Masoud Pezeshkian won the second round of the presidential elections in Iran, immediately prompting an outpouring of media acclamation in the West, hailing the new president as a ‘reformist’ and a ‘moderate’. Leading columns in well-known newspapers claimed his election offered “a glimmer of hope” to the Iranian people, particularly women, who could look forward to a relaxation of draconian hijab laws. Their unbridled optimism is misjudged. Dr. Pezeshkian, a heart surgeon, was only allowed to stand for the presidency to boost voter turnout, which had fallen to a disastrous 12% in the first round of the elections last month. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei feared that another massive boycott of the polls would undermine the dwindling legitimacy of his autocratic regime. Pezeshkian, 70, was therefore hand-picked to present a ‘moderate’ face to the electorate. Pezeshkian will implement no reforms whatsoever. When asked what his policies would be as president, he replied: “Khamenei sets all plans and policies and straying from them is my redline.”
The ploy to allow a pretend ‘moderate’ to stand for election was a disaster, with turnout even lower than the first round. The Iranian people saw through the deception. Based on reports from at least 2,000 polling stations, which were monitored by representatives of the key democratic opposition movement, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), from 8am to 12 midnight on polling day, and also information from sources within the regime, only 9% participated in the election. As usual, the mullahs claimed that the turnout had increased from their boast of 40% in the first round to 49% in the second round, both entirely fictitious estimates.
The presidential election was triggered by the sudden death in a mysterious helicopter crash in May, of president Ebrahim Raisi, known as ‘The Butcher of Tehran’, for his leading role as an executioner during the notorious 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members or supporters of the MEK. The ultra hardline Raisi had been shoe-horned into the role by Khamenei to terrify the rebellious youth of Iran into docile submission. However, his frenzy of hangings, including 864 last year alone had failed to quell the protesters and Iran is now a ticking time bomb, ready to explode.
Western media who have hailed Pezeshkian as a ‘reformist’ may judge if he announces the cancellation of the mandatory hijab and the disbanding of all morality police patrols that suppress women. They may also wish to see if he releases all political prisoners and opens Iran’s prisons to international fact-finding missions, while abolishing the death penalty and all forms of inhuman punishments, such as torture, flogging, limb amputation, and eye-gouging, that have been commonplace under the mullahs. Of course, none of these things will happen, as the 85-year-old and increasingly psychotic Ali Khamenei will order Pezeshkian to toe the line.
For decades, Western appeasers have grasped at straws trying to convince themselves that the future of Iran could be secured if only a ‘reformist’ or ‘moderate’ president could take the helm. This deluded theory ignored the fact that the Supreme Leader has ultimate authority in the Islamic Republic and the role of president is simply that of a puppet. When Hassan Rouhani was president, he was hailed as a reformist, despite the fact that he presided over the continuing sponsorship of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, the vicious Shi’ia militias in Iraq, the terrorist Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, as well as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and their terror tactics through the Middle East and further afield. Rouhani even masterminded the plan to send Assadollah Assadi, a registered Iranian diplomat, to blow up a mass Iranian opposition rally in Paris in 2018 with a professionally constructed TATP bomb. Rouhani was no moderate, but appeasers in the West fell for the ploy.
During the nationwide uprising in 2022/23 that followed the murder in custody of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, arrested for not wearing her veil properly, the crowds could be heard chanting “Reformists and hardliners the game is over.” Sadly, the election of Pezeshkian means that the game is not yet over for Western political appeasers and their colleagues in the media. We can expect the usual rush of EU and UK politicians to Tehran, where they will choose to ignore the almost daily hangings and the tens of thousands incarcerated simply for protesting against the tyranny of the mullahs’ regime. Instead, they will plead with Pezeshkian to implement major reforms and return home to claim that they enjoyed constructive talks, only to be quickly dumbfounded as further atrocities take place. It is an age-old story that has continued since the mullahs seized control following the 1979 revolution and it will not change until the regime is overthrown.
If anyone has any lingering doubt that the status quo will be maintained under Pezeshkian, they need only see the letter he wrote last week to Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah in Lebanon. In his letter he said: "The Islamic Republic of Iran has always supported the resistance of the people of the region against the illegitimate Zionist regime. Supporting the Resistance is rooted in the principled policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the ideals of the late Imam (Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini) and the directives of the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) and will continue with strength."
The mass boycott of the sham presidential election shows that the people of Iran have said no to the theocratic dictatorship of the mullahs and yes to the overthrow of the regime and its replacement with a democratic, secular republic. Now that both America and Canada have blacklisted the IRGC, it is time the EU and UK followed suit. Instead of always trying to identify mythical ‘moderates’ and ‘reformists’ while we bend over backwards to appease the mullahs, we should support the oppressed Iranian people by supporting their inalienable right to overthrow this despotic regime.