Ex-President’s Jailed Daughter Says Stay Away From Iran Elections
Maryam Sinaiee
Iran International
Faezeh Hashemi has warned Reformist parties not to take part in the March 2024 parliamentary elections to avoid giving more power to the “dictator”.
Iran International
Faezeh Hashemi has warned Reformist parties not to take part in the March 2024 parliamentary elections to avoid giving more power to the “dictator”.
“Any kind of presence in the upcoming elections is collaboration with lie and hypocrisy,” the late President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s outspoken daughter has written in another open letter from Tehran’s Evin Prison. The letter is titled “Why We Should Not Participate In Elections”.
The Islamic Republic will be holding parliamentary elections on March 1. Apart from the 290 members of the parliament, prospective voters must simultaneously choose 88 members of the Experts Assembly in the March elections.
In the 2021 parliamentary elections, the ultra-conservative Guardian Council that screens candidates, rejected hundreds of reformists and centrists, handing the parliament to hardliners in a low-turnout election. Now, after months of anti-regime protests, hardliner loyalists of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are concerned that most voters will stay home in March, and this will further erode the regime’s legitimacy.
Addressing Reformists, Hashemi who once was a lawmaker supporting reforms said ‘dictators’ would have had a hard time maintaining their power if reformists had not fallen into the trap of “protecting the system” at any cost. They should have shown resistance to dictatorship so freedom and justice would not have been “sacrificed in the name of security”, and group and individual interests had not “taken precedence over national interests”.
In her letter copies of which have been provided to media, Hashemi also pointed out that Iranians no longer care which political party or faction holds power in the country.
Protesters in recent years have said they don’t trust any of the factions making up the regime in the country.
Reformists can force the rulers to change their policies and eventually “take back” the power they gave to those in power now by abstaining from participation in elections that are neither fair nor free.
Hardline media attacked Hashemi Tuesday morning, equating her to radicals who want to overthrow the regime.
Javan newspaper affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard attacked all Reformists that it said are headed by former President Mohammad Khatami and accused them of conspiring to boycott the elections.
Mashregh News, another hardline publication linked with Iran’s security organs, also harshly criticized Hashemi for her letter.
Many believe that chances of anything other than a very low turnout seem to be quite slim unless the regime radically changes its approach and holds free elections, but this is very unlikely.
Many factors have contributed to the alienation of the public and even participation of noticeable reformists figures cannot change the circumstances and ensure a high turnout, reformist Shargh daily wrote Monday.
The state is now dominated by hardliners in all three branches of government, which has driven the economy into the ground, leaving little potential voter support.
Some pundits claim turnout in the 2024 elections may be as low as 15 percent.
The Reformist Front, an umbrella organization of several parties and groups, neither boycotted the 2020 election nor promoted it. Nearly all reformist candidates nominated by individual parties and groups were disqualified by the ultra-hardliner, Khamenei-appointed election watchdog, the Guardian Council.
The Front recently elected female politician Azar Mansouri as their chair. Some commentators believe that Mansouri is less likely than his predecessor Behzad Nabavi to surrender to pressures to get reformists involved in elections in which, at best, they will only be allowed to encourage people to vote.
Javan newspaper, however, accused Reformists of electing a woman as leader to ride the wave of recent ‘Women, Life Freedom’ protests.
Mashregh News called Mansouri “a radical” implying that the Guardian Council would not approve the candidacy of Reformists in the March elections.
Former Iranian diplomat Fereydoun Majlesi has said sarcastically in an interview with Didban Iran website that: "Ms. Abad can now help the pious in Finland to deliver their babies in the Islamic way."
Although Majlesi's view can be challenged for its political incorrectness, his criticism of the irrelevance of the appointment looks valid, because the appointee has no relevant experience.
Iranian ambassadors are usually selected from the ranks of career diplomats or experienced political, military figures.
Referring to Abad's career record and her diplomatic mission, Majlesi said that the Islamic Republic has no serious presence in the international arena, so it does not need a professional diplomat for such a mission."
He also quipped that most probably the ambassador can be a good host at parties with Muslims in Helsinki.
It was not only Majlesi who criticized Abad's appointment. It raised a wave of uproar from Iranians on social media. Protests in this regard came even from among political supporters of the current government. The Student Basij of Imam Sadeq University, one of the most hardline political and militia organizations in Iran, wrote in a tweet June, 28: "How has she been appointed as an ambassador after serving as a Tehran City Councillor and the head of the maternity ward of Najmiyeh Hospital? Is this meant to make the role of Iranian women prominent in the international public opinion?"
On Twitter, user Naji Ali presented a document that Ms. Abad was one of those involved in the "astronomical real estate" corruption case at the Tehran Municipality under current parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf who gave her some property at an extremely low price.
According to Didban Iran, Massoumeh Abad was a prisoner of war for some time during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s and has written her memoirs in a book entitled: "I am alive." She has a doctorate from the Shahid Beheshti University in the field of fertility and has been a member of the Tehran City Council twice.
The website also confirmed that Abad was implicated in the "astronomical real estate" case, which became public in 2017 as part of a huge corruption case involving the mayors’ closest aides who were Revolutionary Guard officers. Eventually, two top people were convicted by a military tribunal. It was reported at the time in local media that embezzlement and give away of city property totalled at least five billion dollars.
The website added that now that President Ebrahim Raisi has appointed several Imam Sadeq University (a dubious religious university) alumni as his cabinet ministers, it is not strange to appoint a midwife as an ambassador.
Media reports say Abad is Iran's fifth female ambassador since the 1979 revolution. Previously, Marziyeh Afkham, a career diplomat and a former foreign ministry spokesperson was appointed ambassador to Malaysia, and Afsaneh Nadipour, Forouzandeh Vadiati, and Homeyra Rigi were appointed as ambassadors in Denmark, Finland and Brunei.
Former diplomat Majlesi observed that "When the circle of government insiders is getting increasingly smaller, then they do not have any real expert to appoint to key posts."
He added that Iran has been buying expensive buildings abroad for a long time to use as premises for embassies and someone like Ms. Abad can certainly attend to the building and keep it in a good shape.
Social media users have pointed out that Abad's husband, Sayyed Safar Salehi was previously appointed to a mission to forge oil deals in the UK. Others on social media said that the reason for Abad's extra-ordinary promotion is that she was the gynaecologist of one of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's daughters-in-law.