By Michael Jones

The debacle of the March 14 elections to the Iranian majlis (parliament) is a vivid example of the extremely undemocratic political system in Iran and the growing gulf between the mass of the (overwhelmingly young) Iranian population and their theocratic rulers. An apt metaphor for the regime’s desperate attempts to legitimise the elections came when arrested trade union leader Monsour Ossanlou issued a public statement (undoubtedly forced out of him by torture) calling on Iranians to vote in the elections to try and make a difference.

How should anti-war activists in Britain respond to the developments in Iran? We certainly do not need to apologise for Iran’s lack of democracy and try to create the impression that everything is wonderful in that country. Yet this is the logic adopted by an increasing number of people in the anti-war movement. Take Somaye Zadeh of Campaign Iran. In her speech at the Stop the War Coalition’s AGM in November 2007, she spoke of the “lie” that Iran is an undemocratic and oppressive country. On the contrary, the government was voted in with “overwhelming popular support” and “the kind of vote that George Bush can only dream of”.¹

This is reactionary apologia. Iran is effectively a one-party state under the sway of the mullahs who not only vet candidates and control the elections’ extremely restrictive campaigning rules, but can also overturn both the president (in reality a sort of puppet figure) and any legislation passed by the majlis that it deems unfit. This can have some odd consequences.

Before the election, for example, the unelected guardian council used its powers to disqualify 1,700 candidates on grounds of insufficient loyalty to islam, although most of them were candidates of the Islamic Republic Party … In two out of three seats there was actually no electoral competition at all. As such it is completely disingenuous to suggest that this regime has “overwhelming popular support”, when the Iranian people have no effective means of registering their opposition in elections.

Although some on the left still may harbour illusions in the so-called ‘reformists’, it is incumbent upon genuine democrats and internationalists to expose the lies and hypocrisy of people like the multi-billionaire Rafsanjani or the “mullah with a smile”, Khatami. Despite being venerated by The Guardian as somebody who “tried to smooth some of the sharp edges of the Islamic Republic” in a “bold but ineffectual presidency”², he had a despicable attitude towards any secular opposition in Iran and brutally repressed students, workers and women.

The Iranian student magazine Ava Dagnesha is totally correct in arguing: “For us a dictator is a dictator, whether he does his dirty deeds with a smile and chocolate-coloured aba [Khatami] or with a scroll and a crème-coloured aba [Ahmadinejad]” [an aba is the traditional outer garment]. Discontent is growing against both of these representatives of the Iranian theocracy.

Ahmadinejad’s subservience to the International Monetary Fund’s neoliberal reforms is deeply unpopular in a country where inflation is rising rapidly, wages are not being paid for months on end, and yet mullahs preside over huge wealth and status. Ahmadinejad’s party, the ‘Sweet Smell of Service’, actually decided against fielding a bloc of candidates in an implicit recognition of the fact that by doing so the Iranian people would – albeit in an extremely distorted and indirect manner – be able to express their hatred of him and his party of extreme conservatives (they believe that the saviour of Iran will come in the form of the lost 12th mullah who will rise up from a well).

Snubbing the reformists’ calls to ‘use their vote’, some of the leftwing students with whom Communist Students are in contact have been promoting an active boycott of the Iranian elections. They report that in the major cities the turnout has been half that of the presidential elections of last year. In the working class areas of south Tehran, many people were open and proud about their participation in the boycott, showing reporters their clean fingers (voters have their fingers marked with black ink). They openly mocked the regime’s claims of a high turnout.

This is where democracy and popular political expression are increasingly to be found in Iran – on the streets, on the campuses and in the workplaces. There is an ever more successful mobilisation of secular forces within Iran – forces that would not even be allowed to stand in the elections, as they are not islamic groups approved by the mullahs.

All those anti-war activists in Britain who oppose regime change à la George W Bush and who wish to see an Iran freed from the yoke of theocratic brutality must make sure that these democratic Iranian voices are heard within our movement.

Notes

1.www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hq5hKzx6O0

2. The Guardian March 14.