Whether that view will prevail among reformists remains to be seen—particularly as regards the approximately 40 reformists who hold seats in the current Majlis.
Reformists have been debating in recent months whether to field a slate of challengers or to declare the election bogus and call for a
public boycott. Many oppose the boycott on the grounds that that would just guarantee an electoral sweep by the conservatives. Others argue that their participation would convey legitimacy on a process that is corrupt and fraudulent.
This past week, both Mir-Hossain Musavi and Mehdi Karrubi, the two losing reformist candidates in the 2009 presidential elections, came out for a boycott.
Both men have been detained since last February and have not been seen in public in seven months. But last week both were allowed visits with their children and reportedly spoke about the upcoming Majlis elections.
The opposition website Kaleme reported Musavi said that “given the continuation of the current situation, there is no hope regarding the election and participation in it.”
Three days later, Esmail Gerami-Moqaddam, spokesman for Karrubi’s National Trust party, told Sahamnews, Karrubi’s website, that the opposition leader told his son when they met that “there is no place for reformists in the next Majlis elections, where only principleists will be competing.” The conservative faction refers to itself as principleist.
Gerami-Moqaddam said that since the National Trust party has been barred from holding any elections, he cannot make any official statements. But he said party members generally support the conditions for participation in the elections laid out a few weeks ago by former President Mohammad Khatami.
Khatami said reformists could only join in the election if the government first freed all political prisoners and then allowed an open and transparent election process. Since neither of those conditions is likely to be met, most politicians viewed Khatami’s comments as setting the foundation for a formal boycott.
During the visit that Musavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, had with their children, Musavi said they had been completely cut off from the world and had no access to radio, television or newspapers. Thus Musavi was not aware of the give or take in the reformist press about whether to field a slate in the elections next March.
Four years ago, the reformists complained that the government’s election managers did not allow reformists to run. Actually, the reformists did field candidates in almost every district. However, the government barred almost all of the best-known reformist figures from the ballot. Nonetheless, there were reformist candidates and few of them did well at the polls, winning only about 40 of the 290 seats in the Majlis.