State Media Reflect Regime’s Defeat in Iran Sham Elections
Iran-News-Media
Four-minute read
Written by
Mahmoud Hakamian
Three days after Iran’s elections, which were seen as a failed attempt to demonstrate social support for the regime, state media outlets are now analyzing the disappointing results. They compare various perplexing statistics with previous years while critically examining the data. Despite the biased nature of these outlets, which influences their language and conclusions, and the reliance on fabricated statistics from the regime’s Ministry of Interior, one consistent theme emerges: the regime cannot ignore the loud dissent voiced by the Iranian people on March 1, 2024.
In an interview published by the Setareh Sobh newspaper on March 3, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, the former head of the National Security Commission of the regime’s parliament, characterized the sham election as a failure.
Falahatpisheh said, “It is now evident that the outcome of the elections is a failure, not a victory. This issue requires serious analysis and evaluation. If we are to diagnose the problem, the first point of weakness lies in the increasing ineffectiveness of political institutions. Various institutions within society operated merely on slogans and lacked defensible performance. People have become disillusioned with the ability of their elected representatives to deliver.”
On March 4, the Shargh newspaper wrote, “The twelfth parliament has taken on a peculiar composition, where, on one hand, representatives are expected to make decisions and legislate for over 80 million Iranians, even when the number of votes received does not reach 10,000.”
The website Entekhab also wrote on March 3, “Without a doubt, the current parliamentary elections can be considered the least competitive in the history of the Islamic Republic.”
Even the IRGC-run Fars News Agency admitted, “The country’s media and political apparatus failed to convince the undecided, who comprised approximately thirty percent. Participation in this election cycle was eighteen percent lower compared to the average turnout in previous parliamentary elections.”
#IranElections2024 Outcome Was A Big No to Khameneihttps://t.co/XXnDK8xYId
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) March 2, 2024
Blank votes
Other media sources have expressed apprehension regarding the prevalence of blank votes. The high number of blank votes, cast by conscripts, government employees, and millions whose livelihoods are tied to state officials coercing them to participate, poses a significant challenge to what the regime wants to perceive as elections.
The newspaper Etemad wrote, “The initial outcomes of the parliamentary elections, drawing from both official and unofficial data, highlight a significant drop in voter turnout and a rise in blank votes. The similarity in vote counts compared to previous elections, coupled with an unprecedented decrease in candidates’ votes, suggests that a considerable portion of the blank votes may have been deliberate. To the extent that some have raised suspicions about blank votes in the Tehran constituency rank as second highest.”
The Bahar News website, affiliated with the regime’s former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote, “Unlike previous elections, the Election Headquarters and Governorates are not announcing the number of blank votes in Tehran and most cities! However, Saeed Shariyati, a political activist, wrote, ‘Blank votes have also ranked second in Tehran. There were more than 500,000 blank votes in Tehran!’”
The source stated in its Telegram channel, “Based on the results obtained, 15 or 16 candidates from Tehran will enter the parliament in the first round. Considering that over 7 million were eligible to vote in Tehran, half of the candidates will enter the parliament with approximately 3 to 6 percent of the eligible votes in the first round.”
The newspaper Shargh also reported, “In some constituencies like Marvdasht, the number of blank votes has exceeded those of the front-running candidate, and the total votes of the first and second-place candidates from the previous elected representative, which was Rashidi Kouchi and was not qualified for this election, has been less. Therefore, the elections in this constituency have proceeded to the second round.”
The newspaper, Etemad, also wrote on March 3: “In Yazd, the number of blank votes has been announced as 29,303, effectively placing it in the second position. From this city, Mohammad Saleh Jokar has secured a seat in the parliament with 81,634 votes. The next candidates have garnered votes ranging from 19,000 to 3,000, showing a significant difference. It is still unclear what percentage of votes were blank in the recent elections. However, in the presidential elections of 2021, blank votes ranked second in the classification of votes.”
The Ham-Mihan newspaper wrote on March 3, “So far, what has been reported by the media about the winning candidates in Tehran pertains to 1,960 counted branches out of 5,000 branches. These preliminary results and the level of votes cast, regardless of the outcome, are a serious phenomenon in the elections. For instance, Ali Gholhaki, a conservative political activist, has mentioned the possibility of a tsunami of blank votes. He wrote, that ’40 percent of Tehran’s ballot boxes (for the 12th Parliament) have been counted, and the top-ranking candidate in Tehran received 119,000 votes while the thirtieth-place candidate garnered 44,000 votes! Whereas in the previous Parliament, the first-place candidate had 1.2 million votes, and the thirtieth-place candidate had 641,000 votes! What does that mean? It means that we are facing a tsunami of blank votes!”
Why was the parliamentary server’s breach a final nail to the coffin of the #Iranian regime's sham election? pic.twitter.com/cdsQa2yOAN
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) February 29, 2024
Shaking heads
At the end of the day, the regime came to realize that despite a year-long, exhaustive effort to showcase its full might and portray the 2022 uprising as a thing of the past, the people of Iran have unequivocally proven the regime wrong.
As the former head of the parliamentary National Security Commission said, “Instead of pursuing practical strategies and expanding voter turnout, the country’s political system seemed more focused on a kind of promotional mobilization. It is unprecedented in Iranian electoral history to witness the entire country’s resources mobilized to bring people to the ballot boxes. For instance, if an assessment were to be conducted, the whole of state television and radio programs employed all their capacities, which is unparalleled in the country’s electoral history. From pleas to threats, the national media used every means to urge people to vote. On election day, all tools were employed to the extent that, without justification, the voting hours were extended until midnight. It has even been reported that mobile ballot boxes visited people’s homes to collect votes in some cities.”