This text was published in three posts: post/page two (2/3)

And now for my concluding remarks and my question to those compatriots who have decided to vote.

I have already made it clear that, within the present structure, I regard the reformists’ representative in this election as an appropriate option for gradual change from the perspective in which those who intend to vote believe. This is of course a relative comparison with those reformists who are able to enter the sphere of political power. Otherwise, even the most minimal option I would personally choose could never freely submit itself to the people’s vote in an election conducted within the present structure.

The person you intend to vote for is inside this same system, and you know well that probably the majority of you who intend to vote for him hold more progressive views than your chosen candidate and are more reformist than he is.
Nevertheless, he possesses greater candour, financial integrity, and a clearer and more honest manner of speaking than the other reformists alongside him. If gradual change is a genuine possibility, it is possible to defend voting for him along this path.
But my fundamental question to you is whether it is. Do you truly regard change in the political structure and in civil and cultural approaches as possible through this route?

I have read most of the articles written by social activists who favour voting, and their general structure rests on the claim that this is an opportunity that reason and logic tell us should be used. It is artificial respiration for Iran so that it can remain alive, and arguments of a similar kind.

The fundamental question that remains unanswered—and which the reformists themselves also do not answer—is this: was what happened in the 2009 election the overturning of an election result between going to sleep and waking up, or was it not?

Your representative and the people’s chosen candidate has remained under house arrest and confinement for close to fourteen years. Thousands of people were arrested and imprisoned for protesting that election and its result. Was that election ultimately an instance of electoral fraud or was it not? And if you believe that it was—as someone who was one of the leaders of your movement and the chosen representative of you and the people still believes it was—how do you know the result of this election will be any different?

More fundamentally, after nearly twenty years of efforts to remove you from the structure of power in every possible way, while your leaders have remained under house arrest and social restrictions, why have they suddenly changed so profoundly that they have concluded reform is good and necessary for both society and the government—and that, for reform, they specifically need you and your return to power? Does this not strike even you as somewhat difficult to believe? Especially immediately after the widespread boycott of the parliamentary election?

We will probably hear no clear and convincing answer from the reformists. But I ask you, my compatriot who has decided to vote: what do you think about the 2009 election and its result?

Certainly, even a small opening for change is good. But what has brought you to believe that this vote will be different from that vote? And why are they allowing this small opening to be opened today when they closed it yesterday?

If you wake up the morning after the election and discover that your candidate has come third and that Ghalibaf and Jalili have reached the second round, will you again, in order to open an even smaller window and out of fear of Iran’s darkness and death, create through your participation the epic of electing Ghalibaf? Fundamentally, where is the boundary at which we will say “No” to voting if we have not yet crossed it?