By Shahriar Kia
The presidential election in
Iran, scheduled for May 19th, witnessed a major development last Thursday when Ebrahim Raisi, of the “principalists”
faction and considered a close confidant of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali
Khamenei, announced his candidacy. A few weeks ago, 50 members of the
all-clerics Assembly of Experts, the body in charge of appointing the next
supreme leader, issued a letter to Khamenei calling for Raisi to become the regime’s
next president. Raisi himself had informed the regime’s various factions he
will participate only if he enjoys Khamenei’s blessing.
The incumbent
President Hassan Rouhani, the so-called
“reformist” seeking a second term, had
coincidently made it clear to his inner circle of gaining Khamenei’s approval
to take part in the election. Up to now, we can reach an initial conclusion
that the charade Tehran is dubbing an election is more a selection, as both the
main candidates are first seeking the approval of one individual before they
ever begin campaigning among the general public.
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Other
candidates currently in the race include Hamid Baqai, a former vice president
during the administration of former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former
nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili. Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf has
recently opted out.
For
the Iranian people, however, they are generally faced with one highly deceptive
figure, that being Rouhani, who is known as the “Purple Fox”, and Raisi, an utterly
brutal individual, known for his decades of service to the regime’s judiciary
in sending thousands of people to the gallows.
Rouhani’s
report card as a security official, who, in his own words, has been involved in
all of the Iranian regime’s important decisions, shows an active role in
repressive measures against women in the early days after the 1979 revolution,sending children and juveniles onto
minefields during the
Iran-Iraq War, quelling the 1999 student uprising, advancing Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program and
deceiving the international community, and over 3,000 executions during his
four years as president. We have also witnessed general poverty skyrocketing, a
large swathe of Iran’s economy coming to a halt, and much of the country’s
assets being allocated to foreign meddling in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond.
Raisi
has been climbing the regime ladder through the judiciary, proving his loyalty
to the establishment as Tehran’s deputy public prosecutor, issuing death
sentences easily at a strike of a pen, and known for his support of atrocious
mass executions. Most horrifying of all is Raisi’s membership in the notorious
“Death Commission” behind the 1988 massacre of over 30,000
political prisoners, mostly members and supporters of the Iranian opposition
People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK),
to the gallows.
Khamenei
rewarded Raisi by appointing him Tehran’s prosecutor, head of the country’s
Inspector Organization, judiciary deputy, the public prosecutor of the Special
Clerics Court, and the regime’s leading public prosecutor. Most recently
Khamenei trusted Raisi by placing him in charge of the Astan Quds Razavi, a so-called
foundation considered to be one of Iran’s most powerful political and economic
entities. A large percentage of this regime’s budget used to export terrorism
and fundamentalism through the Revolutionary Guards abroad is
provided by this very institution.
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