council, controlled by Khamenei, barred many other regime insiders from running for office.
Mohajeri spoke fondly of late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 at an old age, but under controversial circumstances. He argued that Rafsanjani was a problem solver who often prevented challenges from turning into crises.
His praise for the man, who in 1989 helped Khamenei become Supreme Leader, is another indication that Mohajeri was driving a message home. It is said that Khamenei did not like Rafsanjani’s wide-ranging influence and helped curtail it in the years before his death. However, in his interview, Mohajeri was indirectly comparing Khamenei to his rival.
Mohajeri was asked if there is any chance to transition from the current political situation, in the same way that Hassan Rouhani was elected in 2013, following Ahmadinejad’s two terms in office. He replied that there are politicians who can forge a transition, but they are not allowed to play a role.
Once again, indirectly referring to Khamenei, the old Islamic revolutionary said, “These conditions will only change if the top leadership decides to make elections competitive, free, and fair so that people have the maximum incentive to participate. These points are often talked about regarding elections, but they are not put into action. It has been this way until now, so we cannot hope for moderate individuals, who can make a difference, to come forward and take charge anytime soon.”