ELECTIONS

Mahmoud your supporters are like yourself

People who by mockery suggest to not go voting are those who were avid supporters of MacCain, backing Israelis exaction some months ago.

Strange to see how people may have extremist point of views and show themselves against the regime of Ayatollahs!

A question that raises, is how much an extremist label maker calling everyone against his/her ideas as fascists/islamist/axis of devil/ can care about human rights or Iranians living in Iran?

There are at least one person here, that I know to be pure American not able to vote and who is spreading sh*t about democracy. So baba joon boro be shoharet beress, he needs it.

Another Everyone-is-a-fascisto-Islmist-guy is just to funny when he says the same old things using different IDs, he can stay make us laugh.

ملت ایران دیگر فریب بازی رژیم را نخواهند خورد

گروه های اجتماعی مطالبه محور نیز به خوبی آگاه هستند که وعده ی کروبی و میر حسین، وعده های انتخاباتی است که به سرعت رنگ خواهد باخت. بنابراین عقلانیت سیاسی حکم می کند تا این نمایش انتخاباتی را برای جناح های حاکم و طرفداران آنها وابگذاریم و خود را مضحکه نکنیم. این انتخابات از پیش مدیریت شده است و معلوم است که هرکدام از این ۴ کاندیدا از صندوق بیرون بیایند در خدمت ولی فقیه و نظام اسلامی خواهند بود و نه در خدمت مردم و منافع ملی. منطق بد و بدتر یا دفع افسد به فاسد یک منطق شکست خورده و ارتجاعی است که کاربرد آن برای کسانی است که به شدت درمانده و ناتوان هستند. اکثریت ملت ایران نشان داده اند که پس از ۳۰ سال، دیگر فریب بازی رژیم را نخواهند خورد و این را توهین به خود می دانند که ولی فقیه و نیروهای تحت امر، از پیش انتخابات را مدیریت کنند و مردم همواره مجبور باشند بین بد و بدتر، بد را انتخاب کنند. این بار اما مردم رشید و آگاه ایران با تحریم یا بایکوت این شبه انتخابات به رژیم نشان خواهند داد که در دام این بازی توهین آمیز نخواهند افتاد.

بهتر است دردها را از ریشه درمان کرد

خشت اول گر نهاد معمار کج تا ثریا میرود دیوارکج
بهتر است دردها را از ریشه درمان کرد .به این که چه کسی کاندید شود و یا چه کسی رای بیاورد مشکلات بعدی میباشد.

job opportunity

for those of you who cannot respect opinions other than yours and resort to name-calling, fox news has openings in their "axis of evil" department.

اگر رای قراره بدید از کاندیدا سوال کنید

موسوی چه جوری مشکلات را می‌خواد حل کنه. چه جور علی‌ خامنه‌ای رو می‌خواد متوقف کنه. چه جور دست سپاه رو کوتاه کنه. چه جور بسیج رو می‌خواد جلوش رو بگیره. چه جور اقتصاد رو بهتر می‌خواد کنه. وگر نه انتقاد که ارزشی نداره. ما داریم ۳۰ ساله انتقاد می‌کنیم و هیچ اتفاقی‌ هم نمی‌‌افته.

بهتره اگر رای قراره بدید از کاندیدا سوال کنید که چه جوری اون قول‌های که میده می‌خواد عملی‌ کنه. اگر این جواب رو نداری به نظر من آدم نباید خودش رو بی‌ ارزش کنه و مثل مترسک بره پای صندوق رای.

Mohsen Rezai, the presidential candidate's dilemma

//www.sahandnews.com/index.php?option=com_con...

Listen to Imam's advice

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUCd26nLtmo&feature...

Dear "BBC's Mullah",

1) Rafsanjani was already rich before Khatami became Iran´s president.

2) The only ones, who keep their heads in the sand, are the non-voters, who hope God or something even more powerful will kick the clergy out of Iran.

3) If IRI can´t be reformed, then only a war or a revolution can help. Are you brave enough?

4) Other solutions or was this your last hot air?

You've got to be kidding!!!

Those of you who are clamoring and pushing people to vote (and you know what bankrupt/ignorant souls you are) must ONLY be kidding yourself!

