Iran: Boycott the vetted election, not the mass protests

Yassamine Mather looks at the candidates for the presidency, who have to be approved by a council of clerics, and reckons they have anything to offer to the ordinary people.

On the last available day, ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani registered as a presidential candidate. Rafsanjani was the Islamic republic’s fourth president and is standing as a ‘reformist’. In reality he is the candidate of capitalism and probably one of the richest men in Iran. The newst that Rafsanjani had entered the race ‘to save the country’ generated hysteria. The principlists (conservative, hard-line supporters of ayatollah Ali Khamenei) accuse Rafsanjani of holding back before making his last-minute move in order to surprise his opponents. There is some truth to this claim: principlists entered the presidential elections with at least 7 serious candidates and another 14 less serious contenders. Had they known they would be facing such a figure, they would have tried to rally round a single candidate.

Some of Rafsanjani’s allies have claimed he was waiting for the approval of the supreme leader before putting himself forward. Two weeks ago he said he would only go ahead if Khamenei wanted him to do so, but a few days later there was a slightly different version: he would only put his name forward if the supreme leader did not object to his nomination. His telephone conversation with Khamenei1 or one his close advisers2 (depending on which version you read) only took place at 4.30pm Tehran time on May 11 - less than one and a half hours before the deadline. Rafsanjani’s daughter confirms this.3

Whatever the truth, Rafsanjani, who is now benefiting from the full support of the ‘reformist camp’ led by Mohammad Khatami, is no opponent of the Islamic regime. In fact he does not even claim to be a reformist: he is, in his own words, a “moderate”. Some consider him to be a “pragmatist conservative”4 - someone who tried to mediate between the ‘reformists’ and the conservatives after the debacle of the 2009 elections. Now he has, according to Khatami (Iran’s last ‘reformist’ president) made a “major sacrifice” and come forward to fulfil his duty to the “nation, the Islamic Republic and the faith”. ...