Posted on 01/11/2004 7:32:56 PM PST by freedom44
All of Iran's provincial governors have reportedly threatened to resign unless a move by powerful conservatives to disqualify large numbers of candidates from forthcoming elections is reversed. The 27 have imposed a deadline of a week, according to an open letter carried by the student news agency ISNA today. Earlier, Iran's interior ministry, the body responsible for organising elections, said that the move to disqualify candidates from next month's parliamentary election was "illegal" and would not be enforced. "The interior ministry regrets the massive rejection of candidates and affirms that a number of candidates have been disqualified outside the framework of the law," it said in a statement also carried by ISNA. "In the eyes of the interior ministry, the vetting of candidates must be done within the framework of the law, and any decision that does not take the law into account is without value and cannot be applied. "The ministry will defend the rights of candidates and voters and will not accept or apply any illegal action."
Where does the Iranian ARMY stand politically?
Not talking about the Revolutionary Guards or Pasdaran or anything, the regular army. Obviously, they have most of the guns and are key to anything happening.
I would suspect many of the rank and file officers would have no love for the Mullahcracy, but I would also suspect that the Mullahs have installed "reliable" officers as commanders of units, particularly those in or near Teheran.
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Anybody care to tender a guess?
Although it would be much better if they would just do it immediately, rather than threaten to do it; and if they're going to threaten to do it they should demand more concessions from the mullahs, not just the reversal of the council's electoral decisions.
How about the parliament? Are any members there threatening to resign? Khatami will never regain the confidence of the real reformers (the ones in the street, who've already given up on him) unless he either gets some real gains out of this crisis, or resigns.
Agreed. This is what needs to happen. The "reform" movement, and the whole false facade of a democratic government with which the mullahs supposedly share power, simply acts internally as a buffer between the tyranny of the mullahs and the people, and externally as a means of acquiring diplomatic legitimacy, aid and foreign investment.
Mass resignations and the effective collapse of the "democratic" government is the best thing that could happen now. Clarity if better than pretense.
Presumably the mullahs would react by filling the "elected" government with corrupt and subservient hacks, which will only increase the anger of the people and broaden the base of the protesters.
The mullahs actually need the putative malcontents -- the so-called "reformers" -- there to prevent the public at large from falling behind the students and other anti-mullah activists. Naturally most Iranians wish to be spared the potential chaos and danger of revolution. As long as it's possible to believe that there is an evolutionary process in place (the "reform" movement) then most Iranians will hold back from throwing in their lot with the radical "pro-democracy" forces. It's time to eliminate this diversionary fiction.
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