After the clerical regime’s judiciary chief secured victory as expected on Saturday in Iran elections 2021, a State Department spokesman expressed regret that Iranians were denied “fee and fair electoral process”.
“Iranians have been denied their right to choose their leaders in a free and fair election process,” AFP reported.
Ebrahim Raisi, one of the key officials involved in the 1988 massacre of more than 30,000 political prisoners has been sanctioned “for his administrative oversight over the executions of individuals who were juveniles at the time of their crime and the torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment of prisoners in Iran.”
The Guardian Council, a powerful body tasked with vetting election candidates, only approved seven of the 592 presidential hopefuls. The approved candidates were all hardliners, fiercely loyal to the regime’s Supreme Leader. Three of the seven declared their withdrawal from the presidential race in favor of Raisi.
Definite boycotted of Iran elections
Iranians called for a massive boycott of Iran elections 2021 for months, even before the Guardian Council paved the way for the definite victory of Raisi.
Thousands of reports and amateur videos of empty polling stations indicated that Iranians across the country boycotted the presidential elections on June 18.
Although many Iranians had boycotted elections in previous years, this year’s election boycott was unprecedented with Iranians calling for a boycott as a way to reject the clerical establishment from months before. The mothers and families of slain protesters and the victims of a Ukrainian airliner shot down by the IRGC in 2019, particularly called for boycott the sham Iran elections 2021.
The Paris based NCRI, an umbrella bloc of opposition groups in exile that seek an end to Iran’s clerical rule, said in a statement that polling stations in 220 cities and 31 provinces were “met with widespread boycott, and polling stations were empty with only a handful of participants”.
The statement also said turnout was estimated to be less than half of the 2017 elections.
Fraud and artificial tally in Iran elections 2021
- In a bid to boost voter turnout in the sham election, the Iranian regime told military personnel, employees of the Ministry of Health, Agriculture, and Foreign Affairs, Education, and the staff of state and private banks beforehand that their identity papers must be stamped for voting.
- Soldiers at military barracks in Isfahan were told to show up on Saturday with their identity papers to see who voted. Soldiers who did not have their birth certificates before the vote were sent home a week earlier to the election to bring their papers for the vote.
- All personnel at Gohardasht prison were on alert since 6:00 a.m. on Friday. Those on furlough were asked to report to work and told to vote inside the prison.
- Ordinary prisoners in the cities of Maku, Khoy, Bazargan and Salmas prisons were told that they will receive a three-day leave if they vote.
- In Tabriz, Ahvaz, Shahriar, Mahshahr, Kermanshah, Bandar Abbas, Salman Shahr, Nasim Shahr, Aliabad-e-Katul, Chabahar, Khorramshahr, Safadasht near Tehran, Bumehen and Madani township, people were promised a payment of 50 to 200 thousand tomans (local currency) if they vote.
- In Dargaz, those who vote were promised 20,000 tomans in telephone credit.
- In Astara, a large number of people received text messages to go vote and there was no need to have a national ID card.
- In Karaj, in Manzariyeh township, and in Shahriar, they blocked streets to force traffic to polling stations, and in polling stations, police created barriers to delay entrance and artificially create crowds at the stations.
- The regime shut down some polling stations in Tehran and other cities, especially in central areas of the city, to create larger crowds in other polling stations for filming, especially for foreign journalists.
- The state security forces prevented filming and photography at polling stations in order to hide the massive extent of the boycott of the sham election, and in many cases, people’s mobile phones are confiscated, and videos and photographs of polling stations are erased.
