Prof. Sahimi's piece on the Iranian election

Professor Sahimi has written an article which is posted in the Huffington Post.
He complains that the election in Iran was neither democratic nor fair. I don't know which country in the world today fulfills both the criteria.
Even in the USA what we have been witnessing in terms of election process is a flawed one in which candidates are influenced by powerful lobby groups, i.e., the hidden minority of 1 percent, controlling the destiny of the majority 99%. They buy the ads and influence the public. Worse yet, the primary elections within the Republican party base are showing how the candidates are chosen by and from the hardcore extremists whose agenda seems to be not only at odds with the American spirit but also represent what is despicably racist, bigotry ridden and hatred-filled. There seems to be a competition of sort as to which candidate can appear more hateful to Muslims, Hispanics, and more committed to practicing war crimes, and supportive of the apartheid Israel. What a joke in democratic USA! One can see that these Republicans are vetting their extremists to represent the party in the coming presidential election, which is unfair, too.
Sorry, Dr. Sahimi I fail to see a perfect system.
In most so-called democratic states around the globe, there seems to be a system to approve or disapprove candidates based on certain criteria, which does vary from country to country though. But it is there.
In Iran, similarly, there is a system to reject candidates who seem to fail the 'litmus' test. It is never 100% fair anywhere; not even in the USA where Dr. Sahimi, e.g., in spite of now being a US citizen for decades, can never run for the highest position simply because of his Iranian birth.
While one may complain about the election process in Iran, one must also realize that in our time we don't have a truly fair and democratic system anywhere. It is no wonder that most electorates have lost any interest in politics of their states. The participation, thus, even in the USA for mid-term elections is way below 50%, and even for the presidential election, we end up electing a president who sometimes not only has less than 50% of the support from the voters, but more often that less than half the eligible voters have cast their votes.
That is the sad reality of our time when our democratic system has become electing leaders that represent the voice of the small few, i.e., the 1 percent who lobbied for them and thus mortgaged their decisions. It is a far cry from being a system of the people, by the people and for the people. It has become a system to protect the interest for the 1% lobby.

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