March 04, 2003

Iran election 'an alarm bell'

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has appealed against voter apathy after his reformist allies suffered their worst electoral defeat in six years.

The high abstention at the elections was an "alarm bell for the future" and could breed "disappointment and disenchantment with the whole system", the president said.

Returns showed a national turnout of 49%, and just 12% in the capital, Tehran.

Conservatives took 14 out of 15 council seats in Tehran alone, in a vote they said was a blow to "Western-influenced groups".

One of President Khatami's allies, Mostafa Tajzadeh, said the vote, in which reformists failed to field joint candidates, was a defeat for the whole of Iran.
[...]"But it was a bigger defeat for the whole establishment because a large majority of people simply refused to vote."

Mr Tajzadeh, who stood unsuccessfully in Tehran, warned that disenchantment with the political system could drive people to "move beyond the system, reforms and legal opposition".
[I think that's Khomeini dissident-speak for "revolution."--J.T.]
[...]"Friday's polls mean people feel their vote in the past few years has been disrespected and is useless," said Mr Tajzadeh.

"It means people have lost hope of seeking democratic changes through the ballot."

Amin Sabooni, a columnist in the English-language Iran Daily, wrote that supporters of reform were disillusioned with their politicians:

"What the nation got was broken promises, confused priorities, internecine feuds pitting reformists against their rivals and the nonsensical conspiracy theory."
[...]
It was the second time local elections had taken place since their introduction in 1999 as part of President Khatami's concept of a civil society at the grassroots level.

Many of the estimated 41 million eligible voters were under the age of 30.

I'm still not quite sure what this non-vote means, but I'm fairly certain it's not good for the Ayatollah's regime.
It sounds like the Iranian people have just given up on the system and that they know their "elections" are all a sham of representative government with the consent of the governed.
When President Bush speaks of bringing democracy and real democratic reforms to Islamic systems in the Middle East, you know the Iran of the mullahs is one of the places he's talking about!
And these fraudulent "elections" are just like the ones held by Arafat and Saddam in recent months and years, IOW they are no better than the one-candidate "races" held in the old Soviet Union.
And then there's Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and Syria who don't even "bother" their folks with elections at all...
Hold on, Iran.
We're going to be right next door very, very soon!