A year before the sham parliamentary election, Iranian regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei meticulously planned the engineering of this theatrical display, and from March 2023 to February 2024, he kept a constant watch over it. In the weeks leading up to the elections, he used different tactics ranging from threats and inducements to emphasizing religious duty and seeking pity… He employed all the tricks of deception. His entire political apparatus and propaganda machine were behind this electoral illusion.
On March 3, state-run Setareh Sobh newspaper, wrote, “It is unprecedented in the history of Iranian elections that all the country’s resources are mobilized to drag people to the ballot box.”
The unprecedented political-advertising expenditure was incurred because Ali Khamenei a unified Majlis to counter the coming wave of uprisings. Additionally, the composition of the Assembly of Experts was crucial to him due to its role in determining the successor of Khamenei, who is now 84 years old.
However, both legislative bodies now have the least support according to the regime’s own statistics, and none of them are effective in addressing the regime’s unresolved crises. Regarding the Assembly of Experts, influential clerics within the seminaries argue that the official vote count is so low that it undermines its credibility in determining the Supreme Leader. The members of the new Majlis, who yet to take their seats, are already at each other’s throats instead of trying to act in unity.
In his first public appearance after the elections, during a meeting with the current members of the Assembly of Experts on March 7, Khamenei spoke about “what can destroy the sweetness of the new Majlis” and warned against “instigating disputes and fostering enmities” in a Majlis that has not yet been formed. Addressing the members of the Assembly of Experts, he said, “Do not let the sweetness of forming the new Majlis be destroyed and turn into bitterness.”
But while Khamenei was calling on his loyalists to stop fighting against each other, the radio and television broadcasters controlled by his own faction were provoking disputes and inciting animosity.
The state-run television, with the aim of tarnishing the image of Majlis Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, brought the cleric Hamid Rasaee to program.
The broadcast command room was instructing the interviewer through the intercom to ask Rasaee “those questions against Ghalibaf and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” as reported by Arman-e Melli newspaper on March 10.
In line with this approach, Rasaee targeted both Ghalibaf and the IRGC-run Javan newspaper and Tasnim News Agency. He said, “Javan newspaper and Tasnim News Agency have started hurling all sorts of insults at us in the past couple of days.” Rasaee revealed in the same interview that his dispute with Ghalibaf revolves around the Majlis speaker position and chairman of commissions.
On March 7, the state-run Shabakeye Khabar TV channel quoted Rasaee as saying, “Now those who are vying for the presidency of the Majlis are reaching out to representatives, inviting them to Tehran, talking to them. They tell some of them, for example, you come to this commission, we’ll make you the chairman of the commission. Gather the representatives from your city, your province.”
The situation has become so intense that on March 13, the state-run Arman-e Melli newspaper wrote, “Now that we see the circle of purifications narrowing over the past two years, and with the completion of the 12th Majlis elections and the victory of hardliners in Tehran, even with the lowest possible votes and the lowest possible turnout, the purifiers have the percentage to sift through more individuals. Their most important mission now is to sideline Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. If they cannot prevent his presence in Baharestan [the Majlis building], they will at least try to discredit and attack him in order to remove him from the options for the presidency of the Majlis.”
Of course, behind these disputes, including the pre-election conflicts, there are large sums of money at play. However, beyond the war of thieves, the important question is whether what has been achieved now is what Khamenei desires from purification. It is understandable that sidelining Ghalibaf from the presidency of the Majlis would satisfy Khamenei and align with his well-known approach of eliminating troublemakers. However, it is difficult to imagine that the exposure of Rasaee and his gang’s connections with the IRGC or the Quds Force is Khamenei’s objective. It seems to be a part of the bitterness and internal strife that he referred to.
However, the real source of the regime’s troubles and its failure to purify its political institutions is the people’s mass boycott of the elections and their loud cries of “my vote is regime change” and “it is not the time for elections, it is time for a revolution.”
