Mahdieh Golroo: There is no longer a choice between bad and worse; the ‘I will not vote’ campaign is an active boycott of elections

In recent days, various campaigns have been launched to boycott the presidential election, including the ‘Vote without Vote’ and ‘I will not vote’ campaigns. Mahdieh Golroo, a political activist based in Sweden who was recently introduced as a spokesperson for the ‘I will not vote’ campaign, told Voice of America that testing the 42-year experience of reformism has increasingly exposed the defective structure of the system’s electoral mechanism and its inability to solve the country’s micro and macro problems, and there is no longer a choice between bad and worse.

Previously, the ‘I will not vote’ campaign, in its statement, emphasized that the members of this campaign were launched by a diverse group of organizations and democracy-seeking political activists to carry out a targeted boycott of the elections, and by focusing on the 2021 presidential election and synergizing all forces that have a negative approach to these theatrical elections, to present abstention from voting as a form of protest action.

The campaign added: The boycott of elections begins with defending the dignity of voting and the human dignity of Iranian citizens, and continues to pursue the short-term goal of protest action and strengthening agency in the will of political and social forces as free and self-aware subjects. This mentality should be strengthened in society that the Islamic Republic of Iran and the construction of its absolute power is not an inevitable and inescapable destiny for Iran.