Iran will soon hold its presidential election, and beforehand, government officials and state media are speaking about the people’s big ‘NO’ to this election and are expressing their fears.
But the situation this time is even worse than the previous elections. This time the government is forced to convince its forces to support and be present in the scene of this election.
On this, the state-run daily Shargh on April 17 wrote: “The government, its political factions, and even its individual figures have lost their hegemony and are no longer able to align people with their ideas, beliefs and tastes to engage in political action. This situation is more painful for the reformists than any other faction.”
The concerns of media like this one which are affiliated with Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s faction are because of the hate of the people, and slogans like ‘Reformists, principelists, the game is over’, which were the true face of the protests in the past years, which is showing the will of the overthrow of the regime.
The Mostagel daily has the same concern as it wrote: “The 1400 (2021) election is the most unprecedented stagnated, reluctant and hopeless election in the recent four decades since the establishment of the Islamic Republic.”
Explaining the reason for this situation to be because of “the widening of the gap between the nation and the government, the unprecedented frustration with the improvement of the situation at various levels and the formation of a dark horizon in the political sphere of the country.” (Mostagel, April 17, 2021)
The state-run daily Shargh completed this puzzle and wrote: “In this period, the situation is a bit different, and regardless of which faction wins the election by what percentage, it seems that we have to examine the reasons for the cold atmosphere of the election.
“Whether economic factors and the crisis of livelihood have diverted people from political activism, or do people think that the reform of the status quo will not necessarily be achieved with the emergence of new officials?
“If the people and their votes are considered merely as an ornament for this event, nothing will remain of the republic of the system. Today, the effects of this situation have affected all the people on the streets and in the bazaars, leading our citizens to feel that the solution to the daily problems under which their backs are bent will be not solved the ballot box. This is a dangerous situation, and we should think of a solution without arguing. Otherwise, the solution may be sought elsewhere, where it may end up in nowhere.” (Shargh daily, April 17, 2021)
Now after 40 years if some of the elements or officials is looking for the reason of such a situation, he/she should better just have a look at their performance and of course thought, handling with people, as one of the famous clerics Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi once said:
“In the Islamic government, the people’s vote has no legal and spiritual validity. Neither in the principle of the election of the type of political system of their country nor in the validity of the constitution nor in the election of the president and the election of experts and leadership. The legal criterion is only one thing and that is the consent of the Velayat-e-Faqih (supreme leader).” (ISNA, January 2, 2021)
And the state-run daily Ebtekar described this situation as a “reliability crisis” and wrote: “The reliability crisis has caught everyone. Both political institutions and individuals are at the lowest level of public trust. The nation is hard believing to the claims and slogans. They are not cheering anymore for fantasy speeches. The Utopia of the collective mentality of Iranian society has turned to dust, and therefore the people are ignoring the hollow promises.” (Ebtekar, April 10, 2021)