Either you are really naive or really in the tank for the IRI! Let me ask you, whether you vote for candidate A or candidate B, you're STILL going to have Khamenei AT THE TOP of the political structure AND you're still going to have Mongol Rafsanjani and his cabal at the Assembly of Experts making ALL -- and I mean, ALL the moves that MATTER in Iran!

So, please, tell me, what difference does it make to vote???????

The mullahs put Khatami in power in 1997, because a smiley mullah was needed then to fool America (Clinton) and Europe (who wanted to be fooled). But when the situation called for an in-your-face bastard, Ahmadinejad was put in power. It's all a sham -- I CANNOT BELIEVE SO MANY OF THESE PEOPLE THINK VOTING IN IRAN MAKES ANY DIFFERENCE?!!!!

Boycott this sham election!!! Send the world a loud and clear message that this regime is NOT legitimate! No matter who is elected, the mullah dictatorship and its OBSCENE thievery and murders and tortures will still CONTINUE! Some of the greatest abuses during the reign of IRI came under the watch of mullah Khatami, but the SHEEP still hail him as some kind of an improvement JUST BECAUSE HE LET WOMEN PULL THEIR CHADOR BACK A FEW INCHES!!!

Unbelievable!

Voting in this sham election will legitimize this regime, which is categorically undeserved! Do you people want to legitimize a regime that has STOLEN sooooooooo much money from Iran??? The mullahs are the most CORRUPT vermin on the face of the earth, and these jokers on this site are preaching "patience."

While we've been patient, Mongol Rafsanjani has become the richest man in Iran! How did that happen? This regime is bankrupt! In every way, and it can NOT be reformed because it's very DNA patently endorses a dictatorship (velayat-e-faghig).

So, go ahead and keep your heads in the sand and vote for the enemies of Iran. The political structure WILL REMAIN EXACTLY THE SAME!!!

82 Virgins

I heard from reliable source that Ali Geda (Rahber)wants to throw an incentive to encourage people to vote. He wants to add 10 more virgins to 72 virgins that are already waiting for us in heaven. I am getting horny. I wish I could vote right now. Hugh Hefner you can go fuck yourself. You never had 82 virgins in your entire life.

Dear "hamsade ghadimi", Dear "Farhad Kashani",

Great, you did it again, just criticising, very powerful. What is your solution? You don´t want me to call you bee-savad, why not? You offered "Before talking about solutions, may I ask how you ...", now? Where is your answer? Nothing more than hot air?

I´ve been reading these criticisms for almostly three months. But what is your contribution? Sitting home Ghar-kardeh claiming Gonah Daram and because of Lajh-bazee letting other people decide for you? Very bee-farhangee.

By the way, as Kaveh Nouraee wrote, it´s high time to become team players, this is not a vanity fair.

The question is

we know that voting for your preferred candidate which I imagine would be a reformer would not make any serious changes in this regime but what I found hard to grasp is how does boycotting the vote would help Iran at all? Are there going to be further actions after boycotting or we are going to get on with our daily lives?

Being an idiot is always an option

and in this case, this option is directly responsible for bringing Ahmadinejad to power.

to farhad kashani

that was quite a short list; although sufficient, here are some more issues:

- there are political prisoners in iran

- there is no trust between people and the government.  how can we trust them with even counting the vote when they put people in jail on trumped up charges.

- one cannot form assembly.  basically, you can say whatever you want as long as you don't have any audience.

- there are no basic human rights: right to change one's religion (punishment: death), homosexuality (punishment: death), show of affection between unmarried couple (punishment: lashes), criticize government, etc.

- a person that is educated outside iran cannot be a candidate.  would they even count the votes from outside iran based on the same logic or is this just a sham to show people we have democracy.

while voting is a necessary condition for democracy, iran lacks the sufficient conditions for it (your points, my points, and issues we have not even mentioned).  we cannot change all these conditions with a smiley face ballot revolution!

This is very simple.  

This is very simple.

1-     President in this regime is not the highest authority.

2-     There are no political parties in Iran.

3-     The government chooses some of their stooges and has people vote one of them in. How’s this a free election or a sign of democracy?

Based on those three factors, the question is, why would someone vote in this sham, and also, why would someone, by voting, legitimizes such an insult to democracy?

This can be described as a

"damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation.

Whether one chooses to participate or to boycott, it seems that either way, it can potentially embolden the IR even further, even if in different ways.

