Khamenei, Ali

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      Iran Activists Urge Election Boycott. Raisi Likely Winner.

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      In a soft pleading voice, the white-haired woman in the video implores, “For the sake of my son, Pouya Bakhtiari, don’t vote.” She holds the young man’s photo, and continues, “Because of the bullet they shot at his head and shattered his dreams, don’t vote.” In a second video, another mother, sitting next to a gravestone, echoed the same message: “At 30, my son lies under a huge pile of dirt.” A third woman described her 18-year-old son as full of hope, until Nov. 17, 2019, when a bullet pierced his heart.“Voting means betrayal,” she added.Videos like these, circulating on Iranian activists’ social media accounts with the hashtag that in Persian means #notovoting, have been appearing in increasing numbers in the weeks and months leading up to Iran’s presidential election on Friday. Some of the videos have been made by parents who say their children were shot dead during antigovernment protests over the last few years. Others are by the parents of political prisoners who were executed by the regime in the 1980s, as well as by the families of those who died in the Ukrainian passenger plane that crashed last year shortly after takeoff from Tehran. (Iran’s military said it mistakenly shot down the plane).What’s remarkable about the videos is their audacity: that Iranians are speaking up, seemingly without fear, about boycotting an election in an authoritarian country whose leaders rarely tolerate open displays of dissent. Iranians have had enough. And besides, what’s the point of voting when the result is predetermined?The call for an election boycott seems to be resonating: a recent poll by the state-run Iranian Student Polling Agency predicts that turnout will be as low as 40 percent — the lowest since the 1979 revolution.A low turnout in Friday’s election would certainly signal a rejection of the Islamic regime. But not voting will also give the regime exactly what it wants: a near-certain assurance that its handpicked candidate, Ebrahim Raisi, a cleric who is close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, will win.Of course, the regime has done its part as well for Mr. Raisi. Last month, the Guardian Council, the body that vets election candidates, rejected all the potential candidates except for Mr. Raisi and six relatively unknown figures.Even insiders to the regime were reportedly stunned that the council had gone so far as to bar a current vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, and a former speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani.To be sure, the Guardian Council has rejected other presidential hopefuls over the past four decades. But this time it’s especially significant because the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 82, which raises the issue of succession. Hard-liners within the Revolutionary Guards are grooming Mr. Raisi to take his place, making his election into office even more important. The ayatollah’s support for Mr. Raisi is no secret. After Mr. Raisi failed a bid for the presidency in 2017, Ayatollah Khamenei made him head of the judiciary two years later.The tightly controlled process has led many Iranians to question the entire exercise. And institutions such as the Guardian Council, which is controlled by Ayatollah Khamenei, have stymied any democratic change and crippled the efforts of presidents who have tried to introduce political and social freedoms. (Two presidential candidates during the 2009 race, Mehdi Karroubi and the former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who campaigned on a platform of delivering democratic reforms, remain under house arrest. The regime at the time suppressed massive protests in the aftermath of what was seen as a widely disputed election.)The campaign to boycott the election highlights the rising levels of both anger and apathy toward the regime, at a time when the economy has been suffering under the weight of U.S. sanctions, as well as mismanagement and corruption by Iranian officials. The government also badly botched the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving more than 82,000dead so far. In addition, the regime has brutally cracked down on protests that have erupted since 2009, mostly over worsening economic conditions.Those boycotting the vote include a wide group of people inside and outside Iran, including many who formerly used to be sympathetic to the regime, such as the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mr. Mousavi and Faezeh Hashemi, the daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Last month, over 230 prominent activists signed an open letter calling for an election boycott and stated that their goal is to bring “nonviolent transition from the Islamic Republic to the rule of the people.”Unsurprisingly, Ayatollah Khamenei has branded those pushing for a boycott as enemies and has urged Iranians to go to the polls. Here lies the regime’s dilemma: Iran’s leadership wants just enough turnout to legitimize Mr. Raisi’s victory, but not so much that the result might demonstrate how unpopular he really is.During his campaign trips in recent