Mohammad Khatami: I Consciously and Honestly Did Not Vote
Mohammad Khatami, former president of Iran, emphasized that he consciously and honestly did not participate in the elections and did not cast a vote.
Several days after the twelfth round of elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts, and while the majority of Iranians did not participate in the elections, Mohammad Khatami, former president of the Islamic Republic, stressed to his advisors that he did not vote.
Mohammad Khatami, following a meeting regarding the elections, said: “I consciously and honestly did not participate in the Islamic Republic’s elections and did not cast a vote. I have decided to stand alongside and in harmony with the multitude of the dissatisfied. Low-cost, high-benefit reform is the overwhelming desire of the people. My not voting was in hopes of restoring the people’s damaged trust in the Islamic Republic and political movements, including the reformist movement.”
Mohammad Khatami in the 2017 presidential elections in a campaign that became known as “Repetition,” asked people to participate in the elections; however, this approach proved ineffective based on the results of subsequent elections, whereas in the previous elections, Khatami’s messages had led to the victory of reformists.
Now that a year has passed since widespread protests and numerous slogans by people aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic regime, Mohammad Khatami claims that overthrow causes many damages to both the government and the people, and considers national reconciliation as the solution to block the path of overthrow.
His claim regarding the people’s desire for reform comes at a time when in the previous presidential elections, “Abdolnasser Hemmati,” the reformist candidate, ranked fourth after Ibrahim Raisi’s spoiled votes and Mohsen Rezaei, and according to official reports, received only 2 million and 400 thousand votes.
Ali Khamenei had also stated in previous years that 40 percent voter participation in some countries’ elections is a matter of shame, while government media announced the people’s participation in the elections as 41 percent minutes after the voting deadline on March 2 (11th of Esfand).
The government media’s claim of over 40 percent participation comes at a time when some observers considered the participation rate in this round of elections to be much lower than the announced figure. “Mohammad Hassan Ghaderyan Abyaneh,” a hardline diplomat, during live comments in a post-election roundtable discussion, said: “The people’s participation in the elections on March 2 was less than 10 percent.”
