Ex-Official: Rouhani’s Election Disqualification Politically Motivated
A reformist politician has said the decision to bar former president Hassan Rouhani from running for re-election at the Assembly of Experts was politically motivated.
A reformist politician has said the decision to bar former president Hassan Rouhani from running for re-election at the Assembly of Experts was politically motivated.
The decision to disqualify Rouhani was the result of a coordinated attempt, said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a senior aide to former president Mohammad Khatami, in an interview with ILNA news website in Tehran on Saturday.
Abtahi hailed the former president as “a veteran administrator,” further adding that he could play a significant role at the Assembly of Experts at times of crisis.
Rouhani was the strongest actor “within the framework of succession issues,” Abtahi stated vaguely in reference to the constitutional role of the Assembly of Experts to choose a successor to Iran’s 84-year-old Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. His ambiguous statement failed to elucidate whether Rouhani could himself be considered as a successor to Khamenei or could exert his influence to elect the next leader.
The Guardian Council announced Rouhani’s disqualification on January 24th. Since then, the former president has appealed three times to the Guardian Council to demand the reasons behind this decision.
Earlier in November, Rouhani for the first time discussed possible arrangements to handle the situation after Khamenei's death.
Using the mildest language to evade Khamenei’s and his hardliner supporters' anger, he said, "May the Supreme Leader live long, but as the time passes, the day we would never want to come is more likely to arrive and the Assembly of Experts has to decide on the naming of the next Supreme Leader."
Many contend that the move to bar Rouhani was a deliberate attempt on the part of the hardliners to secure an easy and smooth transition of power to their preferred leadership candidate.
“All people, with any [political] inclination and belief, should enthusiastically participate in the elections," the Friday Imam of Yazd, the capital of a province of the same name in eastern Iran, told his congregation Friday.
Naser Mohammadi resorted to the argument that refusing to vote plays into the hands of "the enemy." He urged people to cast their ballots as a means of thwarting the plans of adversaries.
Other officials, such as Reza Deylami, the cultural deputy of the Islamic Propaganda Organization, have echoed similar sentiments, asserting that Iranian participation in the elections will serve as a blow to "the enemies" – referring to the United States, Western countries, and Israel.
"The enemies should await to be slapped in the face by the Iranian nation at ballot boxes,” he said. “We will avenge the blood of the martyrs of Kerman [bombing], Ghasem Soleimani, and the Resistance Front (Iran's allies in the region) at the ballot box," he added.
As in every election and following the decree of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei other regime officials such as Mostafa Mousavi-Esfahani, a member of the Assembly of Experts, insist that voting is a religious duty and the wish of those who sacrificed their lives for the country.
Despite differing political affiliations, officials and regime supporters have converged on the belief that voter turnout, rather than individual candidate selection, holds paramount importance in the elections. They openly admit that it is the regime’s legitimacy which is at stake.
Recently, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei once again appealed to the electorate to vote for the candidates the system has approved and claimed that the United States and other “enemies” desire a low turnout.
This apprehension regarding low voter turnout stems from the regime's longstanding assertion that high participation validates its legitimacy and signifies victory over external adversaries.
Candidates in the upcoming elections have undergone extensive vetting by various security bodies, including the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) intelligence organization and the Ministry of Intelligence. This process ensures the exclusion of political rivals from the competition.
Differences among candidates are quite minimal. Many former insiders, not only reformists but also most moderate conservatives, have been barred from running.
A recent survey by the Netherlands-based Gamaan institute found that nearly three quarter of all eligible voters who responded to its poll had decided not to vote including 39 percent of those who had voted in the parliamentary elections of 2020.
The same survey found that if a referendum was held, nearly 75 percent of its respondents would say no to the Islamic Republic.
Apathy among the general population seems to be so deep that many social media users with strong anti-regime sentiments apparently see no need to try to convince others to stay away from the ballots.
Hardliner regime supporters, however, seem to be very persistent in their efforts to convince people that their vote matters. “Those we prefer will be elected if you don’t vote. So, whose loss will it be, mine or yours?” a regime supporter tweeted with the hashtags “national power” and “people’s choice”.
For the first time in Iranian elections, voters’ birth certificates will not be stamped, and they can use other forms of identity documents such as passports to vote.
Head of Iran's civil registry organization, Hashem Kargar, who is a member of the election taskforce confirmed Friday that the practice of stamping birth certificates has been scraped but claimed that the organization has provided electronic data to the interior ministry to authenticate voters’ identity papers at the ballots.
Some social media users allege that accepting other forms of identity documents and scrapping the practice of stamping birth certificates without appropriate electronic infrastructures is meant to allow regime supporters to cast multiple votes.