weeks, Mr. Raisi has sought to cast himself as a man of the people and has promised to fight corruption. He talked to people who approached him about pending court cases, depicting himself as an accessible man. But his past as head of the judiciary is testament to what may lie ahead under his rule. Young activists were tried behind closed doors and executed. As a young cleric, he signed off on the executions of thousands of political prisoners in 1988.Boycotting the elections, for a population that is deeply scarred, is understandable. But sadly, a boycott this time may cement the hard-liners’ grip on power for many years to come.Nazila Fathi is the author of “The Lonely War: One Woman’s Account of the Struggle for Modern Iran.” She is a fellow at the Washington-based Middle East Institute. She lives in Maryland.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Many Expected to Shun Iran Vote Seen as Presidential Race of One

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      An ultraconservative judiciary chief appears to have the only real chance of winning after a council of powerful clerics disqualified virtually all the other viable candidates.TEHRAN — Come presidential election time, the streets of central Tehran are usually wallpapered with the candidates’ names and faces, their banners swaying from buildings and streetlights. But this time around, the biggest banners bear no names, only a simple message: Vote on Friday.One common poster shows the bloody severed hand of Gen. Qassim Suleimani — the Iranian commander whose killing in an American drone strike in January 2020 brought throngs of Iranians into the streets in mourning — casting a white ballot.“Do it for his sake,” the poster implores.The message is unsubtle: Vote, and you support the Islamic Revolution for which General Suleimani gave his life. Don’t, and you undermine the whole system.Since the revolution in 1979 toppled the monarchy, Iran has been run by parallel branches of the government. One is elected and the other is appointed, composed of the supreme leader and powerful councils of clerics. While Iran has never been a true democracy over the past four decades, there was always a degree of choice and competition in elections for president and parliament. The outcomes were never a certainty.But even those limited freedoms, which shrank after a contested election in 2009 led to widespread unrest, have nearly disappeared in this election cycle. The country is now moving increasingly toward what amounts to a one-party system whereby the top council of clerics that vets candidates eliminates anyone seen as a challenge to their conservative policies and views.The Islamic Republic’s hierarchy has long used election turnout to try to bolster its legitimacy, pointing to robust voter participation as proof that Iranians really do choose their leaders. If voter turnout is low on Friday, that could be regarded as a sign of growing disaffection.Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, blamed Iran’s enemies and the foreign media for voter apathy in a live televised speech on Wednesday.“The most important part of the elections is the people’s participation,” he said. “It means the Islamic Republic has the people’s support. There is no tool more powerful than voter participation.” He added that he “accepted the people’s complaints, but I do not accept not participating.”A poster of presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesThus it was that Iman, 28, an information technology worker who was shopping for lamps in Tehran on Monday, said, “I will vote because the destiny of my nation is very important to me.”He said he would vote for Ebrahim Raisi, the ultraconservative judiciary chief who appeared to have the only real chance of winning after the Guardian Council — the body of top clerics that vets the contenders — disqualified virtually all the other viable choices.“You’re doing what? Really?” said his new wife Melika, 21, grabbing her husband’s arm in alarm. “If you vote for Raisi, we’re done,” she said, only half-joking. (Like some other voters interviewed for this article, they declined to give their full names, for fear of speaking too openly about politics.)The wife rolled her eyes as her husband listed what he said were Mr. Raisi’s qualifications: promises to battle the corruption many Iranians say is crushing their economy; the forcefulness to stand up to the United States in renewed negotiations over limiting Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting American sanctions, which are deepening those economic problems.“I don’t believe in any of them,” said Melika, a computer engineer. “I’m just tired of all of it. I’m done.”All across Tehran this week, Iranians were saying much the same thing.“It’s absolutely hopeless,” said Reza, 33, a grocery store owner from Kermanshah, a city in western Iran, who had come to Tehran’s Grand Bazaar to shop for his upcoming wedding. “I have a problem with the whole system because I can’t express my opinions. The only way that I can show them I’m unhappy is by not voting.”Women attending a presidential campaign event held by Ebrahim Raisi this week in Tehran.