Elections In Iran Shift To Tribes Over Parties, Newspapers Say
Following the low-turnout March 1 elections in Iran, newspapers are criticizing the electoral system and the Interior Ministry for their conduct and handling of the election results.
Following the low-turnout March 1 elections in Iran, newspapers are criticizing the electoral system and the Interior Ministry for their conduct and handling of the election results.
Some newspapers such as Ham Mihan and Sazandegi, along with the pro-reform Arman Melli, delved into significant issues with headlines such as "The Decline of Politics in Iranian Society," "Ethnic Groups Supplanting Political Parties," and "A Silent Protest." Meanwhile, hardline dailies like Kayhan offered congratulations to the government, celebrating "the high voter turnout" without acknowledging the sizeable majority of eligible voters who abstained.
However, Kayhan, linked to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office, failed to mention that from nearly 62 million eligible voters, some 36 million refused to take part in the elections, even according to the inflated numbers announced by the government.
Ham Mihan pointed out that with this election "political activity in Iran has become banal," as young individuals with little political experience will enter the Iranian parliament next summer. The daily quoted social scientist Kazem Kardavani as saying that "The Iranian society will not be able to solve its problem as long as politics is reduced to a vulgar matter." The daily reiterated that no man in the street can become a political leader overnight.
The paper further observed that the conservative camp, in its pursuit of political purification, has sidelined experienced politicians like Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel. It warned that this trend could extend to other prominent figures, including current Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
In an article for Sazandegi, Hossein Marashi of the centrist Executives of Construction Party pointed out the replacement of political parties by ethnic groups in the election, attributing it to government filtering of political parties and the expectation of a Tehran boycott, which shifted political activity to smaller towns with stronger ethnic identities.
Marashi cited Urmia's election outcome, where ethnic Kurds triumphed over ethnic Azaris, as evidence. He issued a stark warning against the ultraconservative Paydari Party, suggesting it could seize control of both the parliament and the country, urging vigilance against its totalitarian tendencies.
Meanwhile, in a stark warning to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who has reportedly engineered the elections, Marashi said that the leading ultraconservative Paydari Party is likely to take over not only the parliament, but probably the whole country. Marashi wrote: "After the election, the Islamic Republic should closely watch Paydari and its totalitarian tendencies. The leaders of the regime will have to note that Paydari can turn into a nuisance that can disrupt everything.
Marashi warned that "if Ghalibaf cannot control the parliament, Paydari will take over the helm and control the legislature. In that case the only solution for the regime is to give an opportunity to reformists to face down Paydari." However, the reformists' ability to do so is doubtful.
Arman Melli quoted reformist activist Saeed Shariati as saying that election turnout was terribly low in all the elections since 2020, and that this situation will not change as long as the people's trust in the election system and in the performance of the Majles is not restored. Shariati said that the people do not trust an election whose candidates are nominated by the Guardian Council rather than by people or political parties. On the other hand, the Majles has done nothing to restore people's trust in the legislative system.
The daily reiterated that by not voting, or by casting blank votes, Iranians have silently voiced their dissatisfaction with the country's current situation.
Majid Dastjani Farahani, sanctioned by the US treasury in December 2023, is believed to be an officer from Iran’s intelligence ministry recruiting individuals “for operations in the U.S.,” as revenge for the killing of Iran’s top extra-territorial operator in the Middle East, General Qasem Soleimani four years ago.
The Iranian regime has never hidden its intentions to avenge Soleimani’s killing. High on their hit list seem to be Trump-era officials who could be imagined having had a role in the decision to strike Soleimani’s convoy at the Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran, through all tools and capacities in order to bring to justice the perpetrators and all those who had a hand in this government sanctioned act of terror, will not sit until that is done,” Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said in his UN General Assembly address last September. “The blood of the oppressed will not be forgotten.”
Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and Trump’s special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, are believed to be targets, both under round-the-clock protection from the US government. The provision is costing the American taxpayer around a million dollars each month, as revealed in a US Senate hearing last week featuring Brian Hook.
Also on the hit list is John Bolton, who was Trump’s national security advisor in the months leading up to the killing of Soleimani.
It’s unclear whether Farahani is believed to have succeeded in recruiting someone, and if he did, how far they managed to advance their plan on American soil. The FBI says that Farahani has also attempted to recruit individuals to spy on some “religious sites, businesses, and other facilities in the United States.”
Farahani acted or purported to act “for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security,” according to the FBI. He is said to travel “frequently” to Venezuela from Iran and speaks Spanish –all of which could explain, partially at least, why the Most Wanted notice was issued by the FBI's field office in Miami.
Iran seems to be focused on enlisting non-Iranians, especially criminals or armed militia, to act on its behalf, mainly, it seems, to avoid culpability. This is perhaps most evident in Iran’s attack on US interests in the Middle East, which is always directed through the regime’s proxies in the region.
But planning operations inside the United States is less evident and far in between.
