Thursday, February 27, 2020

Parliamentary Elections in Iran: The Broader Perspective

Crescent International
The results of parliamentary elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran held on February 21 manifest the reality that no serious politician in Iran trusts the NATO regimes or their pronouncements.
According to Tasnim News, a total of 7,148 candidates, including dozens of Iranians from religious minorities, ran for parliament’s 290 seats.
The fact that the Principalist candidates who adhere to a vision of minimal engagement with NATO regimes won all 30 seats from Tehran shows that the primary constituency in Iran, which believed in a possible negotiated settlement with Western powers no longer ascribes to this view.
The Principalists appear to have won at least 200 of the 290 seats in the Majlis.
Currently there is unanimous agreement within all branches of government that the only way to sustain Iran’s sovereignty and independence is to adhere firmly to the principles of the Islamic revolution and implement its agenda in Iran and abroad.
One of the key goals of the Islamic Revolution in ousting the US-backed autocratic monarchy was the establishment of an electoral system in Iran within Islam’s legal and philosophical parameters.
Since the Islamic Revolution, the Islamic government in Iran has never canceled or even postponed elections.
Even when it faced Saddam Husain’s onslaught from 1980 to 1988, elections were held on time.
Saddam’s murderous war was backed by all the Western powers and the USSR as well as the Arabian regimes.
In a rare display of unanimity, the two rival blocs of the cold war worked hand-in-hand against an Islamic system of governance.
When Imam Khomeini (ra) was asked to cancel elections during the US-backed war on Islamic Iran, he refused. Elections were held regularly and on time.
A research study from 2010 by Dr. Ansia Khaz Ali shows that the participation of women in Iran’s socio-political life exceeded dramatically after the revolution.
According to the study “the percentage of female candidates standing for membership of the Islamic Advisory Council in the first electoral session (1980) for parliamentary elections rose to 165.06% in the seventh session, a rise of 227.48%. The statistics show the percentage of female candidates standing for membership in municipal and village councils increased noticeably in the third session of these elections as compared to the second session. The percentage of female members of municipal and village councils rose by 61.9% between the first (1980) and third (1988) electoral sessions. Some 250 women have held advisory posts for women’s affairs on town councils and 400 women have taken up positions of responsibility in villages and the countryside.”
While the Western corporate media primarily focused on the lower than usual turnout during the recent elections, the fact that 24 million people participated in the voting process even under threat of the spread of coronavirus, reflects the Islamic system’s deep connection to the masses.
One of the primary reasons why the corporate media and NATO regimes are so negative towards Iran’s elections is because a legitimate electoral process outside of the Western secular model presents an existential threat to these regimes and their public diplomacy.
The concept of elections has been privatized and made a part and parcel of the secular Western system.
When a governing model outside the secular Western parameters utilizes legitimate elections where people can participate, it sends a political message that Western secularism is not the only governing model available in the world.

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