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesMany moderate-leaning Iranians appear to be planning to sit the election out, according to polls, commentary and interviews. They were already deeply disillusioned with candidates from the more moderate reformist movement who pledge to change Iran from within the existing system, rallying votes only to fail to deliver once elected.But then the Guardian Council disqualified a number of prominent politicians — including the current vice president, former speaker of Parliament, a former president and a former minister — from both reformist and conservative factions.That led many to conclude that the elections were engineered to produce victory for Mr. Raisi, known for his strict conservative views and what rights activists call a dire record of human rights abuses including mass executions. He has been sanctioned by the United States.Mr. Raisi, 60, also is seen as an eventual successor to Mr. Khamenei, 81.“Everything has already been set: The president has already been chosen,” said Nabiollah Razavi, 40, the manager of a popular restaurant in north Tehran who said none of his staff planned to vote. “There’s no difference for normal people, whether it’s a conservative or a reformist. Just look — the reformists were in power for eight years, and this is where we are.”Mr. Razavi was referring to the outgoing president, Hassan Rouhani, regarded as a moderate who had promised social freedoms, economic improvements and better relations with the world because of the 2015 nuclear agreement, which has been at risk of collapse since President Donald Trump withdrew the United States three years ago.Having entered the presidency on a wave of optimism, Mr. Rouhani will depart having failed to fulfill his pledges. Some of the worst crackdowns happened on his watch.“We want the situation to get better,” Mr. Razavi said, “but as long as it’s the Islamic Republic, this is the way it’s going to be.”Supporters of Mr. Raisi this week.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesAfter the authorities winnowed the candidates, a coalition of reformist parties announced for the first time that it would not endorse a candidate for president. Prominent figures from this coalition said openly that the elections were a sham.But divisions have emerged over the past week, with reformist leaders sending conflicting messages.Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leader of the Green Movement opposition party, who has been under house arrest since the unrest that erupted after his 2009 defeat in an election he described as rigged, issued a statement saying that the “republic” part of the Islamic Republic had lost its meaning. Mr. Mousavi said he stood with people “who are fed up with engineered and humiliating elections.”In a statement issued Wednesday, more than 100 prominent reformist activists, dissidents and politicians called for people to boycott the vote and instead turn their grievances into peaceful disobedience.But another reformist opposition leader under house arrest, Mehdi Karroubi, urged the public to cast ballots as the only means to “determine Iran’s fate under the current circumstances.” He endorsed Abdolnaser Hemmati, the former central bank governor, regarded as the only moderate left in the race.A former reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, said on Wednesday that he hoped “people show resolve and participate” in elections to protest the predetermined result, according to Iranian media reports.Also on Wednesday, a coalition of 15 reformist parties said they would vote and endorsed Mr. Hemmati to show they opposed the “dangerous orchestrated plan” for the election.Mr. Hemmati, for his part, has said that his only electoral rival is voter apathy. If the public turned out in large numbers, he predicted, he will win.“I know the president will have problems. They will interfere with his work. They will create obstacles for him. But it doesn’t mean we should leave the stage and not fight,” Mr. Hemmati said in an appearance on the social media platform Clubhouse on Wednesday night.It remains possible that Mr. Raisi will not get the simple majority needed to avoid a runoff.A supporter of the presidential candidate Abdolnaser Hemmati.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesBut the late endorsements for Mr. Hemmati were not expected to generate the kind of turnout that could end in an upset for Mr. Raisi. The most recent polls predict voter participation of about 42 percent, low for Iranian presidential races.“If they think by calling for participation, people are going to come out, it’s a joke,” said Abbas Abdi, a political analyst who is close to the reformists. At a Raisi rally in central Tehran on Wednesday evening, children set up chairs while volunteers distributed flags and cardboard visors that bore a picture of General Suleimani embracing Mr. Raisi.As people waved Iranian flags and blue flags adorned with Mr. Suleimani’s face, a speaker told the audience that Mr. Raisi would eliminate all inequality in Iran and eradicate “the slightest speck of corruption.”Two women in attendance said they respected Mr. Raisi’s qualifications as a judiciary head who had battled corruption in the past. But more than that, they said showing up was a patriotic duty.“I want to show my support to the revolution,” said Zahra Shahrjerdi, 61, a retired teacher.