iran is gearing up for two key elections that will be held simultaneously on friday march the 1st. people will go to to apples to elect

members of parliament and the assembly of experts and exercise in democracy in the west asia region where there are practically no democracies. iran's leader has said not voting should not be chosen since it does not help any reforms that need to take place or for there to be any improvements. in this edition of the spotlight we will look at why these elections are so important to iran and why the enemies of iran in particular from the west are trying so hard to downplay the importance encouraging iranians not to vote. first let me introduce our guests. what is professor of the university of tehran joins us from tehran. also joining us is shabir risi, political commentator who joins us from chicago. welcome to you both. let me first of start with you and i'm going to uh get right to the one of the most important aspects of this and that's democratic vote. i mean, if you want to take a look at the stats themselves, 40 elections held in iran since the victory of the islamic. revolution, the

friday vote is going to be the 12th one, parliamentary election and the sixth one for the assembly of experts and in terms of just the whole motion of this uh vote taking place for members of parliaments, the assembly of experts uh where the members of parliament are elected in multi and single seat constituencies, the list is rather long as to how this is democratic exercise uh, what do you say to the people who don't really look at it that way, i think people uh look at iran elections and realize there is democratic process, i think the people who question the elections are generally associated with oppressive governments, united states for example, and political science we have this democratic peace theory which says that democracies don't enter into serious. conflicts with each other, and since

americans say that they have democracy, by definition, iran should not have democracy, iran should not be democracy, and that's why they question elections in iran, but when you compare what we have in iran and the democracy that exists in the united states a number of factors. iranian democracy is actually healthier, more vibrant and more serious than the two party dictatorship that you see in the united states and we don't get candidates like trump running the country, so overall i think there is level of jealousy and there is level of animosity and... that's

expected from the countries that have been supporting dictatorships including the shah's dictatorship, and they obviously don't like iranians running their own country and opposing western hegemony in this part of the world. well, guess, don't waste any time going after the us, syr in the us, let's look at the us in terms of the system being democratic or not, uh, it's been called undemocratic, our guest alluded to that, and we're looking at system that is set up to that effect, even though people think of the us as being a democratic country when it comes to its voting, tell us if you uh agree with that or not, and what what your views are on that? uh, thank you for having me, um, if you gave me an entire day, i wouldn't be able to stop talking about this, because we don't have democracy, our choices, at least when it comes to the presidential uh campaign, that's happening this november are between two zionists, two imperialists that are both in bed with wall street, are both in bed with the... industrial complex, and

they're not really interested in what people have to say, they're interested in what their shareholders have to say. it's for the everyday american, they are basically choosing who gets to oppress them. and who gets to oppress the rest of the world? there's virtually no difference, for example uh between biden and trump, there's virtually none, and then it gets even worse when you actually look at what our congressional elections right, so actually let's talk about voter turnout first, between 2016 and 2022, only about 30% of the population voted in every single election between those key years and those would have to be of course trump years that were full of, chaos and just a crisis after crisis and a little bit into the biden years. a time where there's this much crisis, you would think voter voter turnout would be soaring into nearly 100%, but they stay stagnant, so it was about 50%. in the

same poll, this is poll by p research center, young americans believe that there's virtually overwhelmingly believe by the way, about 65% believe that there's virtually no difference between the parties. "and this is actually the the correct conclusion, there is no difference, because at the end of the day the american condition continues to deteriorate day after day, while the banks make billions, while the the the software giants make billions, literally everybody that's already been making billions gets to make more billions off the backs of the working class, all the while our taxpayer money goes towards funding the war machine and funding our own suppression, so i would have to agree with my guess here, it's a it's a..." it's it's it's not even two parties, this is facade, there's minimally no difference, if you had told me to guess which party someone was based off what their foreign policy is, i would have no idea because they're both virtually the same. sure, well uh to the facts that you mentioned there uh the young people and also in terms

the voter turnout, i like to ask you about uh the voter turnout uh issue fazadi, i'm looking here at uh iran's uh voter turnout and 209. it was the record 84.8%, the lowest was back in 1990, 37.1% for the assembly of experts, but if you throw those two out, the average median turns out to be about 51.8% if not higher. uh, i'm looking at conservative estimate here, which is much fur, much higher than what our guests are mentioned for the us, and much higher than many western other western democracies, or or quote unquote democracies. uh, so that debunks that myth that the voter turnout is uh is low in iran, if again if people think of it that way, am i right to look at it this way? i think you are right, and please remember that congressional elections in the united states are held on the same day as presidential elections, so in 2024 you have the presidential election and

then you have house of representatives, the whole 435 seats are up for grabs, and then you have one third. the us senate, and when you have a congressional election and and presidential elections on the same day, you expect to get a higher voter turnout, and the average, as our guest in chicago said, the average for congressional elections in the united states is about 35%, which is lower than the worst voter turnout in iran. "and the us government officials have this audacity of questioning democracy in iran, and when when they engage in this type of rhetoric, very simple question is that what's

