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Brownback: Staged election offers no real choice to voters

 
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cyrus
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 10:53 am    Post subject: Brownback: Staged election offers no real choice to voters Reply with quote

Brownback Condemns Iranian Election
Staged election offers no real choice to voters
Friday, June 17, 2005

http://brownback.senate.gov/pressapp/record.cfm?id=239079

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Sam Brownback today condemned the presidential elections in Iran, noting that they offer voters no real choice.

“These are bogus elections, leaving Iranians with no real choice to bring the voice of the people to the forefront,” Brownback said. “Only the candidates approved by the unelected Guardian Council could even get on the ballot. That’s a far cry from any similarity to democracy, and for the ruling mullahs to claim this offers the people of Iran a chance to make their opinions heard is ridiculous.”

Iranians voted today in a presidential election that is being boycotted by thousands of people who have no faith in the non-elected theocracy, directed by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Khamenei’s power dwarfs both the presidency and parliament. He and the unelected clerics barred all but a handful of more than 1,000 presidential hopefuls.

President Bush has also called the elections undemocratic and designed to keep clerics in power. None of the seven candidates is expected to get the 50 percent support needed to win outright, so the two top vote-getters will meet in a runoff election.

Brownback continued, “The regime in Iran is moving farther away from free and fair elections and a democratic transformation, not towards them. The U.S. and the rest of the free world should strongly condemn these staged elections and work for real elections and the development of civil society in Iran.”

Brownback previously introduced a bill passed by the Senate condemning the unelected Council of Guardians for disqualifying thousands of legitimate candidates solely on religious grounds. He is also the author of the Iran Democracy Act, which was designed to help create a democratic, secular government in Iran which doesn’t support terrorism and recognizes basic human rights.


Last edited by cyrus on Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:22 pm; edited 2 times in total
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cyrus
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:03 am    Post subject: Must READ: Creating Maximum Fear Among Iranian Voters Reply with quote

The following URL is opening their hands and what they have in their mind.



http://www.radiofarda.com/iran_article/2005/6/d2aad28f-87a9-4ab7-91a0-1991f93b5deb.html




Creating Maximum Fear Among Iranian people and Voters to force people not to boycott election, they are planning to make Rafsanjani who is founder of these dirty criminal system, helped these thugs in past 26 years look good. The regime is planning for mass killing no matter who is going to be President.

Please read the Profile of Two Wanted International Criminal, Terror Masters and Torture Masters As Next President Of Islamist Regime - This Is Not A Choice For Iran As A Hostage to Mullahs- People Must Boycott Again and General Strike For Regime Change


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Iran elections candidates: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad


http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2394
Tuesday, 14th June 2005

Iran Focus

Age: 49

Position: ex-Mayor of Tehran

Career Highlights:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was until recently the Mayor of Tehran, after first getting the job in April 2003.

He is seen to be an ultra-conservative, having also been a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regime’s ideological army.

Following the 1979 Islamic revolution he became a member of the Office for Strengthening Unity. He belonged to the ultra-conservative faction of the OSU. According to other OSU officials, when the idea of storming the U.S. embassy in Tehran was raised in the OSU central committee by Mahmoud Mirdamadi and Abbas Abdi, who later became leading figures in President Mohammad Khatami’s faction, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time.

Ahmadinejad’s activities in the Revolutionary Guards were directly related to suppression of dissidents in Iran and terrorist attacks abroad. A recently revealed document has shown his involvement in planning an attempt on the life of the Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie.

He served as governor-general of Ardebil Province (northwest Iran) during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.

He is presently a member of the right-wing Association of Engineers and a member of the central council of the Society of the Devotees of the Islamic Revolution

As mayor of Tehran, he moved to restrict activities in cultural centres in the capital, turning them into religious centres.

In his own Words:

"We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy".
(United International Press, May 24, 2005)



Mr Amhadinejad calls himself a friend of the people

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was an obscure figure when he was appointed to be mayor of Tehran in the spring of 2003 - He had served previously as the head of execution squad in Evin prison where he personally shoot the final shot to the condemned prisoners. Still, he was not much better known when he ran as the ugliest candidate running for presidency anywhere in the world.

We must thank our fellow Iranian's, Sepah Pasdaran, Basiji and Savama for providing us with such a refined, civilized and good looking front- runner!


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http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2402

Iran elections candidates: Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

Tuesday, 14th June 2005

Iran Focus

Age: 70

Position: Chairman of the State Expediency Council and deputy speaker of the Assembly of Experts

Career Highlights:

For over two decades, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been one of the two most powerful men within Iran’s ruling hierarchy, first as Ayatollah Khomeini’s most trusted confidant until his death in 1989, and later as the junior partner in the Khamenei-Rafsanjani duo that has been at the apex of the Islamic Republic since then.

