Participation or Boycott of Elections: Legitimizing or Delegitimizing?

In the need for legitimacy: Government systems, whether democratic or dictatorial, require justification for their rule, which fundamentally revolves around legitimizing their governance. In democratic systems, this legitimization is an ongoing process achieved through the free participation of citizens via mechanisms outlined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the rule of law, free elections, and the peaceful transfer of governmental power. Non-democratic systems are not exempt from this need and seek to define and acquire their legitimacy through various means. The incompatible structure and legitimacy problem: The Islamic Republic is a dictatorial regime with elements of totalitarianism, where some mechanisms of a democratic government are superficially embedded. In other words, this system is a heterogeneous and discordant combination of a theocratic Islamic government that claims a significant portion of its legitimacy from God and seeks the remainder from certain democratic institutions of the modern world, such as elections, presidency, legislative assembly, separation of powers, etc. This combination is discordant because its modern manifestations, such as elections, which are intended for citizens to judge their rulers and consequently facilitate the peaceful transfer of power, are in permanent contradiction with the absolute rule of the jurist, which encompasses unlimited governance. The Islamic Republic regime has practically attempted to drain the content of the modern elements embedded in its constitution, reducing them merely to tools for self-presentation and acquiring internal and external legitimacy. However, this pretense of having democratic institutions such as a president, parliament, elections, and other entities inadvertently creates costly consequences for the Islamic Republic and facilitates opportunities for its democratic critics and opponents. The effectiveness of the opposition: Given that the Velayat-e Faqih regime does not tolerate any independent outcome from the democratic opposition, the question now is how the opposition can advance a reformist policy aimed at peaceful change and ending despotism in a regime like the Islamic Republic that governs through naked violence and repression. Many historical experiences have shown that one of the least costly and most peaceful methods of transformation towards democracy is the intelligent use of the regime's need for legitimacy by the opposition. In conditions where all avenues for independent action by opponents are closed, this need for legitimacy provides the leverage through which democratic opponents can engage in gradual and sometimes rapid changes, but in any case, continuous changes against the regime of despotism. Specifically, the Pahlavi regime silenced the left and national democratic opposition through ruthless persecution, imprisonment, torture, and execution. However, since that regime derived part of its legitimacy from religion, it could not behave similarly towards religious movements, thus making it much easier to organize Islamist opponents in mosques and religious gatherings. Among other reasons, this is why radical Islamists succeeded in dominating the 1979 Revolution by exploiting this need—this weakness—of the regime. The delegitimization of the Supreme Leader: We now see that the need for a democratic façade to gain legitimacy, one of its manifestations being elections, has repeatedly caused problems for the Velayat-e Faqih regime. At least since the second of Khordad 76 (May 1997), every election, especially presidential elections, has sparked a significant challenge for the Velayat-e Faqih regime. Each of these challenges has diminished and questioned the authority and legitimacy of the Supreme Leader: In the elections of Khordad 76, the Supreme Leader's favored candidate, Natiq Nouri, suffered a humiliating defeat. In the 84 elections, signs of fraud emerged, followed by the defeat of the regime's second symbolic figure, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, by an unknown individual who presented himself as an outsider to the system—though he was secretly supported by the Supreme Leader—and finally, the 88 elections, which obliterated the remnants of the regime's legitimacy based on the Velayat-e Faqih and the leader himself. Currently, in this election period, we witness how candidates, all of whom have been key operatives of the regime, depict a catastrophic, corrupt, brutal, and inefficient image of the Islamic Republic during the electoral debates, which would never have been possible for the regime's opposition to portray on such a scale. If the reformist citizens of Iran had not participated enthusiastically in the 88 elections, the Green Movement, which dealt a significant blow to the legitimacy and authority of the Supreme Leader and his regime, would never have emerged. In dealing with the Green electoral movement, the regime demonstrated that the Supreme Leader is not committed to any legal or moral responsibility: on one hand, he ordered widespread fraud to benefit his favored candidate, and on the other hand, he acknowledged that the 'populism' of Ahmadinejad was closer to him, while simultaneously ordering the brutal suppression of protesters against electoral fraud, creating significant portions of a delegitimizing image that will ultimately lead to the complete erosion of his authority and legitimacy. It is no coincidence that in recent weeks, even Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has audaciously targeted the Supreme Leader with his attacks. The two incompatible and discordant segments of the Velayat-e Faqih regime: The second important issue is that the merging of two fundamentally different governance methods—namely, the absolute rule of the jurist with the claim of divine legitimacy alongside modern governance institutions such as the presidency, parliament, and elections with a source of popular legitimacy—has planted a fundamental contradiction in the Islamic Republic regime that has existed since the inception of the Islamic Republic and has increasingly manifested from Rafsanjani to Khatami, Ahmadinejad, and Rouhani. Therefore, this contradiction, which is among the causes of the regime's inefficacy, should be intelligently utilized by the opposition. Abstaining from exacerbating and exploiting this structural contradiction of the regime, which resolving it in favor of republican elements means the negation of the regime based on the Velayat-e Faqih, is unjustifiable. Remaining on the sidelines and refraining from deliberate intervention results in the intentional deprivation of the democratic, secular, and reformist opposition from any effectiveness. The contribution of democratic reformists in eroding the legitimacy and authority of the Supreme Leader is significant, which currently cannot manifest as an independent emergence due to repression and oppression. However, if we believe in peaceful and reformist changes, we must pay attention to the important fact that delegitimizing the Velayat-e Faqih is like a puzzle that emerges from assembling many small and large pieces. The reality is that the governance of the Islamic Republic has long been bifurcated, and the size of the gap between them fluctuates depending on who is president—this gap even manifested