After the final results of the Assembly of Experts were announced, National Council of Resistance President Massoud Rajavi described the elections as a major defeat for the illegitimate theocratic regime. He said: Eyewitness observations of 4,000 polling stations across the country and reports from within the regime demonstrate that at most four million, or less than 10% of the eligible voters, cast their ballots, half of whom were coerced into voting due to threats, pressures and fear of losing their livelihood.

Mr. Rajavi added: As a "face saving" measure, the clerical regime leaders exaggerated the vote tally four to five-fold, much like Khatami's election. So extensive was the boycott, however, that they could not announce anything more than 17 million votes. While only 6.5 million votes were cast during the May 1997 Presidential elections, the mullahs claimed 29 million had gone to the polls.

The NCR President said: This election is a turning point in escalating conflicts within the regime's ruling factions. The looming attacks and counterattacks carry with them crises and storms which will lead to the regime's overthrow. Either Khatami has to submit totally to Khamenei and forgo his reformist rhetoric or play the role of the leader of the regime's internal opposition. Either way, the clerical regime will enter a new stage as it moves closer to its downfall.

The election was met with the nationwide boycott of the Iranian people despite the fact that in their speeches and interviews in the past weeks all of the regime's leaders, including Khamenei, Khatami, Rafsanjani, the head of the Judiciary, the Majlis Speaker, cabinet ministers, governors and Friday prayer leaders repeatedly urged the Iranian people to vote.

The NCR President added: In order to push through reformist policies, any genuine reformer in Iran today must inevitably rely on the Mojahedin and the National Council of Resistance, otherwise he will find no other fulcrum than the velayat-e faqih. Khatami's endorsment of the velayat-e faqih as a superior will, linking it to "God's signature," and his calls on the Iranian people to take part in the election farce clearly demonstrate that his rhetoric about the establishment of the "rule of law" and "civil society" are hollow.

Mr. Rajavi reminded that members of the third Assembly of Experts, similar to the preceding Assembly, are among the most senior officials of the regime. Many religious judges, revolutionary prosecutors and three ministers of intelligence are among the new members who are responsible for the massacre, torture and execution of tens of thousands of political prisoners, assassination of dissidents abroad and export of terrorism, who must be tried in international tribunals for crimes perpetrated against humanity.
 
 

Conservatives Clerics Maintain Tight Grip on Power, Agence France Presse, October 25

TEHRAN - Conservative clerics have cemented their grip on a key power base in Iran, winning an overwhelming majority of seats in the new Assembly of Experts, according to final election results Sunday.

Prominent conservatives who won seats included judiciary chief Mohammad Yazdi and Intelligence Minister Qorbanali Dorri Najafabadi, and a former intelligence minister implicated by Germany in the 1992 murder of Iranian Kurdish dissidents in Berlin.

Ali Fallahian, who was intelligence minister at the time of the so-called Mykonos killings, was under an arrest warrant issued by Germany in 1996. Since being replaced by Najafabadi in Khatami's new government in August last year, he had kept a low profile.

Conservative candidates won at least 70 of the 86 seats in the assembly, a religious body charged with appointing and in theory dismissing the country's supreme leader, a position currently held by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Iran's leaders had appealed for a strong turnout in the face of controversy over the disqualification of many candidates by the government election watchdog, the Council of Guardians.

Iran Hard-Liners Win Election, Associated Press, October 25

TEHRAN - The victory for hard-liners announced Sunday could set back President Mohammad Khatami.

According to official figures, nationwide, about 18 million, or 47 percent, of the 38.5 million eligible voters cast ballots in Friday's vote. Many Iranians were skeptical of the numbers.

In Tehran, the capital, only 1.68 million of the district's 7.1 million eligible voters cast ballots, official figures showed.
 

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