DEMOCRACY

Story of democracy in Iran had a disastrous turn in the year 1979 after Islamic revolution and, the elections under Islamic Republic which are supposed to be the means to enforce people’s will in democratic societies, are in fact nothing but another ridiculous game of deception and dishonesty by rulers of this tyrannical and extremely corrupt regime. Over ten years ago Iranian people showed their deep dissatisfaction with policies of terror and suppression in Islamic Republic by voting for a clergy who was campaigning with promises of change, justice, fairness and economic prosperity after so called moderate President Rafsanjani had completed his 2nd presidential term.

The landslide victory for Mohammad Khatami in that election which was result of unusually truly high turnout by the people at polling stations surprised leadership of Islamic regime that had predicted victory for their own candidate, Ayatollah Nateq-Noori. Islamic Republic did not have to resort to any cheating and use of under age or dead people’s ID cards to achieve this high number of voters like in their previous elections. This was an indication for new hopes about democracy among Iranians while many continued to hold on to their pessimistic positions.

The high hopes for transforming of tyrannical rule of clergies into a true democracy which were raised after presidential election did not last very long but Islamic regime managed to harvest the enthusiasm of people for a couple of years and give a democratic appearance to their deeply corrupted and extremely suppressive system.

During the same years, mafia style killing and disappearing of some journalists and opposition activists and leaders by Islamic Republic information ministry took place while elected President was busy with signing of all kind of unfair economic and military contracts with other governments and international corporations. These multi billion dollar contracts in fact did not accomplish anything for betterment of Iranian people, from which a big portion were living below poverty, but poured hefty commissions into the pockets of middle men like Mehdi Hashemi. 

Creation of so called “reformist movement” of a group of hopefuls who had been encouraged by people’s participation in presidential election around Mohammad Khatami, was in fact a byproduct of the election in 1997.  Swift reaction by ayatollah Khamenei and promise of investigating about source of wealth of “some people” right after this election and in a gathering of Islamic judges and prosecutors was sign of a new show in politics of Iran. Whether Mohammad Khatami was genuinely interested in enforcing any change in the system or not at that time, has been debated many times but the fact is that even if he was, the subsequent events proved that he was aiming for impossible.

First term of Mohammad Khatami’s presidency coincided with commitment of most heinous crimes against Iranian intellectual community and nationalist political figures inside the country by Islamic regime’s secret police. These horrifying crimes in fact had started in earlier years and fell out of secret with the help of two political activists and journalists who had sympathy for President Khatami and his so called “reform” movement.

Not much later, Mr. Akbar Ganji and Mr. Saeed Hajarian were both targeted by the part of the system that was implicated because of their disclosure of the secret criminal activities in ministry of information. These events and many others during presidency of Mr. Khatami were indicating that the real policy maker for Iranian government is not the elected president but someone else who has all the power tools in his possession and under his control.

Disappointment about possibility of change in Islamic government resulted in a considerable drop in number of voters in next presidential election and forced Islamic regime to invoke the old methods of election fraud to bring number of voters up and create a false impression about voter’s confidence and system’s legitimacy.

From that point on, all efforts of Islamic Republic rulers in Iran in order to revive the atmosphere of 1997 election failed to produce any result and almost all opposition groups boycotted the last presidential election in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was named President of Islamic Republic. Despite the absence of voters at polling stations, Islamic regime declared a high turnout in election while nothing of the sort was visible during the period which poll was open.

Coming of Mr. Ahmadinejad to office of presidency in Islamic Republic with a lot of hoopla did not bring any true change in the nature of Islamic regime and all the superficial social changes like the size of women head scarves, use of musical devices and media, and limited freedom of expression without guaranty of freedom after expression, which had been achieved under presidency of Mohammad Khatami, quickly vanished and true face of Islamic regime one more time became evident.

Throughout the whole life of Islamic regime, there has never been any time that policies and priorities of Islamic Republic government was set to benefit the national interest of Iranians and this matter continued through presidency of Khatami and Ahmadinejad the same.  

Poverty continued to get worse all the time while Islamic regime continued to magnify the importance of issues like nuclear fuel enrichment as a major national agenda and achievement after wasting billions of dollars on obsolete and dangerous technologies for doing that.

Iranian women continued to be targeted and violated by Islamic regime’s moral police under guise of enforcing Islamic moral code. Policies of Islamic government regarding issues like Middle East and international terrorism remained the same and the level of suppression of liberties changed just on the surface once in a while to create illusion of open society.

Efforts by different groups of Iranian people like university students, workers, teachers and journalists, to expand the limits of civil liberties and push for reform in suppressive policies, were always confronted with brutality by Islamic government to show that there is no budging when a government is acting on behalf of god on the earth and the word of clergy is above all others.

Policies of Islamic Republic regime have brought nothing but misery and corruption for Iranians inside the country and humiliation in outside world. Islamic rulers deliberately push the nation towards confrontations so they can have better excuse to enforce their hold on the country through suppression of people and continue the looting of national wealth and resources under the guise of nuclear or military projects.

In simple words, coming and going of so called “reformist” or “hardliner” president or parliament have no real effect on how the country is run as all important decisions are made by un-elected supreme leader and according to a rigid constitution which is full of flaws in favor of rule of clergy. Almost 30 years of rule of Islamic regime has proven that there is no possibility of real change in this system.

Iran needs a constitutional revolution and Islamic regime must go entirely along with its constitution to pave the way for a true democracy in which civil liberties and Human Rights are guaranteed and all people’s religions are respected while kept private.