The Mullahs’ regime of Iran has claimed victory in a general
election marked by the lowest turnout since the 1979 Islamic Revolution amid
public anger with 42.6% of eligible voters casting their ballots.
Several thousand contenders, including 90 mostly reformist
members of the current Majlis, were disqualified from standing by the Guardian
Council, a vetting committee loyal to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
This decision has further isolated the Iranian regime and is
highly expected to politically weaken President Hassan Rouhani.
This also led to the dissolution of a wide segment of citizens
who still had a slight hope of reforming the system, but today Iranian citizens
are reluctant to even participate in what they described as an “electoral
play.”
Iran’s clerical leadership disqualified more than 7,000
candidates from running this year, including most of the moderates and
centrists, paving the way for tougher domestic and foreign policies.
Moreover, about three-quarters of the current members of
Parliament, where moderates and centrists make up a near majority, were barred
from seeking re-election.
Experts believe the new Parliament is expected to embrace
extreme decisions against the United States and would be unlikely to support
efforts to end the nuclear crisis or end support for proxy militias and allies
across the Middle East.
The reluctance of voters to vote in the election and leaving
the parliament to the control of extremists is an important indication that
citizens are not relying on those mechanisms that are controlled by regime
agents, as a result of the lack of confidence.
Analysts say one of the main reasons for the low turnout in
Tehran was the public disillusionment following major events such the November
unrest that claimed up to 1,500 lives and the downing of a Ukrainian airliner
which claimed 176 lives. In both cases the public seems to have been deeply
annoyed by lack of transparency on the part of the government.
The polling stations were almost empty, after the game between
reformists and conservatives ended according to observers, as well as the
regime's attempt to produce a new game centered on the competition between
moderate and hard-core conservatives, which did not fool the people who
disbelieved in all forms of political polemics branded by the regime and its
revolutionary guards corps (IRGC).
Yasser Rafsanjani, the youngest son of Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, one of the principal architects of the Iranian revolution, has said
in a rare interview that the Iranian society became physically and politically
sick.
Critics said the conservatives’ triumph in the parliamentary
elections was nothing but an engineered victory that left reformists and
opposition members with tough choices about how to conduct politics in the
future.
The people were not convinced of the regime's performance in
managing any crisis, starting with the crisis with Washington and the
subsequent imposition of sanctions, as well as interventions in neighboring
countries, which drained a lot of money that the country desperately needs.
Public concern over the spread of coronavirus and the
government's initial denial of the problem may have also contributed to the low
turnout. Iran's state TV started broadcasting news about the contagion only
Sunday morning, offering advice to improve the situation of public health.
Therefore, the majority of Iranians are now convinced that the
regime is over, and is no longer able to perform its tasks, and that attempts
to reform are futile, with an entity that is deaf to their demands, considers advice and criticism an
unforgivable crime.