Despite widespread rigging, the clerical regime announced that only 274,000 people cast their ballots in the capital, Tehran. This figure is 5.8% of the official number of eligible voters announced for the capital last May. The actual figure of eligible voters in Tehran is much higher, revealing that the turnout was a tiny 4%.
Mr. Massoud Rajavi, the President of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said: By staying away from the polls in this sham election, the Iranian people showed their rejection of the mullahs' illegitimate regime. They gave a resounding 'no' as a response to Khatami's hollow maneuvers.
Mr. Rajavi added: In the wake of popular uprisings, student demonstrations, and workers' strikes across the country, the decisive boycott of the elections unravels the myth of moderation of the clerical regime and its new president. It leaves no justification for continuing relations with this religious, terrorist dictatorship. Mr. Rajavi urged the international community to honor the Iranian people's will and put an end to diplomatic and economic ties with the mullahs' regime.
The figures announced by the regime are drastically below all the figures announced in the mullahs' sham elections in the past 19 years. In Tehran, polling stations at heavily populated districts such as Tehran Pars, Shahrak-e Ekbatan, Azadi Sq., Imam Hossein Sq., Tajrish, and Shahr-e Ray were deserted. The number of voters fluctuated between two to three people to none at all in many polling stations. In Khomein, the regime was forced to close down four voting stations, but there were only a limited number of participants in the other 13 polls.
According to the reports of the Mojahedin's Command Headquarters inside Iran, the mullahs' regime deployed large groups of heavily armed revolutionary Guards and State Security Forces at every station. Nevertheless, clashes erupted between rival factions in Isfahan, leaving behind some injured. Many of the participants were arrested.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
March 15, 1998
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