The writer teaches at Tehran University, do you expect him to write a fair piece when hes under the watch of one of the most brutal dictatorships in the world? To compare the Palestinian elections which were monitored by world bodies and free and fair to Iran's dictatorship run election is ridiculous.
Here's a piece from my recent article on Iran:
Yes, Iran does have elections. These elections are a facade behind which manipulations of power are concealed. In an article in the National Review Online, pro-Democracy students Bahman Batmanghelidj and Kamal Azari point out that even if seventy percent of the people vote for pro-democracy candidates, “clerical hard-liners ignore the voice of the voters and continue to use their power to veto, repress, and crush even a few modest efforts at a political opening”. Anyone seeking to run for the presidency of Iran must first be examined by a hard-line group of twelve clerics. During the recent election, the Guardian Council disqualified over ninety-eight percent of the candidates, including all female candidates and virtually every single reformist. The seven candidates that made it past the Council were all Islamists loyal to the Islamic dictatorship. A dictatorship where all authority is vested in an un-elected ‘Supreme Leader’, currently Ayatollah Khamenei. Hence, although the Iranian government has elections, these elections are used as a propaganda tool directed towards the naïve rather than a tool of democracy . A recent poll conducted by pro-Democracy students in Iran shows that the current President of Iran enjoys the support of about twenty percent of the Iranian populace, likewise over eighty percent of the Iranian student body supports a secular democratic government.
Thanks for explaining that. It makes much more sense now.