The 10th parliamentary elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran will be held, with one-year delay, while it has been the focus of debates and arguments of both internal and external clique and groups. There have been numerous debates over the differences between the present and previous elections held by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many, including the Kurdish elites and the patriotic Kurds, announced their readiness for participation, as they believed that under the influence of the current internal and regional political situation, the upcoming election could be different from the former elections and, hence, it would be a good opportunity for partaking in politics actively.
However, the election system in the Islamic Republic of Iran has from the very outset been plagued by the crisis of scrutiny and disqualification of the candidates by the Guardian Council. As a result of this, no chance has been left for participation of political activists who have deemed as dissent or outsiders. It is quite obvious that in coordination with the Guardian Council, the Supreme Leader of Iran and the Revolutionary Guard (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC) have directly played their parts in the process of disqualification.
Therefore, the current election crisis should be seen as the outcome of the tampering of these two organizations in parliamentary elections. This would not be wrong to classify this type of tampering as electoral coup of the sort that has been purely launched by power, without any consideration of law and regulation. Indubitably, the intention behind this electoral coup is nothing but to establish a stooge, uniform, and submissive Parliament whose duty would be confined to serve as a rubber stamp for regimes conducts.
Even though the previous elections did not have any tangible difference from the current one, the patterns of debates and deliberations during the last year, accompanied by regional and international political circumstances had inspired hope for an election different from what has hitherto been witnessed. However, the coup of the Revolutionary Guard sponsored by the Supreme Leader dashed the last gleam of hope. When the Supreme Leader said; “the dissents may have issue with him, but in order to save the regime they have to go to the voting polls, even though they have no right to enter the Parliament”, he wanted the peoples of Iran to vote for those candidates who are the truthful spokesmen of the regime and, thus, have passed through the entire regime’s filters.
The organizations of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard, argued that they would prevent of the infiltration of foreign agents and the separatists who have been dependent of the foreign cliques into the parliament. As we have already pointed out, such arguments count nothing but the travesty of the political awareness of the peoples of Iran including the Kurdish people. As Free and Democratic Society of Eastern Kurdistan (KODAR), we consider the adoption of such approaches by the Iranian authorities as an attempt to deride the budding political awareness of Iran’s peoples, and strongly condemn it.
Based on the argument that the parliament is the venue where general issues can be dealt with, many politicians nominated for current election, though the message of the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guard was that the parliament is not a place where the country’s political and social issues can be dealt with, but a place where to renew allegiance to and approve the functions of the authority apparatus against the peoples of Iran.
As for the structure of the coming parliament has no difference with the pre-Islamic Republic parliaments, which had been marked by “Yes sir, sure sir” attitude of its members; that a handful of candidates who have managed to pass the filter of the Guardian Council will not be able to function well on their own without coordination, we, as the Free and Democratic Society of Eastern Kurdistan (KODAR), boycott the 10th Iranian parliamentary election.
Therefore, we invite the Kurdish people and others, the freedom seekers and democratic figures, and all Iranian opposition groups to back the democratic values through the boycott the election, despite different views on various issues. This can be a respond to the humiliation of the political awareness and rationality of the peoples of the Iran by the authority structure of the Islamic Republic regime.
The Leading Council of Free and Democratic Society of Eastern Kurdistan ─ KODAR