Mahmoud held on to his power in last week’s Iranian Parliamentary elections in main part because his hard line political cronies manipulated the candidate vetting process to eliminate several thousand opposition candidates from the ballot. Hillary would love to eliminate Barack Obama through the same cronyism provided by the DNC superdelegate rules proving that whether a democracy is 30 years old or 230 years old, power hungry politicians will choose to thwart the peoples’ choice when given an avenue to do so.

The Preamble to the Charter and Bylaws of the Democratic Party of the United States of America states, “….we acknowledge that a political party which wishes to lead must listen to those it would lead, a party which asks for the people’s trust must prove that it trusts the people…” The Charter goes on to state that the Democratic Party seeks “… political freedom in the framework of meaningful participation by all citizens.”

Furthermore, the Charter states that, “The delegates shall be chosen through processes which… (b) Assure that delegations fairly reflect the division of preference expressed by those who participate in the Presidential nominating process…”

In spite of these lofty “every vote counts” aspirations, the Democratic Charter, as well as the Delegate Selection Rules for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, provide for the so-called superdelegates. These PLEO delegates (unpledged party leader, elected official delegates) are apparently the guardians of the nomination, ostensibly available to insure that the nominee is electable and has the support of the party leadership—two highly subjective requirements to say the least. In other words, the Superdelegate mess stems from the ill-conceived, knee-jerk and undemocratic “solution” to the annihilation of Jimmy Carter and McGovern in order to save the rank-and-file Democratic voters from themselves.

What about Mahmoud? Well, while we’re talking about guardians, compare Article 3, Section 8, of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran which establishes rights and duties of the Islamic Republic to include: “The participation of the entire people in determining their political, economic, social and cultural destiny.” Yet, under Article 99 of the Iranian Constitution the “supervision” of all elections, including the vetting of potential candidates, is vested in the most influential and powerful body in Iran called the Guardian Council. These 12 insiders who are extremely loyal to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have absolute veto power over candidates. The Council arbitrarily rejected thousands of candidates for the March 14^th parliamentary elections thus causing widespread voter apathy amongst the opposition parties, not to mention raising questions of human rights violations for the lack of democratic processes.

Abbas Abdi, an Iranian activist who participated in the 1979 Iranian revolution, is now a political analyst in Tehran. When asked by Nazila Fathi of The New York Times about the Guardian Council’s massive candidate rejections he noted, “The significance of this election lies in the fact that barring political rivals from entering elections has become an established part of political life.”

Welcome to democracy, Abbas!

Back to Hillary. She is absolutely banking on the support of superdelegates to edge out Barack Obama for the nomination. She, Chelsea and Bill are relentlessly pursuing them and not batting an eye at the appearance of “stealing” the nomination.

And this is what Obama says in response: “According to the Constitution, the government should be based upon people’s real votes, and its affairs based on free elections.” Not really. It is a statement from the opposition party—Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolutionary Organization—calling the rejection of candidates by the Guardian Council one of “the ugliest” events since the Islamic revolution.

Well, the Mujahedeen haven’t seen ugly yet! If Hillary keeps Obama off the ballot on the strength of the superdelegates, it will be ugly beyond anything you’ve ever seen. With the DNC’s version of Iranian Guardian Council controlling 20 percent of the delegate voting power and thus the power to decide the nomination in most instances, the stage is set for one of “the ugliest” events since the American Revolution (or at least the civil rights era).

Like the Iranians, the disenfranchised Obama voters may lose interest in voting, and that is how Mahmoud wins and Hillary loses.