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Wednesday
June 6, 2001

Third term?!

Dr Farhad Behbahani ["Cheraa Khatami?"] in his presentation respecting why Iranians inside Iran should vote for Khatami, has thrown in the idea that Mr Khatami may be suitable to be elected for a third term in office as well.

Does he not know that according to the Iranian constitution one person can only be elected twice as the president? Or have Iranian intellectuals like Dr Behbahani taken it upon themselves to alter the Islamic Republic's constitution according to their whims and likings and by doing so created a new idol out of Khatami for Iranians inside Iran?

Why should a doctor think that there is only one man amongst 60 million Iranians who can be as good as Khatami? Why should our intellectuals, academics, think-tanks not know that too much power invested in any one person would necessarily lead to corruption, absence of democracy and authoritarianism inside Iran? Pluralism is the answer to the Iranian problem not a new brand of absolutism which will have the support of Iranian intellectuals and academics.

Let me assure Dr Behbahani and his likes that by doing what they are doing now, i.e. ignoring IR's constitution (violating it really) which states clearly that no one person can be elected to the office of IR's presidency more than two terms, they are either knowingly or unwittingly contributing to the re-establishment of fascism and dictatorship inside Iran.

Why worship one man to the extent that you want him to rule over you for ever and ever? Why should men like Dr Behbahani not learn about the basics of democracy for the sake of knowing that in a democracy no one can be on top/head of state for ever and ever? Only by knowing these things they will inevitably become aware that people/parties must constantly be engaged in the task of education, training, bring up new presidents and new cabinet ministers so that numerous able men and women will form the ruling class of Iran today and in the future!

For even cabinet ministers must not be allowed to serve more than two terms, i.e. they too must end their terms with the president who has come to the end of his second term in office. Why should doctors like Mr Behbahani not be weary of what they are doing to the constitution of Iran?

Speaking of a third term for Mr Khatami is no less than attempting to eliminate the only good thing in the IR Constitution. And why they are doing this? Is it not because they wish to create new idols who will have the right to tear Iran and its people to pieces yet again? Are men like Mr Behbahani not looking for Rostams and/or Afrasiabs to re-emerge/come alive in the Person of Mr Khatami and hopefully live up to their expectations of them by making conditions inside Iran to their advantage and theirs only at the expense of all other hopeful Iranians, some of whom have the right to be hopeful that they too one day will become President or head of state in Iran?

Sincerely,

Rana Bahar

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