Current Events

The main point of the Guardian Council

The main point of the Guardian Council is

* to eliminate candidates who do not believe in the Velaayat-e Faghih and IRI concepts, i.e., no due process and completely based on the council's discretion,

* make sure that the presidential candidate is a male & a devout muslim (I woun't speculate how they do that). 

I wish Yasmin emphasized that the Iranian elections are, in reality, selections of the Guardian Council whom the Iranians vote on.  And, therefore not true elections.

Great job, Yasmin.

You explained a very complex and tyranic electoral system, to all of us. Thank you and good luck.

why are they discussing the

why are they discussing the past! we should move forward and prevent what happend.

Is there such thing as free and fair election anywhere>

Obviously we all know that the Iranian electoral system is just a joke. But, is there such a thing as fair and free election in Western countries? Is it right to consider an election free and fair, simply because of the existance of one man one vote. What is the role of capital in all these? Is it right if a group of candidates have the backing of super rich and media tycoons compared to those who can not reach out to anyone because they don't have the means to reach out to the mass of people. Please do not compare with communist Russia or China. We all know that they have also misrably failed. Their failure was also the outcome of so called "democratic centralism" which has always been  centralist and never democratic.

Please  comment. As usual I inlude a little poem.

Tabloids of all kinds - Control our minds

And all othere tools - Make us follow rules 

Election or Selection

Where in the world a group of non-elected mullahs select handful of candidates, and force people to elect one from this selected few is called election?

Why these educated researchers in above clip call this ridiculous process "Election"? 

Terrific work!

Thank you, Yasmin, for the hard work in clarifying IRI's complex electoral machinery and history for all of us. I have read Duality By Design and believe it can serve as a reference for anyone seriously interested in understanding Iranian politics. 

An In depth Analysis of junk,

Please allow me to highlight 2 points on where people hoping for reform will run into problems.

1) Elections in Iran are not free and fair, candidates are prescreened by unelected people who are themselves chosen by the unelected supreme leader and the results of voting are not independently verfified by anyone but reported by people selected by the unelected supreme leader. 

2) Supreme leader is only answerable to god, and everyone by law must follow his wishes.

Summary:

We had a Great Monarchy, lead by an honest king, with a parliament, independent universities and independent judiciary and gave it up for this.... because everyone wanted the chance to be king for themselves.  Oh boy.  I know!!!! I have an idea!!!!  lets come up with a new system and see how that experiment turns out.

Conclusion:

There is a difference in going on a successful adventure with the support of the king....

and spending your life going on continuing unsuccessful adventures with the support of the USA, UK etc...

lets hope more of us evolve to monarchists sooner rather than later, so we can enjoy a successful adventure.

 This lecture is actually

 This lecture is actually very insightful. Loads of new info. She has done a magnificent job of studying her topic. Hope future, pundits/experts/politicians use her knowledge about the IRI fake electoral process before they open their mouth.

"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies." - Groucho Marx

ای جی، بی جی، وی جی، جی جی!

Trying to explain the un-explainable by an academic approach!