In 2021, U.S. authorities revealed that there was a plot to kidnap Iranian-American activist, Masih Alinejad, from her home in Brooklyn and take her by speedboat to Venezuela. In January 2024, the US Justice Department indicted three natives of Azerbaijan for allegedly attempting to murder Alinejad in New York.
Around the same time, the Justice Department also indicted an Iranian gang leader plotting to assassinate unnamed Iranian dissidents in Maryland.
Targeting dissidents and opposition figures abroad has been a hallmark of the Iranian regime ever since its inception in 1979. Iranian activists, journalists, even artists, have been assassinated in cold blood and often in gruesome fashion to eliminate political alternatives –and also set examples for those daring to oppose the Islamic Republic.
But targeting US officials on American soil is adventurism of a different order. It is not clear if the new revelation will result in any action by the Biden administration that spent its first two years in office to try reach some sort of a deal with Iran over its sprawling nuclear program.
Economist Morteza Afghah told ILNA that every report about the possibility of Trump's victory or polls in favor of the Republican Party leads to the rial’s devaluation as a return to Republican rule in the US signals a choking of the Iranian economy with Trump seen as a US president with the most negative impacts on the regime.
In 2018, Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal – known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions or JCPOA – and imposed ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Tehran, practically reducing Iran’s oil exports to less than 500,000 barrels per day and blocking the revenues in foreign banks.
Afghah noted that a myriad of factors play a role in the devaluation of the rial such as the country's foreign policy and the regional tensions over the war in Gaza. Iran backs several regional militia groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria as well as Yemen that have escalated attacks on US and Israeli targets in allegiance with Hamas.
The Iran-backed Islamist group invaded Israel on October 7, killed about 1,200 mostly civilians and took about 240 hostages, igniting the worst Middle East conflict in years. Meanwhile, Iran's Yemeni militia, the Houthis, are now imposing a blockade on trade routes around the Red Sea in support of Hamas in Gaza, causing huge economic implications to global trade.
According to Afghah, another factor that has been fueling the rise of foreign currency rates against the rial is the high demand for dollars and euros in the last weeks of the Iranian year, which ends on March 20 and ushers the Noruz (Nowruz) in Iran. During the two-week holidays, many Iranians take trips abroad, making the demand for foreign currency far higher than the Iranian authorities can supply.
Afghah made the remarks after the rial hit a low of about 600,000 against the dollar on Sunday. The Central Bank of Iran (CBI) has been injecting foreign currency into the market to curb the devaluation of the rial but after a historic low turnout in Iran’s elections on March 1 and the prospects of Trump winning the office in the US, the CBI’s efforts seem inconsequential.
The analyst says the fall of rial will continue until at least the end of March and the CBI does not have enough foreign currency supply to control the market as the administration has been draining all its strategic reserves, including the National Development Fund, in the past two years to balance its budget deficit.
Former US president Trump swept a trio of states Saturday, inching his way closer to a formal Republican party nomination for president. But the weekend also featured a bright spot for Nikki Haley, who won her first state in the nominating cycle with a victory in Sunday's Washington, DC, primaries. However, even Haley is a tough critic of the Iranian regime and strongly defended Trump’s decision to withdraw from the JCPOA.
For critics outside Iran, the JCPOA symbolizes a policy of appeasement with Tehran’s destabilizing acts across the region and human rights violations at home. Dissidents and critics of the regime in Tehran view the nuclear deal as the West tolerating Iran’s military adventurism and crackdown on dissent as a measure to keep the path of diplomacy open. The majority of the Iranian population and a large number of foreign officials believe that years of punitive measures against Tehran have proved that sanctions and condemnations will not lead to a change in the regime's behavior, only becoming further emboldened in its policy of hostage-taking and accelerating its nuclear program in the face of sanctions.
Ruling hardliners in Iran are growing increasingly apprehensive about the possibility of a Republican victory in US presidential elections, leading to a tougher stance towards Tehran. Trump's withdrawal from the JCPOA shattered the hopes of both Iranian hardliners and moderates, who had envisioned reaping benefits from the nuclear deal with the West in exchange for curbing their nuclear ambitions, while expanding their conventional capabilities and regional influence.
Although the Biden Administration has been too lenient on Iran and often turned a blind eye in the face of mischiefs by the regime, politicians in Tehran still believe that Biden could have done more than giving billions of dollars to Iran in return for releasing US hostages and releasing Iran's frozen assets in South Korea, Iraq and elsewhere.
Making matters worse, the results of Iran’s March 1 elections show that some of Iran's lawmakers known to be staunch critics of the JCPOA have been reelected for the parliament. Morteza Ezzati, an economic analyst, told Rouydad24, “The representatives who will apparently be in the next parliament are known to be anti-JCPOA, which could seriously threaten the public interest and also provoke a reaction from the global community.”
He noted that the history of hardliners at the helm shows that whenever they are the decision makers, they have dragged the economy to the brink of bankruptcy.