In the Iranian presidential election on June 18, 2021, the Iranian people demonstrated their hatred of the regime and their desire to overthrow the regime through a nationwide boycott.
Of course, the regime fears that the low voter turnout will remove the façade around the so-called democratic process in Iran and cause the international community to turn their backs on the mullahs, so they’ve hidden the true figure and claim that 40-50% of eligible voters turned out to the polls. This is repeated by the state-run media who were writing about the drop in voter turnout.
However, the Iranian Resistance report that the true number of votes only account for about 10% of eligible voters, with many of them – i.e. soldiers and government employees – forced or bribed to vote.
Now, we’ve known for a long time that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei wanted to install Judiciary Chief Ebrahim Raisi as president to consolidate power over the parliament and the country, similar to what he did in the 2020 parliamentary elections. He got what he wanted on both occasions, but this will likely do little to prolong the regime’s survival.
The Mardom Salari-e daily wrote on Monday, June 21: “The level of public dissatisfaction is high and social capital is declining… [People] would once again show their power, and this time they may do so more devastatingly.”
Meanwhile, the Etemad daily explained that economic problems caused by “widespread corruption and embezzlement” have only deepened the divide between rich and poor. They warned that many Iranians cannot tolerate the regime’s oppression anymore, which may lead to further uprisings like that of November 2019.
The Iranian people boycotted this election en-masse, even though the mullahs described it as a “religious duty”, almost begging people to vote. The Hamdeli daily wrote June 21 that the regime should consider why so many people ignored these calls, rather than blame it on a shadowy international force.
The paper wrote: “We should see the reality. We should admit people boycotted the ballot box, and we should understand its message. People’s frustration with the ballot box can have dire consequences. The government must understand the consequences of this frustration.”
It advised that ignoring the Iranians who did not vote would be a massive mistake that would cause irreversible consequences for the mullahs. The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) spent two months campaigning for an election boycott with pockets of resistance across the country that struck fear into the heart of the regime.