As a young theological student in Qom, Rafsanjani, who hails from the rural deserts of southern Iran, became a fervent supporter of Khomeini’s radical Islamic ideology. With a penchant for business, the junior cleric established himself as a wheeler-dealer, cultivating ties with a range of anti-Shah groups and personalities. In 1971, he was arrested by the Shah’s secret police, SAVAK, and spent a few months in jail on charges of providing support for the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK) opposition group.

When mass demonstrations in the late 1970s signalled the end of the Shah’s rule, Rafsanjani’s prominence as one of Khomeini’s closest lieutenants rose rapidly. In the new Islamic regime, he became a member of the Revolutionary Council, and after a short spell as Interior Minister, became Majlis (parliament) Speaker in 1980. In effect, Khomeini gave Rafsanjani much greater powers than his official position allowed. He was made the acting Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and, according to insiders, no important policy decision was made without his approval.

After Khomeini’s death in 1989, Rafsanjani became President for two terms. Since then he has chaired the powerful State Expediency Council, which acts as a supreme arbitration body to settle disputes between the Majlis and the watchdog Guardians Council.

The criminal court of Berlin issued an international warrant for Rafsanjani’s arrest after he was found to be a key member of a four-man committee that made the decisions for assassination of Iranian dissidents abroad. Rafsanjani’s past is heavily tainted with involvement in international terrorism; as President he personally oversaw much of the activities of VEVAK, Iran’s dreaded secret police, and dozens of terrorist attacks abroad were carried out under his command, including the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, which killed 19 U.S. servicemen, and the bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires in 1994. More than 80 people died in that attack.

Rafsanjani is widely seen as the father of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The initial phase of the program in the early 1980s was carried out under his supervision as the acting Commander in Chief. As President, Rafsanjani placed enormous resources at the disposal of the country’s military-industrial complex to develop the nuclear bomb project. The greatest advancements in the nuclear project, from uranium enrichment technology to plutonium extraction methods, were made under his direction.

Described as a pragmatic conservative abroad, inside Iran Rafsanjani is best known by two distinguishing traits; the first being his mass fortune, as compared to the disastrous economy he left after his tenure. Parallel to this is his willingness to use extreme force to quell dissent and his role in the chain murders of dissidents who dared to voice their opposition to the current theocratic system. His role in these killings earned him the nickname “The Grey Eminence” after a book by jailed journalist Akbar Ganji.

During Rafsanjani’s presidency hundreds of writers, journalists, and other intellectuals were imprisoned, murdered, or simply “disappeared”.

Rafsanjani’s status as one of the most despised figures in the clerical regime came under limelight in the year 2000, when he stood for parliamentary elections in Tehran and came in last at the thirtieth slot. The butt of many popular jokes about his wealth, his survival instincts and his vulgarity, Rafsanjani earned yet another nickname after his election failure, becoming known as “Aghassi” (literally meaning Mr. Thirtieth) inside Iran.

In his own Words:

Rafsanjani on terrorism:
"If in retaliation for every Palestinian martyred in Palestine they kill and execute, not inside Palestine, five Americans, or Britons or Frenchmen [the Israelis] would not continue these wrongs.
"It is not difficult to kill Americans or Frenchmen. It is a bit difficult to kill [Israelis]. But there are so many [Americans and Frenchmen] everywhere in the world".
(Speaking at a Friday prayers congregation on May 5, 1989)

Rafsanjani on nuclear bombs:
“If one day ... Of course, that is very important. If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality. Of course, you can see that the Americans have kept their eyes peeled and they are carefully looking for even the slightest hint that technological advances are being made by an independent Islamic country. If an independent Islamic country is thinking about acquiring other kinds of weaponry, then they will do their utmost to prevent it from acquiring them. Well, that is something that almost the entire world is discussing right now”.
(BBC Monitoring Service: Qods Day speech on December 14, 2001)




Pick your choice, the murderer who is wanted in Austria or the killer who is sought in Germany?

Now, don't you later claim that there is no democracy or freedom of choice!


Last edited by cyrus on Tue Jun 21, 2005 12:21 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Rasker



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PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here's more from Voice of America: It sounds like Ahmadinejab was selected late in the campaign to be the "boogeyman" to drive reformist voters to the polls and into Rafsanjani's arms.

