Saeed Rahnema, Open Canada:
On June 18, Iranians will witness yet another political farce known as presidential elections.
In every presidential election for the past 42 years, Iranians have had to choose the lesser evil from among pre-approved candidates.
The failed 1979 Iranian Revolution, which had democracy as its main demand, ended up instead with a system of government known as the “Absolute Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist,” in which the “supreme leader” is the absolute ruler and an appointed “Guardian Council” of clerics and Islamic lawyers is charged with weeding out non-desirable candidates for the presidency and parliament.
Prospective politicians who pass muster with the Guardian Council usually belong to one of the two factions of the Islamist ruling bloc — “principlists,” referring to conservative, right-wing Islamists, or “reformers,” meaning those who would like to see some adjustments to the way Iran is governed but don’t advocate major change.
For this year’s elections, however, many Iranians have decided not to bother voting for any of the choices on offer. A recent poll by the semi-official Iranian Students Polling Agency revealed that 32 per cent of respondents said they would not vote “under any circumstances,” while 34 per cent said they certainly would.
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