the state of democracy in the united states, and when you look at you, nowadays we have the primer." in the united states, they started with iowa and then they moved to new hampshire, yesterday was michigan, i haven't had the chance to look at michigan turnout, but in iowa the turnout was less than 15%, it was 14 point something, similar thing was was was in new hampshire, and you know the amount of money that was spent in iowa was over 100, over 100 million dollars, 100 million dollars and the number of people who showed up were about 100 thousand people, so you do the calculation, every vote cost was more than $1, and all the the television ads, all the

competition that that looks competition, but but as the guest said in chicago, you foreign policy... issues, you hardly can see any difference in terms of the violence that united states brings to the world, so looking at these data, i think... anyone can basically judge that the elections in iran are actually more in line with basic democratic principles, people actually, for every seat for for tomorrow's election in iran we have 51 candidates, for every seat we have 51 candidates, we have about 15000 people that are... running for 290 seats and in the united states you have democrat, you

have a republican and the third party candidates have a difficult time getting their name on the ballot, so you normally for every seat have three or four at most candidates and the people's choices are quite limited in iran they get to choose from in average over 50%. and that that when you have more choices you can basically have easier time in terms of realizing what may be good for your future and to add to that stat and to ask you this question here it's 48,847 people actually registered as candidates that's that's a high number and then they had to get vetted by the guardian council obviously but still you had 15,200 or 75% of the total hotels where they receive final approval to run for office, so you have a

wide array of representation there, why do you think the us limits its party system to the way, and i don't want to make this iran versus us voting system, but we need to somewhat put things into perspective, the us has just those two parties, which obviously, and they all say it doesn't make a difference there, what are your views on that? i mean, we can totally make an iran versus thing, because the us. can't hold a candle, mean a lot of americans here under the impression that they are the all-out democracy, but as you said, there's there's so many blocks and there's so many road blocks and there's so many limitations on running for office, and the fact of the matter is that this two party system, they have massive amounts of wealth, they have massis amount, massive amounts of donors, private donors that they in turn have to then scratch their back once they're in office, if you as an independent have great ideas and... you want to run a platform that's for the people, you are essentially going against the banks, you are going against the corporations, and that is very

hard to do when you are a working class uh salary, let's call it, and so basically you are running against millionaires, you're running against billionaires, and whether they'll produce smear campaigns against you, whether they'll just censor you, whether they won't even take you seriously, and that's actually how the mainstream media actually in the united states actually has huge hand in this, because they won't even hair out thought. from third party candidates, they won't even hear out thoughts from fringe candidates within their own parties, for example, actually i don't want to get into examples here, but there are certain democrats that are running again zinanis, the whole entire party consists of both parties uh that won't even give a thought to another candidate outside of joe biden right now, those candidates exist on the ballot, but the entire democratic machine is all behind joe biden, despite how unpopular he is, despite how much negative media attention uh he gets, especially from right-wing circles and

despite constant protests against him from both the united states left wing, the united states right wing and independent circles as well, this man is has the lowest presidential approval rating um in in perhaps over a century and this person is being champion as the ticket and the entire establishment is saying either vote for this guy or you'll get trump, meanwhile even on the trump side of things on the republic. inside of things, you see the entire state uh in some sense is even try to limit donald trump, i don't like donald trump, i think he's a murterous imperialist, i think he's a bankster, i think he's a terrible person, but you even see how like uh, a quote unquote outsider, lot of people call him an outsider, but he's he's part of the same system, um, they try to limit him too, just because he he, the way he like talks about america, lot of people found about that, but as you can clearly... see there's limitations upon limitations, if you don't play the political ball game, they will they then they they're not interested in

anything that you have to say. all right, let's look at some of the details here about the representation forizadi and it's quite incredible when you take a look at uh, i'm looking at the the three religious representation, women and young people, where uh the parliament has 290 members, five which represent religious minorities, jews, syrians, zorastrians, armenians, women, 1,713 women, than double the number uh in the last elections and young people uh also we're looking at uh nearly 70% of them aged between 30 and 50 uh so that's a 55% increase why are we? looking at such increases in terms of the representation in these three categories overall, like the religious ones in particular though, the women and the young people, you know, the number of educated women have been increasing in iran significantly since the 1979 revolution, and

one reason you have more women running for office is because "you have more educated women in the country, you the letracy rate before the islamic revolution was less than 50%, today is over 90%, and one reason iranians continue to come to the polls, given all the sanctions and economic difficulties, it's because of the services that that the islamic republic has provided in term." of health care, you know the average age in iran was 53 before 1979 and today is almost 80, 80 years of age, so when you increase your average age by 20 some years, that means

better food, more medicine, better healthcare, so these are the services that the government. has been able to provide things that people did not have during the shah's time, although shah used to sell much more oil and was not under sanctions, so these are the progress that people can see, and that's one reason they continue to come to elections and participate in the political process. let me just also say something because you mentioned in in in your previous talk about the guardian council, you know the system, the political system in iran is is set up in a way that political parties cannot disqualify candidates, so in the united states and many other countries, if you want to run for office, you generally have to be

