[DoctorZIn]

Voting begins in Iran

Friday 20 February 2004, 9:23 Makka Time, 6:23 GMT

Voting began in Iran's disputed parliamentary election on Friday, overshadowed by a ban on most reformist candidates and a crackdown on pro-reform media.

Supreme leader Ayat Allah Ali Khamenei called on Iranians to vote en masse in the elections, accusing the Islamic republic's "enemies" of trying to encourage a boycott.

"I thank God I am here and able to vote, and take part in this important event," said the all-powerful leader as he voted in his Tehran complex, just minutes after polling stations opened.

"Today is a particularly significant day, because the enemies are trying hard to stop the people from going to the ballot boxes. But the people are very wise," he said in a live broadcast on state television.

Outcome

"Nobody can stop the young people from voting," he asserted, adding that "I hope the outcome will be a good one."

Reformist lawmakers barred from running for re-election have said the ballot is rigged and they will boycott the poll.

Some 46 million Iranians aged 15 and over are entitled to vote for 290 deputies.

Islamic conservatives seemed certain to dominate the new assembly after the Guardian Council, a watchdog panel of unelected clerics, disqualified 2500 mainly reformist candidates.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/DA3EC129-4CD7-43A5-BB83-46D08A51A700.htm

[F14 Pilot]

Iran's meaningless vote

The Boston Globe
2/20/2004

TODAY'S parliamentary elections in Iran shine a bright light on the terminal crisis of a failed political system.

The travesty of having the 12 members of a hard-line Guardian Council disqualify 2,500 of 8,200 candidates has not been lost on the electorate. Reformists speak of a parliamentary coup. Since a fettered Parliament and the office of the impotent President Mohammad Khatami have been the sole institutions in the hands of reformists, the hard-liners' strong-arm efforts to seize control of these platforms betray a fear of anything that resembles real democracy.

This is the anxiety of rulers who sense that their days in power are numbered. Their judiciary pitched in by closing two reformist newspapers yesterday. The papers were closed for printing a scathing open letter to the unelected cleric who bears the title of Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Signed by 100 pro-reform legislators, the letter castigated Khamenei for allowing freedom to be "trampled in the name of Islam."

In response to the thuggish tactics of the hard-liners, reformists have called for a boycott of the elections. Their logic might make sense to them, caught as they are between rivals who change the rules of the game at will and a public that has voted at least four times for change only to be cheated out of meaningful change. But the idea of a boycott has led the reformists into an impasse of paradoxes.

They say a ballot cast today is a vote for undemocratic elections. Conversely, a refusal to participate becomes a vote in favor of democracy. Iran's eligible voters -- there are 46 million of them -- may be excused for suffering a bout of vertigo from trying to follow this reasoning. They are being asked to believe that democracy requires one not to vote or that the act of voting identifies the voter as someone who actively rejects democracy.

The likely result is that pliant conservatives and zealous hard-liners will gain control of Parliament amid unverifiable claims about the effect of the boycott. Voters may stay home in droves, but vote-rigging by the hardliners will likely enable them to pretend there was a respectable turnout.

These spasms of a moribund system occur at the same time UN inspectors identified traces of highly enriched uranium on advanced centrifuges at an Iranian Air Force base. This suggests the regime has continued to lie to inspectors about its nuclear program.

The Bush administration and its European allies must walk a fine line, obliging the regime in Tehran to choose between a verifiable surrender of its nuclear weapons project and international censure and isolation -- yet refraining from any threat to use force. Left to their own devices, the ruling mullahs are doing a fine job of inoculating Iranians against the disease of clerical dictatorship.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2004/02/20/irans_meaningless_vote/