LAST REFORMISTS MMs LETTER TO KHAMENEH’I "TOO LATE, TOO WEAK".
TEHRAN, 18 Feb. (IPS) As expected, Iran’s media, official as well as the few that speak for the reformists refrained from publishing the last letter wrote by more than a hundred Members of the Majles barred from running in the coming elections to Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, accusing him indirectly for the mass disqualification of reformist candidates by the Council of the Guardians.
"The organs under your authority, having for four years humiliated the Majles and the representatives of the people by blocking legislation, have openly blocked the most basic right of the people: to choose and be chosen", the lawmakers said, referring to the 12-members CG that is controlled by the leader.
The letter was read and distributed at the Majles by a group of some 70 reformist deputies who have resigned over the disqualifications.
"Who is bully, the men who are elected by the people and defend their rights or those who violate people’s basic rights, that of choosing freely their representatives", the signatories asked Mr. Khameneh’i, referring to the term of "the bullies" he used in a recent speech to denounce the protesting lawmakers who had staged a protest sit-in.
This was the second time that reformist lawmakers wrote an open letter to the leader, warning him against the continuation of conservative’s policies imposing their wishes to the entire nation.
"If there is a cup of poison to be taken, it is now, or the whole of the regime would face extinction", the deputies had warned last May, after the CG rejected the bills presented earlier to the Majles by the government of the embattled President Mohammad Khatami aimed at curtailing some of the powers of the Guardians in the one hand and increasing some of the powers of the president.
However, the second letter read at the Majles on Wednesday was milder than the previous one, analysts noted, adding that "anyhow, like the previous letter, this one comes too late and stop short of addressing the main issues".
"The question consists of knowing how the Council of the Guardians was confident enough to resist your orders or whether, according to the rumour that is circulating and contrary to public statements, they obtained your permission by other means to persist in the illegal and massive disqualifications of candidates", they further asked, avoiding any direct criticism of the leader, an act that under the present laws of the Islamic Republic is considered as a criminal offence.
Though Ayatollah Khameneh’i had ordered the Guardians to "review" the case of some senior incumbent MMs, but they upheld their decision to ban some 2,300 candidates, including 80 reformist lwmakers, among them the younger brother of the President, Dr. Mohammad Reza Khatami, the first deputy-Speaker and leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front.
Referring to a demand formulated by protesting MMs and backed by the Interior Ministry to postpone the date of the elections, due on Friday 20 February, the signatories observed that, "this (delaying the elections) would not have been contrary to Islam or the law".
But both "KHs" (Khatami and Khameneh’i) definitively ruled out, stating that elections must be held on due time and facing a serious mass abstention by the voters, the majority of them young generation badly deceived by the reformists, stated that voting is a "religious duty".
As a result, over 130 reformist lawmakers resigned and the IIPF and some other groups and formations in the Second Khordad Coalition that support Mr. Khatami decided not to go to the polls.
Late on Monday, President Khatami wrote "with a heavy heart" that a disgruntled and apathetic public should put aside complaints that the polls are unfair and try to keep out hardliners.
"It was a dramatic call from the weakened president, who had been elected on a pledge to deliver greater democracy, to the large numbers of voters, especially young people and women, who had put him and his allies in office", commented the French news agency AFP.
"Many people have the feeling that in many constituencies, they cannot vote for their preferred candidate. But with a little tolerance, they can search to find those candidates who are closest to their views," Khatami wrote in a statement carried by state news agency IRNA.
"The parliament formed by the Guardians and not the will of the people will would be a threat to our national security and independence instead of safeguarding them", the letter went on, adding: "We are very worried about the future and worry that the regime, without the support of the people, will be forced to surrender to foreign attacks".
"The turnout will be weak", predicted the younger Khatami. "People know that because of the disqualification of candidates, there is no point in voting", he added.
"If the elections are held without any vote riggings and frauds, it would become a kind of referendum", said Mr. Hoseyn Loqmanian, an outspoken reformist deputy from the western city of Hamadan and the only lawmaker who was jailed for a brief period on charges of insulting the leader.
President Khatami’s pathetic appeal reflects fears of a low turnout that would deal a serious blow to a regime that has cut itself from the people and has prided itself on having huge numbers of voters participate in past ballots.
A campaign by blacklisted reformist candidates, joined by many Iranian political formations and students, intellectual, scholar associations inside and outside Iran to shun Friday's election gained an illustrious endorsement Tuesday when Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi said she would not vote.
"I will not vote myself because I don't know those who have been qualified. I'm not ready to vote for someone I don't know", the human rights activist and lawyer said in an interview with the British news agency Reuters.
"The first principle of democracy is that people should have the right to vote for anyone they want", she noted.
Her comment was a blow to efforts by the ruling conservatives to mobilize a big turnout Friday despite widespread public apathy and anger among the mass of the voters.
The exclusion of some 2,500 contenders had "damaged people's freedom to vote", she said, observing that the outgoing reformist-dominated parliament had made little progress in improving human rights because the Guardians had vetoed all key legislation.
"For example, parliament had voted to join an international convention outlawing discrimination against women but the Council had blocked it. Khatami's power to effect change was limited by the constitution", she said.
"People want them to eliminate discrimination based on sex, people want more freedom of speech, people want more democracy, people want more respect for human rights", she said.