I think it likely stems from the lack of unity (outwardly, at least) that if present, could potentially pose a serious challenge to the status quo. As long as there is this divide, there won't be any real change.

Ncolas S.

Thanks for the comment. I am not sure if we are really given any choices either. I am not saying that the election over there is better than here but just making a point that election here is also filtered and no real choices is given.

Why compare Iran to the US? Iran is a country that trying to find her ways and has been a Republic in 30 years. I don't think there are any countries that have achieve democracy in this time period.

When I was in Iran, I saw many people very active and intelligent. They all knew what's up. I don see that in most countries. So that's a sign of progress. Maybe because I am not Iranian

To Joe L.: there is no comparison between the two system

"In the US we see the act of voting as a Right that we need to protect. It aint the issue that we got choices, cause we dont. It's all the same people in the same class that rule the rest of us."

Yes you got choices, you had Obama versus McCain and there were also other candidates but got much less vote by PEOPLE so got cancelled out at the end. It was all based on people's choice!

None of them were filtered out by an entity called the Guardian Council as it is in Iran and there is no Velayat-e-Faqih or the Supreme jurisprudent sitting at the top having absolute say over everything and not accountable to anybody on the face of Earth.

Anonym76

I do accept your answer, but not all of it. There could be something in it. 

I would suggest that tradition plays a big deal in how much people vote. If your parents do vote then I would think you start vote as well when you grow up and if your parents do not give a damn then you would not either.

/Bidar bash ke ma bekhabim

Dear "Anonymous76",

That was only a mind game. And yes, they would publish it. If they wouldn´t do it, they would have big problems. But important is only the number of the voters, more than 80% would be great.

Dear "choghok",

This is typically US paranoia about the role of the government. Most of the US-Americans think all European countries except UK vote for the Socialists (why differentiate between Socialists and Socialdemocrats :) ?). As I know only Hungary is ruled by a socialist party in Europe (the more socialdemocratic party Hungarian Socialist Party) in coalition with Alliance of Free Democrats.

Do you guys see this as a Right?

In the US we see the act of voting as a Right that we need to protect. It aint the issue that we got choices, cause we dont. It's all the same people in the same class that rule the rest of us.
If you don protect what's yours then you got no right to claim it. If you don't vote, then you got to lose it. Is that what you want?

To Mi Neum 71

Before talking about solutions, may I ask how you will actually achieve 50% invalid votes? Are you dreaming? Even if it was the case, do you seriously think the IR would publish such results?

I provided you with the 2005 data and the invalid vote was 2-4%. How can we jump to 50%?

To choghok

I did not say Europe is socialist! I said Europe is traditionally more social oriented! It’s NOT the same thing at all! It means European governments are more involved in the daily lives of their citizens: welfare, retirements, benefits, health care, universities, etc...

This has nothing to do with who is in power, whether left or right. These are traditional social acquisitions made in the past (very often by left wing governments btw) that are now popularly accepted and defended! In the US, these are usually ran by the private sector, hence the difficulty for any government (Democratic or Republican) to come up with universal health care systems (among other “social” programs).

In Europe, in some countries, there is a proportional system and quite often there is no absolute majority in the parliament because the vote is so split between different parties that there is a need to make coalition (for ex: Greens-Socialists-Christian Democrats). This is the case in Germany, Italy, Austria, and some other countries.

In France, the elections have 2 rounds, and only the top 2 candidates in each riding make it to the second round. Therefore, it is often the case that there are 2 major parties in the Parliament.

In the UK, there is a relative majority system: in other words, the top candidate wins it all even if he/she is ahead of the runner-up by 1 vote! So again, it is why only 2 or 3 major parties always make it to the Parliament.

But it doesn’t mean that there are no other parties and most of time, people vote according to their values and preferences.

Dear "Anonymous76",

I actually know the difference between the European and the Iranian political systems, and I know that the IRI elections are anything but democratic.

But what is the better solution than voting? We have been discussing this topic on Iranian since March, and non of the non-voters could offer an alternative to voting.

Imagine 50% of the voters vote invalid. This is a slap in the face of the rulingpower. And they are already afraid anyway (see Saberi´s case), they know that more than 50% of the population ist younger than 25.

I don´t say that the liberal forces are amoung these candidates. But when the most liberal candidate wins, in the long run this can give impetus to the liberal movement within the system.

And in the short run all the candidates are better than Ahmadinejad.