part of major political party, that's right, and to be and to be... a viable candidate, that's what they call viable candidate, you have to raise so much money, for example, in the united states and other criterias and the party bosses actually decide who is viable candidate and who is not a viable candidate, so there is lot of limitations imposed by political parties, "and people get disqualified and for reasons that they really don't know, in iran, it doesn't work like that, if you want to become a parliament member, all you have to do is pick up your birth certificate and go and fill out a form, and if you're a citizen of iran, few years

ago they they put this education..." criteria, the people have to have a minimum degree in order to run, but if if you if you satisfy that, if you don't have a criminal background, then then you actually can run for office without party was telling you whether you can do this or not, but since this process is open to everybody, more than 85 million people, then "there needs to be a vetting process in in order to make sure that for example that minimum degree requirement is met to make sure that the people don't have a criminal background or other other laws that are quite quite apparent and quite open for people to see, and that's that's why you get some candidate disqualified because they don't mean, they don't meet the minimum

requirements that that are they are supposed to have, but if i if i want..." to choose, rather go to a process that is open and qualifications are open for everybody to see in comparison to a process that some party boss decides whether i'm a viable candidate or not, so in that aspect, because you know this this qualification of the guardian cancer is something that western media athlets always talk about, but when you look at it closely, realize that this is actually a more democratic process than what you what you experience in a number of western countries indeed, well here you have uh, mean i'm not trying to... um elevate the status of food as a professor at the university of tehran, but the discussion and the content and what he said are all up uh exercised in

democracy within the realm of what he was describing uh and that just shows again what my first question was which which is the notion of democracy and i'd like to find out why it is that countries like the us and other western countries or any country that tries to undermine the democratic system in iran um is trying so hard to do that. and trying to dissuade people from going to the uh polling stations, what what types of motivations do you think they have? yes, western countries will always try to utilize another country in order to paint itself in a better image, because they know western countries rather, they know that they do not function for the sake of people, they don't function for the sake of masses, they function for the sake of very select elite few, the billionaires, the ruling class and these are the... representatives of the ruling class and so when you have other countries, other governments that actually give their people not only direct participation in voting, but rather direct

participation in being part of the political process, then that raises some eyebrows especially for americans who live in a road block after road block electoral system uh, which is by the way in and of itself extremely racist, i mean we have a jerry mandert system where the entire house of representatives basically given votes. based off red line districts where for example black counties get less votes than white counties, they effectively white states and white counties have lot more voting power than minority counties and states, and so their in and of itself is a gigantic limitation, and so they don't want people to analyze this, so what they do is they go on the offensive and say, this country is a dictatorship, this country is totalitarian state, um, and while they're saying this, they're saying to people in that country, boycott your own system, well why would they boycott their own system? look at the united states voting turn now, you can go to the

polls, but lot of people don't even believe in the polls, because nothing changes here, nothing changes here for the people, the people have had the same quality of life, which is not that great for decades now, the minimum wage hasn't even been raised a federal level, they leave it up to local and state elections, that are aggressively dominated by the two-party system, those two-party systems again do not work for the american people, they're dominated solely by the elite few that have billions in politics. thank you very much uh for that, we do appreciate, we just fresh out of time. shab there, political commentator from chicago, food azity of pleasure, university of tehran professor spoke to us from tehran, thank you to you both, and with that we come to end for this edition of the spotlight from me coverway and the team, it's goodbye.

the economy in israel was very bad before the events of october the 7th. "i don't see a way back, i think their economy is destroyed beyond recognition. i think the main problem in the battlefield will be military."

it seems the israeli occupation will conclude the grand operation in the city of khan unis in southern gaza within days, withdrawing thereafter to the newly established security zone along the border with gaza, just as it did weeks ago in the city of gaza and its surroundings to the north. does this mean that the next step is to begin the ground operation in rafah? it appears that the decision regarding the operation is still pending, not only for field related reasons,

but lot of regional players prefer... the negotiating path to end the zinus aggression against gaza, hence all eyes are now a possible improved prisoner exchange deal, both inform and content compared to the first paris formula reached between qatar, egypt, the united states and the zianist israeli entity last january. gaza talks underway this week on the media stream. this is. in this week's show we'll be digging into the activities of the right-wing polemicist douglas murray who's an apologist for the gaza genocide and closely linked to the islamophobic henry jackson society think tank. murray was intending to raise funds for zinist soldiers perpetrating the gaza in genocide until his plans came un stuck thanks to a boycot by ordinary shopfore workers. well the heading jackson society uh created around about 2005 is the the leading islamophobic think tank in the uk. it's not.

surprising is it chris, you look at the background of of rupert murdock in relation to the news of the world and the sun, his links to talk tv, his links to fox news, your headlines on press tv, iran strongly condemns israel's massacre of civilians in god. as barbaric saying the us and the eu must be ashamed of supporting the regime's genocide. the un rights chief warns israel's ground invasion of the southern gaza city of rafah would incur potentially massive loss of life on people sheltering there. and more than 30 news organizations express solidarity with journalists working in gaza calling for the protection and freedom to report.