MEK Iran: Iranian people will boycott the coming sham parliamentary election

On February 21, the Iranian regime will hold its parliamentary election, but this could well be the crisis that tears the regime apart.

Following on from the uprisings of November 2019 and January 2020, where hundreds of thousands of people came out into the streets to call for an end to the regime, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is trying to consolidate power by disqualifying a large number of candidates from the factions of President Hassan Rouhani. It is his blind hope that by creating a one-faction parliament, he can ward off the regime’s downfall, but this will likely cause more problems.

Of course, he is not doing this himself, but rather getting the 12-member Guardian Council, which is responsible for approving candidates for election to do so. Khamenei appoints half the Council himself, while the other six are appointed by the head of the judiciary, who is also chosen by Khamenei. It is not hard to see the strings at work here; all the Council members are loyal to Khamenei.

The Council has so far disqualified 90 current members of the parliament, some who have served three terms, and for 170 districts the only candidates come from Khamenei’s faction, which means that 260 seats will go to Khamenei, with 30 at most going to Rouhani.

Rouhani has lashed out, calling this election “ceremonial” and a “selection process”, and condemned the Council. But those in Khamenei’s factions accused him of hypocrisy because he never questioned the Council’s role when he was elected. Ibrahim Raisi, the head of the regime’s judiciary, even threatened Rouhani and accused him of working for the enemy.

This has only increased the infighting between both factions

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), said that this is a reflection of the impasse the regime is facing and the purging of Rouhani’s candidates is a clear sign of the regime’s downfall in the face of uprisings and the crisis of overthrow.

Boycotting this election is a patriotic duty & a pledge with the martyrs of the November 2019 uprising #Iran #BoycottIranShamElections pic.twitter.com/oAzKBwDbPp

— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) February 7, 2020

She said that the Iranian people cast their true vote in the uprisings of November 2019 and January 2020, when they chanted “death to the principle of the velayat-e faqih”, “death to the dictator”, “death to the oppressor, be it the Shah or the [Supreme] Leader”, and “death to Khamenei”. She advised that Iranians boycott this sham election, as their patriotic duty in order to advocate for a free and democratic Iran.