How Does Iranian Society Face the Tenth Parliamentary Elections?

Discussions regarding the Tenth Parliamentary Elections have so far mainly focused on disqualifications, candidate lists, and the government's expectations from the upcoming elections and parliament. However, instead of viewing the Tenth Parliamentary Elections and the future parliament from the perspective of the government and its institutions, we can look at the issue from the viewpoint of society and its demands: How does Iranian society view these elections and the parliament that will emerge from them, and what expectations and demands does it have? What results will these elections and the Tenth Parliament yield for Iranian society? Unfortunately, there are no independent polling centers in Iran to scientifically assess the demands and expectations of society regarding political events and institutions before the elections and communicate them to the public. Existing government and semi-government centers play a propaganda role, presenting the level of participation the government desires (around 60 percent) or the expectations it has (a submissive parliament) on paper. Polls conducted from abroad also face serious limitations and problems (such as being conducted by phone, fear in responding, the government's security perspective on polling, lack of trust in institutions, and being case-specific), making their results unreliable. Of course, security and military institutions, as well as the leadership and presidency, conduct their own polls, but they do not present their results to the public. The Islamic Republic collects the most information about societal developments to avoid being surprised by public movements at any moment, but the information gathered at the expense of the people is distributed among the upper echelons of the government. Due to the lack of independent political parties that can provide programs based on public opinion, the non-programmatic nature of candidates' and factions' activities, and the lack of focus in the lists that emerge on public issues, these factors cannot be considered a suitable source for understanding the expectations and attitudes of society. Electoral slogans such as 'Livelihood, Security, Progress' (the slogan of the conservative coalition list) or 'Hope and Peace, Economic Prosperity' (the reformists' list) also express more the desires of the list organizers and the government rather than public expectations. These slogans will remain ineffective until they are transformed into programs. However, by following social processes and issues on one hand and public demands on the other, three points can be identified regarding the society's approach to these elections: 1. The first point is the depoliticization of society after the crackdowns of 2009 and 2010, the flood of political activists emigrating abroad, and the increasing power of security and military apparatuses in recent years. No society becomes more eager for political participation after repression. Unfortunately, election observers in Iran, due to the lack of independent candidates and independent observers (domestic and international, parties and candidates) at polling stations and vote counting centers, and the absence of polling from voters upon exiting polling centers, have no means to assess the government's statistics regarding participation levels. Just as candidates and the electoral atmosphere are manipulated, the vote counts can also be engineered. 2. Government institutions have neither created an environment for high participation nor shown a willingness to change the face of the parliament. The Islamic Republic seeks a risk-free election. When the government does not view this election as exciting, why should the people feel differently? Experience has shown the government that high participation (like in the elections of 1997 and 2009) creates trouble for it. It seems that the people also do not expect much change in the face of the Tenth Parliament compared to the Ninth Parliament because they know that if anything is to change in their lives, it will happen through the executive branch, not the legislature, which plays virtually no significant role in Iran. 3. Candidates do not represent public demands. Public demands are focused on reducing unemployment and reviving businesses alongside reducing government interference in personal lives, while candidates cannot necessarily speak about the latter, and promises regarding the former also seem unbelievable to the public (while about 5,300 jobs have been lost each month over the past 27 months, according to Tavakoli's letter to Jahangiri, Fars, February 16, 2016). They represent not only public demands but also specific sectoral demands. Essentially, Iranian society does not have a clear social stratification or classification to be reflected in this context. The government desires a mass society and disrupts any form of stratification. Thus, no election can serve as a platform for the expression of public demands because public demands must also be sought in the demands of sectors and classes. About a week before the parliamentary elections, there is almost no sign of news about this parliament in exchanges among individuals on popular social networks among Iranians (such as Telegram or Facebook). Based on an unwritten agreement between Iranian citizens on Telegram and the government, politically sensitive topics are not addressed to avoid Telegram being filtered. This has rendered the most popular social network apolitical. The advertisements of government and semi-government channels on this network are also ignored. Thus, everything seen regarding political participation is limited to the scant advertisements of state television and some low-attendance gatherings. Furthermore, in the electoral process, three layers of oversight are implemented to prevent the presence of critics and opponents of the current situation: 1) creating files on all political activists to be used against them during elections, 2) selecting polling center staff from among Basij members, retired IRGC personnel, security forces, and clerics, and 3) eliminating the oversight of candidates' representatives. The possibility of internal oversight within the government also does not exist because there is no longer a gap between the two branches of government, and the Ministry of Interior forces do not want or cannot oversee the actions of the Guardian Council. 70 percent of the managers in the Ministry of Interior are the same ones who were in the Ministry during Ahmadinejad's term. As a result, those who are critical of the current situation find no reason to trust the government in counting their votes. If we look at a list of the fundamental problems of Iranian society (which there is no doubt about even among government supporters), we will find their absence in the election campaigns of the candidates approved by the Guardian Council and committed to the Supreme Leader. These problems include: 1. Intensification of social harms (such as unemployment, addiction, prostitution, poverty, school dropouts, and increased crime); 2. Unprecedented increase in those struggling with mental health issues (18 to 25 million according to various statistics); 3. Unprecedented rise in certain physical illnesses such as cancer, diabetes, and respiratory diseases and the exorbitant treatment costs for them; 4. Depletion of pension and social security funds due to government extravagance; 5. Unprecedented corruption among officials and their abuse of power; 6. Unprecedented destruction and pollution of the environment and water crisis in the country; 7. The size and inefficiency of the government and public institutions; 8. Significant resources from the national budget spent on the government's ambitious programs in the region through interventions in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, which have no relation to national security and rather jeopardize it. (Only the last issue is completely absent in the rhetoric of government supporters; they do not even mention the first seven during the election period). In the speeches and advertisements of election candidates, even references to many of the above issues are absent, let alone providing programs and solutions to reduce them. Thus, the likelihood of the next parliament addressing these issues is close to zero. It seems that parliament members are striving to maintain the regime and find a place in the government class to access rents and privileges rather than addressing the aforementioned issues.