during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's era. In the current situation, both factions aim to secure the existence of the Islamic Republic, but with two different versions: the Velayati faction, on one hand, seeks repression and suppression domestically and hostility towards the West and its democratic manifestations to continue plundering national wealth while also turning to and possibly seeking refuge in large, non-democratic Eastern governments. The governmental faction, on the other hand, advocates for economic openness towards the world, including the West, because they know that the country's economic isolation from the developed world will lead to further deterioration of Iran's economic situation, and they rightly believe that a dictatorship coupled with the economic deprivation of citizens will not last long. Counting votes; the only electoral component: However, it seems that the regime, throughout its existence, except for the 88 elections, has tried to somewhat respect one component of elections, namely the counting of votes, after engineering with the help of institutions like the Guardian Council. As long as this is respected, one can reduce the legitimacy and authority of the Supreme Leader by electing personalities that are furthest from him (negative voting). Due to the prohibition of their representatives, modern citizens and the middle class of Iran have almost been forced to make negative choices in almost all elections of the Islamic Republic. A notable example of this negative voting was the response of Tehran citizens to the electoral lists of the Guardian Council and the parliament in 95, which showed that when the Supreme Leader denied the majority of citizens the possibility of positive voting, they intelligently responded with a 'no' by preventing the election of his favorites. Tehran citizens prevented the election of almost all of his favored candidates, thus clearly damaging the legitimacy and authority of the Supreme Leader in front of public opinion in Iran and the world. One might ask that despite Khamenei's failure to impose his candidates, not much has changed in Iran: once again, Jannati, who was likely fraudulently placed as the last person on the list of elected members of the Assembly of Experts from Tehran, was appointed as the chairman of the Assembly of Experts with the Supreme Leader's obstinacy and mockery towards the citizens of Tehran, and despite the rejection of all candidates supported by the leadership in Tehran, no significant change occurred in the parliament. The underlying question for such an inquiry is that the questioner expects a miracle, but the social struggle for the realization of human rights, a republic, and democracy that proceeds peacefully and reformist is a slow and continuous struggle that, depending on the balance of forces, is sometimes negative to prevent worsening conditions and sometimes positive to implement democratization projects and establish the rule of law. Now, the democratic and secular opposition of Iran is unfortunately in the phase of taking negative steps, the most important of which is to erode the legitimacy and challenge the authority of the Velayat-e Faqih regime and its apex, the Supreme Leader. The meaning of negative selection in this period is voting for a candidate who has the greatest distance from the Supreme Leader. Where does Rouhani stand? Most indications currently suggest that among the existing candidates in the Iranian presidential elections, Rouhani has the furthest distance from the thoughts, tendencies, and programs of the Supreme Leader, and given his role and responsibility in conducting the elections, it seems unlikely that the leadership of the Islamic Republic would risk widespread fraud like that which occurred in Khordad 88, beyond the engineering of the elections, which has been its usual method. Rouhani's government is itself part of the Islamic Republic system, and despite its electoral promises, it has not taken a step towards opening the political space in the country, and since serious and sustainable improvement in the economic situation inherited from the disastrous legacy of Ahmadinejad, the Supreme Leader's favorite, is not possible without political openness, one cannot expect significant achievements from this government. Without respect for freedom of expression and civil organization, without freedom of critique from free media, there will be no possibility of overcoming the monopolies of power and wealth concentrated in the leadership's office and security and military apparatuses, and naturally, even if Rouhani had such an intention, he would not achieve it without political openness. Few useful actions of Rouhani's government: However, it can certainly be acknowledged that Rouhani's government prevented the country from free-falling into the abyss that the Supreme Leader and Ahmadinejad had prepared during their nuclear confrontation with the West and the US by concluding the JCPOA. Economically, to the extent that one can expect from a government that still believes in top-down directive development and whose operatives have no vision beyond the clerical system, Rouhani's government has managed to achieve modest positive growth and single-digit inflation, compared to Ahmadinejad's government, which brought negative economic growth of six percent and inflation of 40 percent. A critique of myself in evaluating the 1392 elections: In an article I wrote four years ago about the 92 elections on the Radio Farda website, I believed that given what had happened, namely widespread fraud in the counting of the 88 elections and the disqualification of the 'pillar' of the Islamic Republic, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, shortly before the elections, the only electoral component available in the Islamic Republic, namely the more or less accurate counting of votes, was also negated, and like during the Pahlavi era, elections had become completely devoid of content and lost their meaning. However, the course of events and the dynamics of Iranian citizens' political action taught me that I was mistaken and far from the environment of Iran, I lacked the ability to assess all effective parameters, especially the speed of social mobilization. The election of Ebrahim Raisi, the judge of the 67 executions, is not only an insult to the Iranian nation but also poses a serious risk of returning to the very dark era of Ahmadinejad. Demands from Rouhani: Rouhani should be asked that if he wins, which will not be possible without the negative votes (no to Raisi and Qalibaf) of critics and opponents of the Islamic Republic, he should immediately work on his previous electoral promises such as opening the political space, freeing the symbolic leaders of the Green Movement, Mr. Mousavi and Mr. Karroubi, and Ms. Rahnavard, along with other opposition prisoners. The expulsion of the accomplice of Ebrahim Raisi, Mustafa Pourmohammadi, from his cabinet should be prioritized as a symbolic action at the forefront of Rouhani's actions. In conclusion, it should be noted that this kind of tactical participation should not deter the democratic republicans of Iran from their strategic goal, which is to transition smoothly, proportionately, and peacefully from the Velayat-e Faqih system to a secular republic grounded in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and universal democratic principles.