[Dear "hamsade ghadimi", I didn´t respond to the 2004 elections because I don´t know the circumstances. But I blame the the Iranians for the 2005 elections because that was the result of the typically Iranian impatience.]

US Europe and Iran

Even in US and Europe people do go vote when there are candidates that do not fit their view. In US you have 2 party system with 300 million people do you think that these 2 parties fit all people there? There are for example green partists and communists that vote on democrats since they are less evil according to them. The same thing in Europe a die hard communist would vote for a social democrat since he does not want the right to win.

And please stop all this nonsense that American media feeds you that Europe is socialist and US is capitalist. There are many countries in Europe that are not socialist. Not all of them are socialists. England and Ireland is traditionally right, today France and Germany and Italy are run by the rightists.

People vote here since they have more options for voting and also people beleive in the democracy. In mid-USA many see the government as their enemy as in Iran and do not vote.

/Bidar bash ke ma bekhabim

Dear MiNeum71

Europeans have a stronger tradition of voting than Americans because their governments are more socially oriented than in the US, therefore their governments have much more impact on their lives than in the US, where people are more individualistic and business-oriented.

This is similar to Iran where the government controls everything but there is a major difference:

In Europe, there is a wide range of political movements and parties representing all kinds of political ideologies: anarchists, anti-capitalists, socialists, communists, Greens, social-democrats, Christian-democrats, liberals, neo-liberals, conservatives, nationalists, libertarians, ethnic minorities autonomists...Each party has the right to participate and present its ideas and candidates and may receive funds for its campaigns, within the framework of law.

In Iran, all current political movements originate in the Islamic Republic Party of the 80’s (after the IR purged all other movements) and are all, with maybe a few exceptions, supporting the current Constitution.

Therefore, no “external” movement can ever hope of qualifying for the elections, not now, not in the future, because this Constitution was written at a time when Iran was in its hardcore revolutionary era and it reflects the decisions of that time (highly controversial I must add). But it no longer applies to today’s Iran and I see no change as long as this regime’s filtered candidates keep getting elected in office.

Also, in Iran, there are many factors that may compel people to vote: if there is no voting stamp on their ID, they may fear of not being able to get social benefits (retirement, welfare...), fear of not being able to write the “concour” exam, fear of losing their job...

this is a chance

to get rid of ahmadinejad and give detente a chance

gotta vote!

Peace

protest votes will have khamenei shaking in his boots (or giveh)

this is a response to Mineum:

if voter turnout was an indication how strong a democarcy is, then IRI beats US hands down.  by the way, iraq's voting record under sadam hussein was 99.9% (probably the best record in history of the world). if every voice in iran counts, then IRI is the most democratic country in the world: 100%.  you imply that saberi's US citizenship and Obama administration's protest had nothing to do with saberi's release.  that's what you get when you use "logic by example."  IRI counts every vote (including "invalid" and smiley faces) for "show" but disqualifies it as a real vote (may just give it to the preferred candidate!; who knows?).  otherwise, they would publish the write-in votes.  every presidential election cycle, for fun, the news media in US tell people how many votes mickey mouse (votes of protest) gets!

will IRI's image get hurt or the establishment get freightened if there are a lot of protest votes or if there will be a low turnout in the election?  you say the former, i say the latter.

i like the fact that you pick and choose your arguments.  no response to 2004 election fiasco in iran where the reform party encouraged boycotting while you blame the iranian people's complacency for ahmadinejad's rise.  you can have the last word (insult or sarcasm as you wish) as this argument is getting stale.  happy voting.

Dear MiNeum71

You have a point in voting invalid, but if I rely on the last election results, the invalid votes represented 4.17% of the total in the first round (so not even as much as the weakest candidate who got 4.38% - whether actual results or not, we cannot know) and 2.37% in the second round.

In other words, it’s not a major difference and it will go unnoticed. The other point is that only in the last elections did they count the invalid votes (I could not find such data for other elections). Nothing says that they will do it this time assuming that the invalid votes are higher. They might simply disregard the invalid votes and simply show the valid ones.

Also, earlier on, you said the following: “These liberal forces can only work if they feel the support by the people. And the best support is to vote in June. And to show patience.” It was clear that you intended to help a “liberal” get elected (without mentioning who btw). How then do you justify your invalid vote as a support to “liberals”?

Thanks