Iranian voters’ vision greater than bully we elected

My friend and I were among 127 Iranians in Christchurch who cast their vote in the Iranian presidential election last Friday. Inside Iran, some 40 million people participated in the election — a huge turnout of about 70 per cent.

The election was presented by most mainstream media in the West as a race between “moderates” and “hardliners”. But we Iranians knew better. We knew we were choosing between two hardliners of varying degrees: the incumbent President, Hassan Rouhani, and Ebrahim Raisi, a close ally of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

Rouhani, known as the more moderate of the two, may talk about freedom, women’s rights and the opening up of Iran to the outside world but a glance at the latest report by Human Rights Watch on Iran tells a different and horrifying story.

Executions, mainly for drug offences, are rife. Political prisoners including many journalists and bloggers continue to face torture and inhumane treatment in jail. Women suffer from discrimination and the imposition of compulsory hijab. Cultural and political activities of minorities remain restricted and, for Baha’is, forbidden.

Social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter remain blocked and intelligence services continue to heavily monitor citizens’ activities online and arrest users who make controversial comments. Moderate? I don’t think so. But if Rouhani is bad (or made ineffective by the Supreme Leader’s powers), his election rival, 56-year-old Ebrahim Raisi is even worse. Many Iranians consider Raisi a key member of the so-called “death commission”.

Starting on July 19, 1988, and lasting for five months, an unprecedented and terrifying wave of political executions swept across Iran. Amnesty International confirmed 300 executions but reported the numbers could be in thousands. Iran’s regime have always denied their involvement but the opposition groups claim the deaths were state-sponsored.

Raisi’s questionable past was not the only problem. His campaign was based on dragging Iran and its relationship with the West back to the pre-nuclear deal era. He was beating the drums of isolationism, just as the Iranians were seeing a glimmer of hope with the lifting of sanctions and the removal of the economic stranglehold on their country.

So, if the option was between “bad” and “worse”, why validate the authority of the ruling clergy and signal its legitimacy to the world by voting? Iranians do not have to look far to find the answer.

Syria and Iraq are good examples of what happens when the system collapses and foreign powers intervene. For the first time ever, my anti-regime friends in Iran were saying they would sooner have the autocratic mullahs reign over them than be engulfed in the same chaos and violence they were witnessing in Iraq, Syria and Egypt.

In 2005, many Iranians boycotted the election as an expression of their disappointment with the reform movements of the outgoing President Mohammed Khatami. The result was an unforgettable disaster called Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s equivalent of Donald Trump. Iranians vowed never to repeat that mistake again.

In 2009, a record 85 per cent of the eligible population voted in the presidential election in an effort to kick Ahmadinejad and his cronies out of office. Much to people’s surprise, Ahmadinejad was re-elected. The obviously rigged election sparked massive protests and produced the Green Movement with its popular slogan, “Where is my vote?”

Although no satisfactory answer was ever supplied to that question, the authorities learnt never to underestimate the patience of Iranians and their hunger for reforms.

So, although we know our votes sustain the Islamic regime, we also understand that our electoral participation preserves a political system which, at the very least, prevents Iran from tumbling into the same instability and chaos that has brought untold misery to the Syrians and Iraqis.

Many opposition groups, based outside of Iran, urged their supporters not to vote. For them, chaos and foreign intervention provide a quick route to power. But, those of us who remember the bitter lessons of revolution will never again be fooled into thinking the alternative would be better.

We have experienced enough bloodshed and disappointment to know that those who promise the earth deliver tears and broken dreams only.

Iranian history shows that, ultimately, the will of people will prevail. So, with an aching heart full of hope for the future, I voted for Rouhani and was relieved to hear he won with a comfortable majority.

As Reuters reported, the message is clear: “Iranians want more freedom at home and less isolation abroad”.