ELECTION FARCE IN IRAN

Khamenei prayed for 30 million votes...

Tehran radio, May 28 - In a meeting with the speaker and deputies of Majlis (the Iranian parliament), Khamenei (the mullahs' leader) said: Some of the prominent, dear and leading officials of the country kept asking me if I have any special preferences so that they would help make it realized by guiding the people, etc. I told them, however, that what I want from God is 30 million votes. This is what is important for us, for the country. Ultimately, who ever gets to head the government and the executive branch, will do some work, will have some progress and some problems. Nobody is perfect...

We have to pray all our life because our government has survived nine years after Khomeini...

NCR secretariat, May 28 - In a meeting with deputies of the regime's Majlis, Ali Khamenei acknowledged that the regime had devised a scheme since six months ago to fake a voter turn out of 30 million for the elections.

He said: "Since six months ago,... I have been repeatedly telling leading officials of the country... that I want 30 million votes from God." By leading officials, Khamenei means no one other than Rafsanjani and other leaders of the regime.

In a statement after the elections, National Council of Resistance President Massoud Rajavi had noted that "Khamenei and Rafsanjani reached agreement to inflate the number votes cast four to five-fold in a face-saving formula for the regime as a whole."

And his prayers were answered!

Tehran radio, May 31 - In a sermon after the elections, the Friday prayer leader of Ahwaz said: And finally Khamenei's prayers were answered. He told us of the fact that he had been praying since months ago about the voters' turn out. Before the elections, I had heard from the officials of the Interior Ministry that they had prepared themselves for 25 million voters. But when they met with Khamenei, he did not accept this and said that 25 million were not enough and that 30 million ballots had to be printed. God willing, the number of participants in the elections will reach 30 million, he said. Khamenei said: I had prayed and my prayers were answered.

New president warned

AFP, May 30 - The hardline faction of the regime warned Khatami, the president-elect, that he should not distance himself from the Islamic Revolution by adopting a moderate policy.

Ahmad Jannati, an influential fundamentalist clergy asked Khatami, who won a landslide victory as president on May 23, to heed "first God, next the leader (Khamenei) and then the requests of the voters."

In Tehran's Friday prayer, Jannati said: "The voters have various requests all of which must be responded to within the framework of Islam and the revolution." Jannati, head of the Council of Guardians, expressed his view that Khatami's election was a reaffirmation of the principles of the Islamic Revolution...

Tough times for unity

NCR secretariat, May 30 - Addressing the Friday prayers congregation in Tehran today, mullah Ahmad Jannati, Head of the Guardians Council and a confidant of the mullahs' leader Khamenei, laid bare the ruling faction's extreme anxiety over the escalation of the regime's internal feuding after the resounding defeat of the candidate endorsed by Khamenei.

Speaking of the need to "maintain unity by all tendencies," Jannati warned that "excluding others would give rise to splits, enmity and vengeance." Jannati warned Khatami that "This country is the country of the Velayat-e Faqih (supreme jurist-consult) who enjoys the same authority as that of the Prophet of Islam... The constitution is based on the Velayat-e Motlaqeh Faqih (absolute rule of the jurist-consult) who oversees the three forces, confirms the president and approves the elections."

Jannati added that "All the forces and the power of the country rests with the Vali-e Faqih," that "his views must be realized" and that "the voters' demands ought to be respected merely within the framework of Islamic guidelines and the interests of the revolution."

People say clerics suffered setback

Kermanshah radio, May 31 - Zarandi, Friday prayer leader of Kermanshah: But I must say something. I hear things from people saying that the clergy has suffered a setback... No! It is not so! Before he wins the elections, the respectable president said and it was reflected in the newspapers that he had come to create excitement, not to win votes... Did you see in his interviews, how he attracted attention to Khamenei?"

Why a non-cleric was included among candidates?

Ilam radio, May 31 - Yassoubi, Friday prayer leader of Ilam: The extensive participation of people in the elections which amounted to 30 million, to which Khamenei referred in his meeting with the parliamentary deputies, answered his prayers. 19 years after the revolution, this large number, is very precious and thank God that our enemies were disappointed. Thank God that our people passed their test! This proved that people have not become disillusioned with the revolution. They have not lost hope in the clergy, as some say. Our people do support the revolution, because of the high turn out, and they chose a clergyman again. This is cause of great honor. If they did not support the clergy, they would have voted for Mr. Zavare'i, who was not a clergy among the 4 candidates.

Frustrating remarks

As-Sharq Al-Awsat, May 28 - The new Iranian President Mohammad Khatami did not present anything in his first press conference to satisfy the expectations created by his landslide victory in the elections, which call for essential change in Iran's foreign policy.

NCR secretariat, May 28 - The remarks yesterday by Mohammad Khatami in his first press conference showed that despite the ballyhoo raised by some western media, he lacks any power and all the decisions and policies are determined by the mullahs' leader, Khamenei.

Khatami is not different from other leaders of the regime in the very basic policies at home and abroad. He made some general statements about freedom and said they are allowed only if they "do not interfere with the foundations of Islam and rights of the public."

Widespread rigging

NCR secretariat, May 28 - Reports from voting stations throughout Iran reveal the dimensions of rigging and fraud in the mullahs' election farce. In a complaint written underneath the minutes of the vote count in Kermanshah (western Iran), the executive board of elections in the city protested widespread rigging.

Reports from Shemiranat (north Tehran) also indicate that while, based on the official statistics of the regime, the population in the city is 280,000 and the number of eligible voters 179,000, the authorities sent 360,000 ballots to Shemiranat, 213,000 of which were used.

According to the assessments of the Resistance's command headquarters inside Iran, based on the monitoring of 2,500 voting stations in Tehran and 100 cities, only 6.5 million people took part in the elections nationwide.

Nateq-Nouri to head Majlis

Tehran, June 1 (Reuter) - The conservative Shi'ite Moslem clergyman defeated in Iran's presidential election was chosen again on Sunday as speaker of parliament, signaling president-elect Mohammad Khatami could face a tough time ahead.

Tehran, Iran (AP), June 1 - Hard-line politician Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri was re-elected parliament speaker on Sunday following a behind-the-scenes deal with moderates in the ruling Muslim clergy.

The moderates did not field a candidate in the election for speaker of the parliament, or Majlis, giving Nateq-Nouri his sixth one-year term - and his first uncontested victory.

The moderates allowed Nateq-Nouri to win the top parliament job in exchange for reassurances that the hard-line bloc in the Majlis would work with Khatami's government, said legislators.

"It is said that Mr. Nateq-Nouri, the current speaker of the Majlis, will be allowed to keep his position following an agreement between the two factions," the Farsi-language Jomhuri Islami daily reported Saturday.

No Gorbachevs in Iran

The Washington Times, May 28 - ....Let's be clear from the start. There are no moderates in Iran any more than there were moderates in the Soviet Union before Mikhael Gorbachev. Nor is the Ayatollah Khatami a Gorbachev, as some analysts claim. The president of Iran is an instrument of the most powerful institution that runs the country, Council of Guardians....

Let us not be beguiled by the election. I would tend to argue that "democratic" elections in totalitarian states have been, and continue to be, instruments of the authoritarian state....

The Ayatollah Khatami is presented as a moderate, as was former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. We hardly perceived during the tenure of the latter any moderation either on the issue of terrorism or in their attitude toward the United States....

No one ever believed that, whoever won the election, the Iranian ideological and totalitarian clergy would change an iota of its rigid reactionary foreign policy.

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