“There are problems in the Islamic Republic, but we believe the system is good,” said her daughter, Fatemeh Ghanaati, 35, a primary schoolteacher.Others, however, had long since reached the opposite conclusion, that the problem was the Islamic Republic. Presidents might come and go, but the real power remained concentrated in the hands of the supreme leader and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, who some presidential candidates in this election have referred to as the “shadow government.”“I voted for four different individuals in the past, and they couldn’t do the job,” said Zohre Afrouz, 58, a seamstress who said she could barely afford rent and had given up on ever buying a car despite 12-hour workdays.She regretted her vote because no matter who the president is, “all of them are confined to a framework, and the policies are dictated to them,” she said. “My vote has no value.”Amir, 30, a jewelry salesman at the Grand Bazaar, was blunter.“Our country, it should be demolished and rebuilt,” he said. “It’s no use.”Vivian Yee reported from Tehran, and Farnaz Fassihi from New York. More

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      Iran Clears Way for Hard-line Judiciary Chief to Become President

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      Potential rivals to Ebrahim Raisi, Ayatollah Khamenei’s favored choice, were barred from the June 18 election, and the remaining candidates do not present a serious challenge.Candidates in Iran’s presidential elections have always been strictly vetted, and those deemed insufficiently loyal to the Islamic Revolution were disqualified. Within those limits, contenders held differing views on easing domestic restrictions or dealing with the West, and sometimes the victor was even a surprise.Now even minor differences that give voters some semblance of a choice appear to have been erased.The candidates in the election scheduled for June 18 either espouse deeply conservative positions aligned with those of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or are little known, with no voter base and no chance to win.And one candidate in particular is leading: Ebrahim Raisi, the current judiciary chief, appointed by Mr. Khamenei, who has a long history of involvement in human rights abuses, and who lost in 2013 in a surprise victory by the outgoing president, Hassan Rouhani.With no credible challenger, Mr. Raisi is expected to win this time. Any serious competition has been winnowed from the race. Even some members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, known for their strong hostility to any political dissent, described the election as anti-democratic.The Guardian Council, a 12-person body responsible for approving candidates, disqualified anyone who might shift the vote against Mr. Raisi, who, as a prosecutor and as a judge, has overseen the executions of minors and dissidents.On Thursday, Mr. Khamenei publicly endorsed the Guardian Council’s final decision. He said council members had conducted their duty and called on the public to “not listen to anyone saying it’s useless, don’t go to the election polls, we won’t go.”Ebrahim Raisi, the current judiciary chief, is expected to win the race.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesThe council’s decision and Mr. Khamenei’s endorsement of it have rattled political circles. The reformist party announced for the first time that it has no candidate in the race.Analysts say Mr. Raisi’s presidency would finalize a plan years in the making for conservatives to consolidate power, take over all branches of the government, marginalize any reform faction and severely restrict the internal power fights within the Islamic Republic.“Today we are witnessing an unabashed attack on any semblance of republican principles in favor of the absolute power of the supreme leader,” said Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University.The appearance of an engineered victory for Mr. Raisi, 60, has prompted louder and wider calls for an election boycott and increased voter apathy among ordinary Iranians. Polls predict a low turnout. The most recent survey conducted this week by the Student Polling Agency, ISPA, showed only 37 percent of voters want to cast ballots.With Mr. Khamenei’s allies already in control of the Parliament and judiciary, the takeover of the presidency could reshape the current negotiations on how to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement.President Donald Trump renounced the pact three years ago, in what he called a “maximum pressure” campaign to squeeze more concessions from Iran, but his policy appears to have only strengthened the hard-liners.President Biden wants to seek a wider agreement with Iran that would constrain not only its nuclear program, but also its missile development and its involvement in conflicts around the region. But Mr. Raisi and his faction oppose making concessions to the West.What particularly astonished political circles in Iran was the Guardian Council’s disqualification of prominent political figures such as Ali Larijani, a centrist conservative and former speaker of the Parliament, and the current vice president, Eshaq Jahangiri, considered a reformist most closely aligned with Mr. Rouhani.Centrist conservative Ali Larijani, center, registering in Tehran.