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Mainstream media trying to delegitimize Iran’s 2021 elections by hook or crook

By Alireza Hashemi

(Alireza Hashemi is an Iranian political journalist with several years of experience working for Iran's English and Persian-Language media. He tweets:  @AlirezaHash3mi)


Iran’s presidential vote has seen Principlist contender EbrahimRaeisi emerging as the overwhelming victor to take the helm of the country for the next four years.

Now, many domestic critics of Reformist-leaning President Hassan Rouhani are happy that he will be replaced by a man admired for reforming Iran’s Judiciary and prosecuting high-profile corruption cases.

But the Western mainstream mediahardly look happy. One needs to see their mountains of commentary and strident headlines to get this. Virtually all mainstream outlets have adopted a disapproving tone and doggedly insist on describing Raeisi as a “hardliner.”

But who are “hardliners”? Is this a synonym for conservatives? Then why don’t we see the media using this term to describe political factions in any other county? Countries usually have rightist or leftist or far-right factions, but Iran has “hardliners” and “moderates.”

The case might be that the term “hardliner” has been invented to name-call Iranian Principlists, who are not particularly a fan of close engagement with the US, as parts of efforts to empower those Reformists who seek détente with Washington.

A Reuters story headlined “Winner of Iran presidency is hardline judge who is under U.S. sanctions” calls Raeisi a protégé of Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei. The lead says Raise’s record of fierce loyalty to Iran’s ruling clerics helps explain why he won a contest the authorities limited almost exclusively to hardline candidates like him.

One could come away from reading the initial coverage assuming that Iran is run by a full-blown totalitarian dictatorship, something in the vein of the former Pahlavi regime or the Saudi regime.

Iran has held around 40 elections during the past four decades, many of which have seen power being transferred from one camp to another. Three of the past four Iranian administrations were run by Reformist or pro-reform presidents.

The Constitutional Council, the electoral regulatory body, has more often than not been accused of favoritism or being too strict by disqualified aspirants from both the Reformist and Principlist camps. We are not ideally placed to investigate these accusations. But this is highly judgmental to claim the council has limited the election “almost exclusively to hardline candidates” and imply that Raeisi won the race for being a “protégé” of the leader.

Brutal rights record?

The Washington Post, in a piece titled “Iran's new president EbrahimRaisi consolidates hardline grip as reformers pushed aside,” says human rights groups, which have linked Raeisi to “numerous episodes of repression over decades” and said, “he played a central role in mass killings of dissidents in the 1980s.”

Numerous episodes of repression? Mass killings of dissidents? Such big claims certainly need to be investigated before being reported, especially if they come from Mujahedin-e​-Khalq Organization (MKO), a notorious group who stands accused of killing at least 12,000 Iranians, sided with Iraq in its brutal war against Iran and was on the US and EU terrorist blacklists until a few years ago. But nobody in the mainstream media feels such a need, since this is Iran and propaganda fodder is high in demand these days.

Others followed the same line. CNN called Raeisi a “hardliner” with a “brutal human rights record.” Reuters even ran a story that rights groups have called for investigations into the 1980s killings.

The same Washington Post story asserts that most “moderates” were barred by the ruling establishment, leaving many voters frustrated and turnout apparently low. Many other outlets also repeated the election saw a “record low” turnout.

But the turnout stood at over 49 percent, and that’s on par with the turnout in several previous elections, including the 1993 presidential vote with a 50 percent turnout.

And this was not surprising, considering the lackluster performance of the incumbent government and the dismal state of Iran’s economy, which has also been hit by the fall of oil incomes and the coronavirus pandemic. Rouhani’s tenure saw a ten-fold increase in the value of US dollar against Iran’s currency, and inflation registered records.

The pandemic-related health concerns were another major factor contributing to a depressed turnout. Iran still struggles to bring coronavirus cases under control after the country saw one of the worst outbreaks in the world.

Interestingly, the turnout in France’s local elections this week stood at around 30 percent. But there was not much buzz from the mainstream media.

Caricaturish portrayal

The same talking points have been parroted over and over again in the MSM coverage of Iran’s presidential vote. 

Even before the vote is held, Western media published many stories raising the familiar theme of the election being rigged.

The MSM audience were endlessly told that nobody will participate in the vote because people are angry with the regime.

A New York Times piece previewing the vote was headlined “Many Expected to Shun Iran Vote Seen as Presidential Race of One. It said, “many Iranians are expected to disregard ballot boxes amid economic hardship and calls for boycotts of elections at home and abroad.”

Such stories offer a caricaturist portrayal of Iran politics as part of a pattern of putting the country in a bad light, many times at the expense of truth.  

By contrast, the previous presidential votes held in 2017 received a wildly different coverage. That year, there was almost no talk of the election being rigged or people shunning the polls.  

There was a genuine competition between “moderates” and “hardliners”, and the mainstream media virtually sided with the “moderates” and painted Rouhani as the good guy who might bring about a “change”.

In days leading up to the 2017 vote, Reuters appeared worried that “Iran's re-engagement with the world at stake in Friday presidential vote.” Another story expressed concerns that growing US pressure on Iran has weakened Hassan Rouhani and made hardliners more assertive.

The agency even ran exclusive stories on two reformist politicians, former parliament speaker Mahdi Karroubi and former president Mohammad Khatami, announcing support for Rouhani. 

In 2021, the same two figures offered direct or indirect support for Hemmati, a reformist candidate, but Reuters gave a damn.

The Reuters piece reporting the results of the 2017 election begins this way: “Iranians yearning for more freedom at home and less isolation abroad have emphatically re-elected President Hassan Rouhani, throwing down a challenge to the conservative clergy that still holds ultimate sway.”

Compare that with the Reuters article on this year’s vote that talks of Raeisi being a protégé of the leader and the election being limited to “hardliners” like him. It’s not over. Reuters adds “the scale of Rouhani's victory gives the pro-reform camp a strong mandate to seek the sort of change that hardliners have thwarted for decades.”

And what were those changes? Let’s hear from then-US secretary of state Rex Tillerson. In a statement, he hoped Rouhani would use his second term to end Tehran's ballistic missile program and what he called its network of terrorism.

The Western desire for empowering Rouhani was evident in a move by then-US president Donald Trump to keep the nuclear deal in place by extending sanctions relief for Iran under the 2015 nuclear deal just two days before the vote. Interestingly, Trump on the same day imposed sanctions over Iran’s ballistic missile program, sending a clear signal on the sort of change he wants.

A Tale of two standards

The double standard is clear in the treatment of the Western media and governments. The new US administration of Joe Biden is clearly displeased with the vote, with a US State Department spokesman describing the election as “pretty manufactured” process that was not “free and fair.”

And this is exactly the same line Reuters and other MSM outlets followed. This reeks more PR than journalism, but this is what Western governments like their media to tell people about Official Enemies. That’s why the mainstream media tried hard to delegitimize the 2009 presidential election in Iran or Venezuela’s 2018 parliamentary vote.

Despite the ailing economy and the raging coronavirus, around half of the population showed up at polling stations and “emphatically” elected a “hardliner” with a “brutal rights record” as their next president.

This is the same nation that US officials and their propaganda mouthpieces have for a long time been portraying as a nation fed up with the 1979 revolution. No, the Islamic Republic is not merely months away from collapse.

 

 

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)


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