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Dr. Fatemeh Haghighatjoo is a human rights activist and former parliamentarian in the 6th Majlis (Iran’s Reformist Parliament) from 2000 to 2004. She is an assistant professor in the University of Connecticut Women’s Studies Program.
Orignially posted March 2008
Speaking of the need for an opposition party, Kemal Ataturk once said: “I do not want to be recorded in history as the man who bequeathed a tyranny.” These words could also be uttered by Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah ‘Ali Khamene’i. Yet, the legacy that ‘Ali Khamene’i will leave behind can perhaps best be described as a promenade of contradictory truths. Such contradictions are emblematic of the 8th round of Iranian parliamentary (Majlis) elections that are now upon us. It is true that the Iranian state employs a prodigious style of electoral engineering to regiment outcomes.
