Candidates and Slogans: 'Empty' Promises in 'Fresh' Packaging

Before and after the official start of the presidential election campaign in 2017, the six candidates approved by the Guardian Council have presented their slogans, promises, and policies. The most important task for informing those who wish to participate in this election is to compare their records with their slogans and promises. The author of this article is neither an advocate for absolute participation in the elections of the Islamic Republic nor for absolute boycott, but rather supports conscious political action (with awareness of costs and benefits and understanding of conditions and candidates) and meaningful action (based on distinguishing between the different policies of candidates, the diversity of candidates, and voting in areas where the likelihood of fraud is low). Participation in the spectacles and circuses of the Islamic Republic is a personal choice, and the assessment of its benefits and harms, meanings, and outcomes rests on each citizen. For example, voting for candidates from religious minorities for councils in the 2017 elections, due to the ban announced by the Secretary of the Guardian Council (if some of them are approved by the oversight bodies and remain until the end), is a meaningful political act. As for understanding the candidates, their promises, and their records: Mostafa Mir-Salim: Honesty and Integrity. Mir-Salim is a champion of book censorship in Iran. During his tenure, all channels for dissenters and critics were closed in the field of writing. Many books by authors were archived during his time at the Book Administration. The darkest period of censorship in the Islamic Republic is during Mir-Salim's time. This level of darkness should be compared with the blackness of book censorship during the periods of Ma'adi-Khah, Larijani, Khatami, Safar, Hosseini, Jannati, and Salehi to understand the meaning of the slogan 'honesty and integrity' from Mir-Salim's perspective. Ali Khamenei's keen interest in Mir-Salim over the past four decades stems from this 'honesty and integrity' of Mir-Salim in eliminating critical voices and cultural absolutism. Mir-Salim has packaged his ironic promise (given four decades of advising one of the most deceitful, secretive, and corrupt governments in today's world) in a secular ethical wrapper (without any religious content) to conceal his dark record in the cultural sphere. Of course, to keep up with other populist and socialist candidates, Mir-Salim promises money to the people that they must earn through honest work, which the government has plundered: 'I have come to give you your share from the table of the revolution.' Mir-Salim gives the slogan of 'integrity' while during his tenure as Minister of Culture, he brought his tea sugar from home, but the buses of the Ministry of Culture transported the employees of this ministry to hold a grand ceremony for his father's funeral at the mosque. Ebrahim Raisi: Work and Dignity. Four decades of Ebrahim Raisi's presence in the highest ranks of the judiciary and institutions under the leadership apparatus only certify one thing: work and dignity. The leadership apparatus is an organization for distributing rents and privileges among clerics so that the members of this institution certify the religious legitimacy (which has never materialized) of Khamenei solely based on rewards. On the other hand, one of the biggest absentees in the judiciary of the Islamic Republic is human dignity. The most important function of the judiciary from the moment Iranian citizens encounter it is the violation of their human dignity, from the request for bribes by investigators to judges to being beaten by interrogators, from being deprived of going to the bathroom in prison to being humiliated for taking a few hours of leave, from humiliating women in court by covering them with chadors resembling curtains to cramming dozens of people into a 4 by 6 cell. Raisi's role in the massacre of 1988 is a drop in the ocean compared to the daily humiliation of hundreds of thousands of people. Work is in serious opposition to privilege and discrimination, but Raisi and his close associates have been immersed in a sea of discrimination and privilege for the past four decades. Ebrahim Raisi's wife, Jamileh Alam al-Huda (the daughter of the Friday prayer leader of Mashhad), obtained her 'doctorate' from Tarbiat Modares University by compiling ideological propaganda texts of Islamism and was directly employed at the National University. Her promotional pamphlets on the role of prayer in child education or Islamic education have also been used as scientific articles to promote her to the rank of associate professor. Some of these pamphlets have also been published by the publishing house of her father's university (Imam Sadiq University). Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf: Action Speaks Louder Than Words. If action speaks louder than words, then the noteworthy actions of Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf during his tenure as mayor should earn him a presidential seat: transferring thousands of billions of tomans of municipal properties to government affiliates and the mayor and hiring about four thousand praise singers in the metro organization with monthly salaries of about 9 to 11 million tomans. His promises, of course, are bolder and more unrealistic than those of other candidates. He promises that he wants to 'increase the country's income by 2.5 times in a four-year term and create 5 million job opportunities.' He has also promised to give the unemployed 250,000 tomans monthly to find work. Just one of his promises requires 1,500 trillion tomans in investment (according to the need for investment of about 300 million tomans to create a sustainable job, according to the Deputy Minister of Labor), while the government's development budget in recent years has been about 40 trillion tomans (about one-fortieth of the required amount), and the banks facing bankruptcy have yet to recover the overdue debts of 150 trillion tomans. No government in Iran can make such an investment in five years unless the capital of Iranians abroad and foreign investments flow into Iran, which is impossible with the Islamic Republic and its provocations in the region. Eshaq Jahangiri: I Have No Headquarters; It's Unclear. Eshaq Jahangiri has no record other than being a 'good boy' for the leader's advisor (Mir-Salim). His approval by the Guardian Council is further proof of this good boy status. He has only come to ensure that Rouhani is not alone and will eventually step aside in favor of him. He has no slogan for the election, no headquarters, and no program. Therefore, his slogan will be support for Rouhani. Mostafa Hashemi Taba: Preserve the Government; I Won't Step Aside. He has also come to keep Rouhani's government for another four years and does not want to step aside for anyone (apparently, he has no problem with contradictions). However, he was approved to reduce Rouhani's votes if he suddenly decides to show himself. Khamenei and his close associates prefer a president with fewer votes. Khatami's over twenty million votes have always been like a hammer over the heads of the leadership and the military alongside him. Hashemi Taba has no record to present in this election other than being a loyal manager for Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami, without any significant achievements in the country's sports. In the 2001 presidential election, he received about 28,000 votes while he dealt with tens of thousands of athletes during his management. Hassan Rouhani: Prudence and Hope 2. Rouhani has not introduced a new slogan for his second term and has not presented a different program. Moreover, Rouhani's government (regarding economic statistics) has acted very opaquely, and his colleagues, including Mohammad Javad Zarif, have lied on multiple occasions (for example, regarding the Holocaust exhibition, political prisoners). It is still unclear how the approximately 150 billion dollars that Obama mentioned and was given to the Islamic Republic after the JCPOA was spent. During Hassan Rouhani's tenure, the number of executions in the Islamic Republic reached about 1,000 annually, massive embezzlements continued (in the Teachers' Fund), and the government's current expenses tripled. Rouhani's four-year term was a period of cultural feudalism, unfulfilled promises (such as lifting house arrests or preventing police from entering homes to collect satellite dishes), the continuation of a security atmosphere in universities, and the arrest of journalists, spending billions of dollars in the civil wars of Syria and Yemen, and doubling liquidity (from 575 trillion tomans to 1.2 quadrillion tomans). The employment, inflation, and 11% economic growth statistics were not only unreliable for experts but also for the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and his advisors. Mir-Salim has called these statistics false. Aside from the fact that the serious opponents against Rouhani are a cleric who issues thousands of death sentences and a corrupt former military officer, he has nothing significant to offer in the election scene. The JCPOA was first Obama's decision and then Khamenei's decision and would have happened with or without Rouhani. Of course, Rouhani and Zarif were figures that the West (influenced by the reformists' packaging of them) could work with more easily.