by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary, on MAY 30, 2013:
Mohsen Kadivar
Several Iranian opposition figures have declared Iran’s upcoming June 14 presidential election illegitimate, following last week’s decision by Iran’s constitutional body to disqualify several candidates. Among the disqualified is leading opposition-backed candidate and former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Exiled Iranian dissident and Muslim scholar Mohsen Kadivar, said, in an interview, “The Green Movement as well as most reformists do NOT participate in this election. It is not a free, fair and competitive election, rather it is a selection between the loyal servants of the dictator.”
“The closest candidate to the reformists and Green Movement was disqualified by Iran’s constitutional body — the Guardian Council. Among the eight qualified candidates, six of them are fundamentalists. Two qualified reformists are weak and under the umbrella of the leader.”
Mohsen Kadivar is Visiting Research Professor of Islamic Studies at Duke University, an Iranian dissident in exile since 2008, and a global ethics fellow with the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. He was sentenced to 18 months in prison in Iran in 1999 because of his political criticism of the Islamic Republic, and was released in July 2000. He remains active in the opposition Green Movement. He is also core faculty with the Duke Islamic Studies Center. His personal website is http://en.kadivar.com.
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Mirrored from Islamicommentary
This odious vetting of candidates is likely one result of the ongoing sanctions orchestrated by the US. Any government under threat is certainly going to circle the wagons. Also, it’s only a few degrees of magnitude ahead of our own circumscribed presidential races. The Dem and Repub duopoly have rigged the electoral process so thoroughly it’s nearly impossible for viable alternative party candidates to make any headway. As for “loyalty to the dictator,” in Iran’s case it’s loyalty to the theocracy, in ours it’s fealty to the corporatocracy and current power elite. Who does not think our final nominated candidates have been vetted by the gray suits behind the curtain?
Following the row between Mossadegh and the late Shah, which necessitated a coup to fully place the power back in the grips of the latter, the monarch made sure to pick his subsequent prime ministers as loyal and subservient as feasible. That seemed to work for a couple of decades until things all of a sudden slipped out of control, leaving his last prime minister of 12 years, Amir-Abbas Hoveyda, to face the wrath of the revolutionary executioners, while the Shah abandoned ship.
After 8 years of reformist Khatami, a costly election coup to fend off further reformist heresy and a heart-breaking show of insolence from the apple-of-his-eye chosen president, the Supreme Leader also needs to assure himself peace in the house henceforth. Does the postman always ring twice?
‘I Am Convinced that the Regime Will Collapse’ — Ayatollah Mohsen Kadivar, December 26, 2009, Der Spiegel interview