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesMr. Larijani belongs to a very prominent political family, and was appointed by Mr. Khamenei to lead negotiations for a 25-year economic deal between Iran and China. Mr. Larijani was seen as a candidate who could attract reformist votes.While a former president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and a former government minister, Mostafa Tajzadeh, the leading reformist candidate, were also disqualified, their removal from the race came as little surprise. Mr. Ahmadinejad, who was once considered close to Mr. Khamenei, has increasingly taken the posture of an eccentric opposition figure. Mr. Tajzadeh, who was imprisoned for several years for his political activism, had called for a revision of the Constitution.“This is an election coup,” Mr. Tajzadeh said on Wednesday in a virtual town hall he hosted on the Clubhouse communal chat site, attended by at least 12,000 Iranians. “We must all speak up and say people will not accept the legitimacy of the result. People will not participate in this theater.”Mr. Ahmadinejad has also said he will not vote and has denounced the Guardian Council. “Why don’t you just take out the Republic altogether and say this regime is all ours and nobody has the right to even protest?” said Mr. Ahmadinejad in a live Instagram talk he hosted on Wednesday with an audience of thousands.Even Mr. Raisi voiced some concern and said that he had lobbied with the Guardian Council to reinstate some of the candidates so that elections would be more competitive.Officials registering presidential candidates in Tehran.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesThe council has not made public its reasons for disqualifying candidates and has only said that it approved those deemed suitable to lead the country in the current circumstances.In early May the council announced new eligibility requirements to narrow the race, excluding anyone who holds dual citizenship, is younger than 40 or older than 75, has a detention record or lacks governing experience.Kian Abdullahi, the editor in chief of the Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, criticized the Council’s final list of candidates on Twitter, a striking note of discord from a group that has long symbolized Iran’s power base.He said candidates must be acceptable to the public and that “the people must decide.”Elections in the Islamic Republic have never been considered democratic by Western definition. Government opponents cannot run, and the process of vetting candidates and counting ballots is not transparent. In 2009, the election result was widely seen as rigged and led to months of anti-government unrest.But even so, in elections past candidates representing different factions and policies were on the ballot, and the victor was not a foregone conclusion — rivals campaigned and competed vigorously. The public was engaged. Celebrities and pop stars were even enlisted to endorse contenders.The months leading to presidential elections in Iran typically brought a party-like atmosphere to cities where young people rallied in the streets at night carrying posters, chanting slogans and waving flags of their favorite candidate. The security apparatus tolerated these fleeting moments of open civic discourse, partly because they gave the appearance of a population that endorsed the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy and participated in its elections.Former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing supporters in Tehran in May. Mr. Ahmadinejad, who was disqualified from running again, said he would not vote and slammed the Guardian Council.Arash Khamooshi for The New York TimesThis time around, election fever appears extremely subdued — partly because of the pandemic but also from an underlying apathy. Tehran and most cities are quiet, campaign posters are scarce and rallies and town halls are held online. Iranians have struggled through a year of pandemic mismanagement, slow vaccine enrollment, a collapsing economy and social oppression.“I don’t know anyone around me who is voting,” said Aliyar, a 44-year-old engineer who asked that his full name not be used for fear of retribution. “Because it has proved over and over to us that nothing will change with us voting. It’s hopeless.”Besides Mr. Raisi, the other candidates are Mohsen Rezaee, former commander in chief of the Revolutionary Guards; Abdolnasser Hemmati, the governor of Iran’s central bank; Mohsen Mehralizadeh, a former governor of Isfahan Province; Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, a hard-line lawmaker; Alireza Zakani, a former hard-line lawmaker; and Saeed Jalili, a hard-line conservative and former nuclear negotiator.Mr. Raisi, Mr. Rezaee and Mr. Jalili have run unsuccessfully for the presidency before. The other candidates are not widely known.Abdullah Momeni, a Tehran-based political activist aligned with the reform faction, said the final list showed that the hard-line conservatives had strengthened power.The Islamic Republic, he said, had “displayed a total disregard for public opinion and it’s doing it without paying any cost and crushing all potential chances of dissent.” More