{Ripped From the Front Page at Scrutiny Hooligans}


Iran goes to the polls on Khordad 17, 1384 (June 17th, 2005) to elect their next President. What? You didn't know that? I thought that with freedom on the march and all, we'd be interested in a bunch of terror-lovin' bomb magnets acting all democratic. Instead we hear about Osama wandering around Iran and about how election season isn't the best time to go negotiating about nuclear weapons.

Lest you think Iran is some sort of Athenian utopia where the many rule with wisdom and light, know that the eight candidates were chosen by the mighty mighty mullahs of the Guardian Council and that the two 'reformist' candidates weren't on the initial list. Enough Iranians raised a holy ruckus that the Guardians were forced to allow Mustafa Moin and Mohsen Mehr Alizadeh onto the ballot.

You can't know your players without a program, so here are the candidates:
Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - Former two-term President, "If in retaliation for every Palestinian martyred in Palestine they kill and execute, not inside Palestine, five Americans, or Britons or Frenchmen [the Israelis] would not continue these wrongs.
"It is not difficult to kill Americans or Frenchmen. It is a bit difficult to kill [Israelis]. But there are so many [Americans and Frenchmen] everywhere in the world". - May 5, 1989






Mohsen Rezai - “[President Khatami’s second term] has been marked by submissive diplomacy, missed opportunities, and unilateral concessions in exchange for minimal financial returns.” - April 27, 2003








Ali Larijani - “Making any concessions on nuclear technology is tantamount to the biggest treason." - March 9, 2005










Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf - a former commander of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Air Force, stepped down as the chief of the paramilitary police force, the State Security Forces, to run in the upcoming elections. [...], But his efforts to appeal to young voters by showing off his flying skills, shaving off his beard and donning trendy suits foundered when rivals publicised a letter he and 23 other Revolutionary Guards commanders wrote to incumbent President Mohammad Khatami in July 1999, urging him to “use every available means” to put down a nationwide protest movement led by pro-democracy students or “they would take matters into their own hands”.






Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - He is seen to be an ultra-conservative, having also been a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regime’s ideological army.
"We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy". - May 24, 2005







Mehdi Karroubi - He has been a close ally of incumbent President Mohammad Khatami and was a founding member of the Association of Militant Clerics, which grouped together Shiite clerics in the government opposed to the more traditional faction, the Association of Militant Clergy.







Mohsen Mehralizadeh - perhaps the most obscure candidate in the race, is a Vice-President in the present administration of President Mohammad Khatami, serving as the head of the National Sports Organization.








Mostafa Moin - His candidacy is supported by the Islamic Iran Participation Front. Moin announced that he would choose Mohammad Reza Khatami as his First Vice President if he were elected. Moin has had a hard time convincing former reformist voters to give him another chance after eight frustrating years for incumbent President Mohammad Khatami. The main university union and its supporters appear to be leaning towards a boycott -- either in a protest against entrenched hardliners or simple apathy.

After being initially disqualified from standing in the polls by unelected hardliners and then approved after the intervention of Ayatollah Khamenei, Moin alienated many former supporters of Khatami, who called on him to decline Khamenei’s “grace”.


And here is some of the context as reported by Iran Focus-News: "Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei today announced on state television that voting in the upcoming June 17 presidential elections was a "religious duty". “The enemy has been trying for months to make this election one that lacks any vitality, but contrary to the enemy’s expectations, its polls also show that a majority of people will take part in the election”, Khamenei said. Analysts noted that Khamenei usually gives an “accurate” impression of the final vote count prior to elections and his mention of “a majority” means that the official tally will be “fixed” to stand about 50 percent."

and from the UPI: "Only four of more than 200 candidates were allowed to run for the presidency in 1997, and just 10 of 814 during the next election in 2001. Moreover, last year about 2,500 reformist candidates were barred from running in parliamentary elections.

Along with Moin and Alizadeh, the Council had disqualified all but six of 1014 potential candidates in the upcoming elections. The only candidates to make the cut were four former revolutionary guard commanders and a nominally moderate cleric, Mehdi Karrubi, an adviser to Khamenei said to be influenced by Ayatollah Khomeini, the Shiite demagogue who hijacked the 1979 Islamic revolution."

via OpenDemocracy, Iranian newspaper E'temad: "A minority of 15 per cent of the people could reach a majority of 85 per cent in the Majlis and if the people do not take part in the presidential election, it is possible that this happen again. If in the presidential election 60 to 70 per cent of the people do not cast their votes, how can Iran deal with its external threats?"

In a nuttyshell, Iran is ruled by clerics who have a President as their second in command. The President has some limited powers, granted by the clerics, and it is through the Presidency that many hope reform might come to Iran. From where I'm sitting, it seems as likely as the Undersecretary for Fish and Wildlife influencing Bush foreign policy decisions. Iran is undergoing a long, slow process wherein the fundamentalists constrain the rights of the citizenry while providing a comparatively decent standard of living for most. Meanwhile, a rising tide of young people who lost their parents to the war with Iraq are manifesting an apathy that Kurt Cobain would've been proud of. It's likely that fewer than 50% of the voting age electorate will get out to cast a ballot. Having watched the non-nuclear Iraq get spanked by the U.S. military while the nuclear North Korea gets chat time, the Iranians are pursuing nuclear weapons.

Our friend on the right, Tigerhawk, cautiously asserts that the Bush administration is rooting for Mostafa Moin. Mainstream media sources are leaning towards a run-off victory for Rafsanjani: "Polls in the country of 67 million people show the canny pragmatist, who masterminded arms-for-hostages swaps with the United States in the 1980s, remains short of the 50 percent support he needs to avoid a run-off against his closest rival.

His nearest challengers are reformist Mostafa Moin, 54, who has pledged to tackle human rights abuses, and conservative Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, 43, an ex-police chief rumored to enjoy the backing of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

An upset Moin victory could not be ruled out and the outcome of a Rafsanjani run-off against Moin or Qalibaf, possibly on June 24, would be hard to predict, analysts said."