Iranian officials expose unprecedented fraud during election campaigns

With the Iranian parliamentary election just 10 days away, infighting has surged and regime officials are revealing new aspects of corruption and bribery in the election’s process, which in fact shows that corruption plagues the regime as a whole.

Mostafa Mirsalim, a member of the Expediency Council, said:

“In some provinces, they pay the people to buy their votes… today, in some districts, we are seeing strategic corruption, which means it’s corruption that is the root of other corruption.”

While the Friday prayer leader of Kian, Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province said people were tired of the regime’s lies and corruption as he tried to shift the blame away from himself.

He said:

“The people are really tired of lies, they’re tired of these things they are seeing. Nepotism has soared to an alarming level. MPs use their power to help their families. When they reach their post, they will give privileges to their family members. Their cousins become important people, their brothers gain authority.”

This is just the latest round of confessions over corruption after Iranian MP Mahmoud Sadeghi tweeted last week that the “middlemen” are demanding “40 billion rials (about $300,000)” to ensure that a candidate will be approved to run.

He is not the only run exposing the sham elections either. A media outlet close to President Hassan Rouhani said that the election for 160 seats is predetermined and there is “no competition”. While Ali Hashemi, the former head of Iran’s Drug Control Headquarters (DCH), confirmed that “dirty money”, collected through drug smuggling, helps decide the country’s parliamentary elections by providing financial support to candidates.

Regime officials are terrified that these revelations and the infighting may cause Iranians to boycott the elections.

The state-run Arman Daily wrote, “The Majlis elections are taking place while there’s a likely chance that a single faction will take control of the parliament seats… It seems that none of the recommendations that were issued after the November [protests] has been given minimal attention.”

While Ebtekar warned: “Recent events show that the Iranian society has chosen to have a ‘silent election,’ and this will have very grave consequences.”

Of course, as Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) has already said, the Iranian people cast their true votes in November when they chanted about overthrowing the regime as a whole and having neither hardliners or reformists in power. The Iranian people will boycott these elections and show them up for the frauds they are.