‎‎
Hossein Mohammadi

As the day for the run off elections for Iran’s parliament approaches, a large part of the ‎reformers are in doubt on whether to participate or not.‎

Mohammad Ali Abtahi a senior member of Majmae Rohaniyoon Mobarez – which was a ‎staunch supporter of unconditional participation in the elections – wrote this on its ‎webblog: “There are a number of options. Everybody withdraw their candidacy, which ‎because of the different opinions of the candidates is not practical, or fully participate in ‎the election, like they did in the last round, and thus form coalition campaign ‎headquarters with names that include those of [former President] Khatami, which is in ‎contradiction to the rigging claims and the letter that Karubi and Khatami together wrote ‎in protest and which was left without a response.”‎

Perhaps it is because of these debates that Azar Mansuri, the second in command at the ‎Participation front (Jebhe Mosharekat) said, “The Participation front has not yet reached ‎its final conclusion about participation.” Sazemane Mojaheddin Enghelabe Islami ‎‎(Islamic Mujaheddin Organization) which is among the core of the reformist groups too ‎has maintained its silence over the forthcoming run off elections. In political circles it is ‎said that the leaders of the group have opted to remain silent over the elections, a position ‎that some of the members of the central council of the organization believe should have ‎been adopted for the first round of elections as well.‎

The extent of rigging and violations were so wide in the March elections that even some ‎right-wing groups who did participate in the elections have raised their protests. The ‎extensive coalition of the Principalists too could not remain silent to the repeated ‎violations that were carried out by the Jebhe Motahed Osoolgaran (United Front of the ‎Principalists). ‎

In Iran’s political circles it is heard that hundreds of thousands of votes were moved ‎around in a number of precincts in Tehran to ensure the victory of certain pro-‎government and right-wing candidates. Probably the most important such interference ‎occurred when a key reformist candidate was pulled down to give way to the number of ‎votes of the Majlis speaker Hadad Adel. In this regard, Mohammad Ali Abtahi said, ‎‎“After the first round of elections many reformist candidates spoke of extensive, direct ‎and indirect swapping of ballots. And they supported their claims with plenty of ‎documents. During the first meeting of the Majmae Rohaniyoon Mobarez after the ‎Iranian new year holidays (on March 20, 2008), Mr. Majid Ansari presented a ‎documented list of violations in the elections. It was because of these scandalous statistics ‎that Messer Khatami and Karubi decided to send a complaint letter to the Guardians ‎Council that supervises the elections and requested that some of the ballot boxes be ‎recounted, which was ignored by the Council.‎

It was also because of these violations that the political office of the Hezbe Mosharekat ‎issued a statement calling for a detailed list of votes in Tehran. But this request too was ‎ignored in the same fashion that the Karubi-Khatami letter had been. It is because of ‎these developments that the reformist block is pulling itself away from the elections and ‎which has expressly announced, “The decision to participate or not has been left to the 10 ‎Tehran reformist candidates themselves. If they choose to participate, then the reform ‎coalition would support them, but if a number of the candidates withdraw their candidacy ‎while some would still remain on the ballot, then a different decision will be reached.”‎