A brave woman stepped up to the microphone at a state-sponsored town hall held outdoors in Tehran this week sending the message that Iranians won’t be fooled to vote in the upcoming election when all the candidates are the same.
“They put seven bananas in front of us, and they say take one,” she said, alluding to the idea that all the candidates are the same.
“What’s the difference? A thief is a thief.”
The crowd applauded loudly, gathered around an outdoor area with some participants sitting socially distanced and many standing around the woman who is speaking.
“Why do you lie? Enough is enough.”
“Why are you making false promises to drag people out to vote?”
These townhalls or tribunes are a popular way for the regime to create some buzz around the upcoming Presidential Election which is scheduled for Friday June 18.
According to multiple polls coming out of Iran, the majority of eligible voters will be abstaining in a response to the regime’s restrictive and parochial method of candidate selection and governing for the past 42 years.
Thousands of Iranians have taken to social media in recent months to express their grievances with the regime and the upcoming election, using the hashtags #No2IRI (“No to the Islamic Republic” or in Farsi نه_به_جمهوری_اسلامی#.
“Those (regime officials) who say ‘Death to America
Under the Islamic Republic, the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei holds all the power, making the position of president highly symbolic. This will be the regime's 13th Presidential Election since they came into power in 1979 with the Islamic Revolution that toppled the monarchy of the Shah, Reza Pahlavi and brought in the theocratic government of the Islamic Republic. According to polls, candidate Ebrahim Raisi is in the lead.
The video was sent exclusively to The Foreign Desk from Iran.
