This report was compiled on the basis of eyewitness observations of 4,000 polling stations in Tehran, 27 other provinces and more than 200 cities.
So extensive was the boycott that the ruling clerics were speaking of "religiously-sanctioned rigging to ensure the survival of the state." In addition to stuffing the ballot boxes, the regime's leaders agreed to announce the turnout several times the actual figure.
National Council of Resistance President Massoud Rajavi thanked the Iranian people for refusing to take part in the clerics' election sham despite all threats and pressures and lauded them for their unified action against the ruling regime. He added: The boycott of the Assembly of Experts which is the embodiment of usurping the sovereignty of the Iranian people and the essence of the religious dictatorship, is a resounding "no" by the Iranian people to the clerical regime in its entirety and lays bare in no uncertain terms the illegitimacy of the medieval theocracy and all its internal factions and leaders.
The boycott came despite the fact that all of the regime's leaders, including Khamenei, Khatami and Rafsanjani repeatedly called on the Iranian people to vote.
NCR President stressed that within the regime's balance of power, Khatami was the main loser of the election. Although the election results strengthened Khamenei's position within the regime, it will nevertheless aggravate its internal conflicts and further weaken the regime in its entirety and expedite the process of its overthrow, he added.
Mr. Rajavi reiterated: Khatami's disgraceful stance in support of the Assembly of Experts and velayat-e faqih as a "superior will" and "linked to divine revelation and approved by God," demonstrated that when it comes to usurping the right of the Iranian people to a representative government and safeguarding the existence of the regime, mullahs' different factions are no different from one another.
The mullahs' propaganda organs devoted their entire programing in the past days to the elections and urged the public to vote. The state radio and television, however, broadcast only a few scenes from the voting stations in Tehran. So extensive was the public's apathy that the mullahs extended the voting for three hours. In a preposterous claim, the state radio and television said that many young people did not vote because they "were watching movies!"
Fearing popular protests and activities by the Mojahedin and the Iranian Resistance, the clerical regime deployed more than 300,000 members of the Guards Corps, the Bassij, State Security Force and the Intelligence Ministry to provide security for the polling stations. A de facto martial law was imposed in Tehran and many other cities on Thursday and Friday.
The Director General for Security Affairs in the Ministry of the Interior announced in a statement on election day that in recent days, "the Mojahedin had taken some action to disrupt the election for the third Assembly of Experts." Referring to Mojahedin's activities in Yazd, Sistan and Baluchistan and Bushehr, he said that one of the Mojahedin had been arrested in Bushehr.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
October 24, 1998
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