Apathy prevails over the election campaigns in Iran (Al Jazeera)

Tehran -

With the approaching date of the Iranian elections scheduled for early next March, the debate over the "desirability of oversight" has reached its end among political circles, but it has not yielded the desired results in obtaining the recommendation of hundreds of applicants to run in the elections for Parliament and the Leadership Council of Experts.

Before the intensity of competition in the electoral campaigns increases, the Iranian political arena is witnessing a fierce battle over the advisability of oversight, as it is the mechanism for supervising the elections and certifying the eligibility of candidates, between the conservative movement, which is valiant in defending it, and the reformist camp, which has always seen it as an excuse to exclude the majority of its candidates from entering the fray. Electoral.

Less than 10 days away from the Iranian elections, voices opposing and criticizing this mechanism are rising in the Persian media, accusing it of stifling a specific political movement and engineering the elections for the benefit of the ruling authorities.

Marashi accuses the official authorities of working to undermine the high popular participation in the upcoming elections (Iranian press)

Debates and criticism

Meanwhile, Hussein Marashi, Secretary-General of the moderate “Building Cadres” Party, accuses the official authorities of working through inappropriate censorship to undermine the high popular participation in the upcoming elections, considering this participation an effective tool to ensure the country’s security in the face of the challenges created after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle in The seventh of last October.

When he attended a television program about the elections, Marashi saw that the presence of this oversight made the one-party system - similar to China's - more useful for running the country, because the Chinese model has proven its worth in dealing with unemployment and economic growth, as he put it.

On the sidelines of the National Press Exhibition in Tehran, several Persian media outlets hosted debates between political figures regarding the upcoming electoral entitlement, dominated by debate over the desirability of censorship.

In one of these debates, the reformist political activist and lawyer Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai considered that the desirability of censorship contradicts the Iranian Constitution and restricts legitimate freedoms, adding that Articles 99 and 100 of the Constitution touch on censorship but do not stipulate its desirability, and that confirming the eligibility of candidates does not require this mechanism.

On the other hand, the conservative political activist Abbas Salimi Nemin considered that the opposite party’s justifications for undermining the law were wrong and fallacious, adding that the rival movement, which spared no effort but employed it in order to discredit the desirability of oversight, had its candidates take control of the sixth parliament through the gate of this mechanism.

Taqraqi: The reformists took control of the executive and legislative branches through desirable control (Iranian press)

Suppression of reformists

For her part, the head of the Reform Front in Iran, Azer Mansouri, considered censorship desirable as a tool for the ruling authorities in her country to silence the voice of the reform movement, accusing the Guardian Council of suppressing reformist party candidates and depriving them of electoral competition.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Mansouri saw that “the policy of the ruling authorities, especially clinging to this censorship and the new electoral law, has led to a widening of the gap between society and the ruling political system,” accusing the opposing political movement of working to engineer the votes of the people, depriving them of their right to self-determination, and marginalizing their role in peaceful deliberation. To power,” she said.

The political activist believed that the electoral law and the election oversight mechanism had restricted the hands of the reformist movement and deprived its candidates from running in the electoral arena, adding that despite the official propaganda to achieve maximum popular participation, some ruling parties had taken this task off their agenda.

Mansouri concluded that inappropriate censorship emptied the elections in her country of their value, and led to the marginalization of many prominent political figures from the electoral arena.

On the other hand, Hamid Reda Tarqi, a member of the Central Council of the conservative “Mutalifa” party, says that this oversight is a legal mechanism for supervising the elections and is similar to the constitutional courts in some other countries, considering that it is necessary to prevent successive governments from tampering with the electoral process.

Article 99 of the Iranian Constitution assigns the task of confirming or rejecting the eligibility of candidates for the elections to the Guardian Council in accordance with its legal powers, so that this oversight is “general and in all stages and matters related to the elections.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Tarqi criticized "the behavior of the reformists in leveling accusations against the Guardian Council and its inappropriate oversight, while through this mechanism they were able to control the executive and legislative branches several times."

The conservative political activist denied that this censorship would lead to a decline in popular participation in the elections, accusing the reformists of working to cancel it, disrupt the law, and disrupt the work of the Guardian Council.

Poor play

After the debate over the desirability of censorship dominated the Persian media as well as political circles, it moved to the already restricted communication platforms in the Islamic Republic.

One agrees and stresses the necessity of implementing it as long as it is stipulated in the constitution, while another opposes it and holds it responsible for worsening matters after it marginalized the symbols qualified to run the country.

In contrast to the official position of the reformist movement regarding participation in the 2024 elections, political activist Mostafa Ghahramani, a former doctor at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, calls for a boycott of the elections due to the desirable role of oversight in what he called “engineering the election result.”

He added in a tweet on the “X” platform that the desirable censorship “turned free elections into a poor farce.”

As for the conservative cleric, Abdel Majeed Kharghani, he accuses critics of this censorship of “following blind consciences,” and wrote on the “X” platform, “About 80% of applicants have been approved for eligibility, but they always oppose the desirability of censorship - and instead of looking fairly at this fact.” “They only highlight the disqualified minority.”

In light of the ongoing controversy among Iranian political circles regarding the desirability of censorship and the reluctance of a segment of Iranian voters to participate in the elections, a number of observers believe that there is no hope of putting an end to this controversy except by participating in the political process and pursuing the amendment of Article 99 under the dome of Parliament.

Source: Al Jazeera