Iran Election Filled with Surprises

Persian Journal
Iran News
Iran Election Filled with Surprises
VOA
Jun 20, 2005, 18:53




The world of Iranian politics is often murky and can surprise even seasoned observers. No where is this more evident than in the outcome of Friday's election, in which a nationally obscure political figure came out of nowhere to take second place and a spot in the runoff.

Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was the clear favorite in the election, even if he did not poll enough votes to win outright in the first round. But no one expected the strong finish of Tehran Mayor Mahmood Ahmadinejad, whose poll numbers were only in single digits before the election.

The third-place finisher, reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, claimed there had been fraud and vote buying - an unheard-of charge in Iranian politics - but offered no public proof.

Karim Sadjapour is a Tehran-based political analyst with the International Crisis Group, which monitors political developments around the world. He says it appears that the conservative political establishment made a decision late in the campaign to support Mr. Ahmadinejad, perhaps the most hardline of the seven presidential candidates permitted to compete by Iran's unelected Guardian Council of hardline clerics.

"It is one thing for Tehranis to know him," he said. "But why would someone in Esfahan, or Yaz, or Shiraz or Mashaad, these cities, why would they have a particular affinity for the mayor of Tehran? I think it is quite curious. So, I think, it is obvious that there was a collective decision on the part of the conservative establishment to throw their weight behind one particular candidate. And they have various organs, through which they can do that."

Mohammad Atrianfar is publisher of the newspaper, Shargh, and a senior political advisor to Mr. Rafsanjani. In an interview, he said the basiijs, or Mobilization Resistance Force - a volunteer paramilitary militia under the Revolutionary Guards - was called upon to vote for Mr. Ahmadinejad and get others to do so.

Some basiijs were used as guards at polling places, he says, where they could intimidate voters.





Mr. Sadjapour, of the International Crisis Group, says the Revolutionary Guards do not always vote as a bloc, noting that many of them voted for the outgoing reform-minded president, Mohammad Khatemi, in previous elections. But he thinks it was different this time.

"There was [were] a lot of statistics that showed three-quarters of the Revolutionary Guard voted for Khatami," he said. "So, to say that they are one monolithic organization dedicated to the conservative establishment is maybe lacking a bit of nuance. But, in this case, it does appear that they did throw their weight behind Mr. Ahmadinejad."

Mr. Atrianfar, the publisher, says, although the military is supposed to steer clear of politics, it has always had some role, but it has never been as prominent as this.

Mr. Sadjapour says the populist platforms by Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Karroubi, the third-place finisher - both of whom had promised regular stipends, or payments to Iranians - also resonated more than the reformists' messages of democracy. The main reform candidate, Mostafa Moin, came in fifth in the seven-man race.


Iranian.ws

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.1985 .51
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The Sun Is Rising In The West!Soon It Will Shine on All of Iran!
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cyrus
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:34 am    Post subject: Cliffhanger in Iran Reply with quote

Cliffhanger in Iran

June 21, 2005
The New York Times
Editorials / Op-Ed



What a surprise: in the race for the mostly meaningless position of president of Iran, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, the conservative hard-line mayor of Tehran, came in second place, and will be in a runoff on Friday with Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former two-term president. Mehdi Karroubi, the former speaker of Parliament who was the closest thing to a reformist in Iranian politics, accused hard-liners of rigging the election. This being Iran, those words were barely out of his mouth when two reformist newspapers planning to publish his remarks were shut down, and Mr. Karroubi's supporters quickly began making nice with the establishment.

There are few who actually believed that the Iranian elections were going to be anything more than a sham to begin with, given that it was a council of unelected clerics deciding who would and who wouldn't be allowed to run. And this for a presidency, mind you, that has no power to do anything the establishment does not want done.

Still, Saturday's results are disturbing because they appear to have catapulted to center stage a hard-liner best known for removing the English soccer player David Beckham from Tehran billboards. Apparently Mr. Beckham's brand of sultry poutiness was too much for Mr. Ahmadinejad's vision of Iran's capital.

Mr. Ahmadinejad is an entrenched believer in Iran's right to make its own nuclear fuel. That issue is particularly critical in light of the latest disclosure that Tehran has been experimenting not just with enriched uranium but also with plutonium.

Mr. Rafsanjani, for his part, is no reformist by any standard. His two previous presidential terms, from 1989 to 1997, were scarred by state-sponsored terrorism at home and abroad. There is little in Mr. Rafsanjani's record to justify any hope that, if elected, he would reach an acceptable nuclear deal and then sell it to the clerical establishment either.

Whatever the results of Friday's runoff, hopes for real reform in Iran are bleak.

http://www.iranvajahan.net/cgi-bin/news.pl?l=en&y=2005&m=06&d=21&a=2
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