Hossein Mohammadi

Mohsen Armin is a well-known face in Iranian politics. As a co-founder of MIRO ‎‎(Mojahedin Engelab’e Eslami Organization) and a former MP in the reformist sixth ‎Majlis (2000-2004), he has weathered many storms. We spoke with him about the current ‎political events in the country. Here are the excerpts:‎

Rooz (R): After the elections Executive Board disqualified masses of candidates to the ‎March 14, 2008 parliamentary elections, the higher body, the elections Supervisory ‎Board further disqualified another group of hopefuls. What will your criteria for ‎participating in the elections be?‎

Mohsen Armin (MA): I think there will be two criteria for me and the reformists in ‎general. The first is that the reformists can come up with a list of candidates who will ‎represent their views and goals. This list must have potential to be competitive. The ‎second is the conditions in the important and key election districts, which are basically in ‎the large cities and towns around the country. So if we fail to get a list of candidates in ‎these districts comprising competitive and strong candidates, who also share our goals, ‎then there will be no interest to participate.‎

R: What if the conditions are not there?‎
MA: Reformists are not interested in participating in pre-determined elections. ‎Reformists are not interested to be paws in this game and be played with. If the minimum ‎conditions exist, we will certainly participate. Otherwise, we will not.‎

R: MIRO recently sent a letter to the leader of the Islamic Republic. What was your goal ‎in writing such a letter? Were you trying to influence decision makers regarding the ‎forthcoming elections?‎

MA: Our specific goal was not to influence the decision makers or those involved in the ‎elections process and supervision. We did that out of our sense of political duty, and of ‎course our religious duty. We saw it fit to announce that what was going on was not in ‎the interests of the country, and which would in fact lead to a greater division between ‎the government and the public. We wanted to announce our view on issues that we ‎believe would soon take the country to a dead end. And obviously we wanted to ‎communicate this to the leader. Don’t forget that this was not the first letter that MIRO ‎has written. We had sent similar letters to the leader and other senior officials in the past.‎

R: If conditions continue with their current trend, would MIRO participate in the ‎elections?‎
MA: If the possibility for creating a common list of individuals with minimum ‎qualifications in the key elections districts does not materialize, then MIRO will certainly ‎not participate in the elections.‎

R: What is “minimum”? If you got a list of 10 candidates for Tehran, would that suffice ‎and make you agree to participate?‎
MA: No!‎