Jahanshah Rashidian

Prior to the 2009 Iran's presidential election, a voting campaign was widely organised by the IRI and propagated by pro-IRI's media both in and outside the country to bring as much people as possible to the urns to vote for one of the Mullahs' candidates. A massive participation was announced by the regime as a proof positive that the IRI is legitimate. As Khamenei has constantly said, each vote is above all a "yes" to the Islamic regime". In the West, with the help of IRI's lobby groups, exported journalists, resident Islamists, state mafia close to different candidates, this demagogical campaign was to portray a legitimate and reformable image of the IRI. 
 
A part of Iranian secular opposition, hoping that their vote to a "reformist" candidate would be considered as a "no" to Khamenei and his favourable candidate, President Ahmadinejad, fell into the regimes' trap and voted Mousavi or Kahroubi as the lesser evils in a naive attempt to run President Ahmadinejad out of office.   

In actuality, since the inception of the IRI, there have never been fair elections in Iran. Firstly, all candidates are pre-selected by the Guardians Council, a watchdog institution that has the power to reject any candidates. Secondly, all elections have been rigged and fraudulent so far that among the pre-selected candidates by the Guardians Council, the regime capriciously picks one out of the urns.

To look into the background of these four presidential candidates, we see their direct involvement in the crimes, repressive institutions, and the key government positions in the last thirty years of Mullahs 'regime: 

Apart from President Ahmadinejad, who is notorious for his thuggish behaviour and his black background in the repressive institutions of the regime, the other candidates have not a better past. 

Mohsen Rezaie was head of the Revolutionary Guards for over 10 years, Mehdi Kahroubi was a former parliamentary speaker, Mir Hossein Mousavi was PM for 8 years during Khomeini's leadership. During this time, thousands of dissidents were summarily executed. As a Hezbollah and a disciple of Khomeini and a PM of Ali Khameini, Mousavi's hands were washed in the blood of many Iranians. The 1988 massacre of political prisoners which war ordered by Khomeini was helped by his Ministry of Information. During the Iran-Iraq War, his regime sent thousands of Iranians children onto the mine in the war zone. 
 
After the 1979 revolution, new waves of people's struggles against the ruling dictatorship have already started in Iran. They will gradually take form during the process of struggle; they are in their nature different from the issues of "reformist" opposition. Most people, even those who voted for the lesser evils, are not really concerned about power struggles within the Islamic regime. They want an end of the whole Islamic regime.  
 
Most Iranians especially the youth want a separation of religion from state; they wish a secular and democratic state. Hence, if they intensify their today's struggles, they will gradually separate their ranks of struggles from the power struggle-related rallies of "reformist" opposition. Of course these rallies may not take a long time and will extinguish as soon as an inner compromise has been acheived, but the longer these take, the more polarised and organised the real opposition to the whole regime will be, to the point that they not only cry "death to dictator"-- hinting the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, -- but also will directly target the whole regime by shouting across the whole country "death to the IRI". The polarisation of our society does not forcibly mean a class issues; it assumes above all a freedom from the plague of the IRI and consequently a transformation of the power to people's representatives. 

Of course many of people working for the IRI-- those who do not have people's blood on their hands--are welcome to join the ranks of people, but this is only possible if people's struggles turns into a solid and continuous freedom movement. We can not expect a Mullahs' pre-selected president-- Mousavi or Ahmadinejad alike-- to join the camp of people because a freedom movement targets the whole Islamic regime by rejecting any form of political Islam.

Of course, in terms of their loyalty to the Supreme Leader and Islam as an ideology of state, there is no difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi, but let us see in the case of an odd twist of irony, if Mousavi wants to consolidate people's position, he is constitutionally not in the position to do so. Under the cover of an Islamic regime, no president has such a power to clean up Mullahs and pave the path for a real democracy in Iran-- presidential position is constitutionally so powerless that no president can challenge the Supreme Leader. The Islamic Constitution lets little power for the president vis-à-vis the absolute power of the Supreme Leader who rules over powers of both executive, legislative, and judiciary. 

The question nowadays is how Iranian people can one day acquire their full freedom and what steps must be tactically taken initially. We should give our people respect for the courageous struggles they are presently showing with the empty hands against one of the most brutal regime of our history. In a long-term into the future, it is advised that our heroic people with the kind of self-organisation, self-esteem, courage, and patience needed for a regime change in Iran, must firstly consolidate their ranks before any premature rupture with the ranks of better organised "reformist" opposition. 

It is evident and quite predictable that to halt the vibrancy of people's struggles, there is a possible compromise in the air between a "reformist" president candidate like Mousavi and the Supreme Leader. In such a case, whoever the next president, the regime will spread its bloody clutches for other four or eight years. If the Iranians who want a regime change give up their ongoing struggles, they will dig their own graves. Therefore, these people must use the current protest actions to recruit, organise, and plan their further and final freedom-struggles. 

Gaps between people and any faction of the regime, including Mousavi, emerge and persist as long as the Islamic regime exists. Most of the gaps in daily attitudes of people can be flagrantly perceived. This is what substantially explains the lack of an Islamic influence in our new generation who desire a secular Iran. This ideal is of course ignored by the regime and its "reformist" candidates. Different segments of Iranian society are aware that under the IRI all Islamic inequalities are justified in so far as they are the consequences of three decades of repression in Iran--Man vs. woman, "sayyed" (Muhammad's descendants) vs. non-sayyed, Muslim vs. non-Muslim, insider vs. outsider, etc.

Although, the younger generation suffers from a tangible lack of leadership, they have experienced with their flesh and blood the plague of the Islamic regime. They know that the IRI is essentially incompatible to be reformed and the main problem of Iran is the IRI entirely, not a scapegoat of it called today "hardliners" or else.

Because of a 14-century domination of an intolerant belief system over all aspects of Iranian social life, subjects like Islam and the related issues have not been discussed by Iranian intellectuals. There has been a fear among people to talk about these matters. Therefore, issues like secularism, democracy, modernity, social justice, gender equality, independence from foreign domination of "Islamo-Arab" culture, have not been serious civic issues of the past generations. Today, thanks to the plague of Mullahs' regime, the youth generation are more aware of such issues and this awareness creates the main gap between the Islamic regime, which in people's consciousness represents an inspiration of a new "Islamo-Arab" invasion, and the Iranian civic society in struggles for freedom, democracy, and secularism.