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Omid Memarian
o.memarian@roozonline.com

Tehran University professor and political analyst Sadegh Zibakalam told Rooz in an exclusive ‎interview that he doubted the truth of the official reports placing Tehran's participation rate at 40 ‎percent, but believed that reformists performed better than expected in other cities. Below is the ‎text of this interview. ‎

Rooz (R): What was the effect of the mass disqualification of reformist and independent ‎candidates on the elections, and what picture of the election officials did that portray to the ‎public? ‎

Sadegh Zibakalm (SZ): I believe that the issue of disqualifications as implemented by the ‎Guardian Council and Interior Ministry - which I in general refer to as the Islamic Republic ‎regime - contradicted the basic principles of democracy. I mean, you cannot see that we have ‎democracy and respect people's votes and then have the phenomenon of disqualifying candidates ‎on ideological and political basis. This means that the regime pushes is pushing its political ‎opponents out of the scene. ‎

R: How do you analyze the results obtained by reformists in Tehran and other cities? ‎

SZ: I personally did not think that, in light of the fact that reformists had most of their prominent ‎candidates disqualified and were mostly relying on second- and third-tier candidates, they be ‎able to capture thirty, forty or fifty seats. But the results show that the number of seats won by ‎reformists (in smaller cities) exceeded the expectations. ‎

R: Does the 40 percent participation rate released by the Interior Ministry for Tehran match the ‎reality and your own estimations? ‎

SZ: It seems unlikely that forty percent of eligible voters voted in Tehran. Because, if we ‎assume that seven million people were eligible to vote in Tehran, forty percent of seven million ‎makes two million and eight hundred thousand people. But two million and eight hundred ‎thousand people did not vote in Tehran. In the seventh Majlis elections about one-third of ‎eligible voters cast ballots in Tehran. I still think that the participation rate in Tehran was, at ‎most, one-third. ‎

R: How compatible was the behavior of Mr. Karoubi [secretary general of E'temad Melli party ‎who accused other reformists of being "too radical" and provided a separate slate from other ‎reformists] with the general aims of other reformsits? ‎

SZ: I think that Mr. Karoubi had chosen a strategy and his behavior was consistent with that ‎strategy. The root of that strategy is that if, in all of Iran, there is even one candidate who is not ‎a conservative, we should all mobilize and vote for that person. In other words, we should not ‎boycott elections in any circumstances, because that would empower the conservatives. ‎Whenever fewer people have participated in elections the conservatives have performed better. ‎Based on this reasoning, he believed that we should minimize the number of disqualified ‎candidates by lobbying centers of power and participate in elections with maximum possible ‎strength. Although I didn't think some of his remarks regarding the famous sit-in of sixth Majlis ‎MP's were correct, because these MP's had not done anything illegal, and their sit-in was the ‎least they could do to protest the mass disqualification of sixth Majlis lawmakers. ‎