hello and welcome to spotlight. millions of iranians have headed to polling stations. to cast their ballots in the 12th parliamentary elections and the sixth elections for the assembly of experts since the victory of the islamic revolution back in 1979. all through the past 45 years, elections have been a main pillar of iran's democracy, which is rare, if not unique in the west asia region. top iranian officials say huge turnout in the elections will give the country great advantages in the international arena. the leader of iran's islamic revolution has also emphasized that people. people's

participation in the voting will make friends of the nation happy and will disappoint the of ill wishers. let's see how the latest round of elections could affect the country and uh what effects it could have on the region as a whole. joining us tonight spotlight we have academic and political analy bedia joining us from the iranian capital tehron and also joining us from lebanese capital b. we have iranian affairs expert mr. karim shar. welcome to the program. let's start off with uh miss sali bidia in tehran. a record number of candidates around 15,00 have been approved to run in the parliamentary elections this year. that's a record uh, as we know it since the 1979 islamic revolution. what does this say about this year's elections? yes, this year's election is a historic one. because of

the very you know different era that we are actually witnessing the election to take to actually happen, it is, we are experiencing this election in time when the world is is of experiencing very, very important developments in terms of what is happening in west asia, what? happening around the world in terms of order, in terms of the decline of the american front, and of course in terms of of of iran internally because of the you know the coming together of the iranian people against all the different challenges that iran people have had over the past 45 years, but but especially over the past few years because of

the hybrid warfare that the iranians have experienced from the american front and of especially in terms of the propaganda warfare that has been you know iranians have been bombarded by this information warfare, this misinformation warfare, especially in the last year or so, so this is a historic election and as the leader said this morning when he was to cast his vote, that you know the whole world is watching the iranians take part in doubh in their in determining who is going to run the iranian parliament but also in determining the uh basically uh how iran is going to take part in world affairs as well sure mr sharara in beirot. the leader of

iran's islamic revolutionary has called for high voter turnout, he says that a large turnout will disappoint the enemies and ill wishers of the nation. uh, who does the leader mean by that? if you may unpack those comments for us please. well - i don't suppose that i can, i can, there's a lot that i can say on the internal scene uh, naturally of each. country has its own sensitivities, but naturally every country that has uh, well like the leader said, ill wishers, but i would say its own enemies or adversaries, these enemies or adversaries or adversaries would love to see the the establishment or administration enjoying unpopular support or not having the popular support that it should, so naturally a country when you take

a country like iran that has had to fight off enemies ever since it's ever since the islamic revolution in 1979 so you're talking about over four decades of constant. fighting - concept fighting against adversaries, be it on the domestic front or on the international front, having to combat cultural warfare, having to combat, mean for every every facet of of life in iran, so when when you face such an enemy, naturally, naturally, the response, the best fitting response to be uh, would be that you still enjoy popular support, so it's actually quite interesting, like what you see each and every year on the 22 of bahan or 11 february, the uh the victory of the islamic revolution, which was not two weeks ago, not three weeks ago, the millions and millions of people that come

down to the street every uh every year to announce their support for the islamic revolution, and now of course naturally each country has, like i said, its own sensitivities, people may choose not to vote for. example, now like i regardless of whether or not this is this is an optimal choice for them to make, naturally my natural my is response would be, no, this is not, but that's that's another subject for another day, it means that there is support for the islamic revolution, it means that there is some, there is a great deal of belief in in the uh in the islamic republic, it means that yet once again, iran's adversaries have gone home disappointed because they could not achieve their objectives, so we should not take this uh, take such the the concept of a

high turnout and the elections at face value, because truly every single uh vote counts, every family that decides to join the electoral process. counts in further disappointing ill wishers back to me speed on terron, the islamic republic brought something especially new to the persian gulf region, that was its democratic process, frequent and regular elections across the board and villages and rural areas, talk to us about that aspect of the democratic process of the uh islamic republic of iran. yes, of course iran has a history of... parliamentary movement back to the which goes back to the constitutional revolution, but the point is that when parliamentarism was introduced to iran back then during the time the qajar dynasty, it was actually a colonized parliamentary movement, parliamentarism that was eurocentric nature,

which was a system that basically try to bring people to power that would actually... for example write the constitutional the the constitution of that time in as a dictation the belgium constitution for example, so we we had this sort of history of parliamentarism in iran as in other donow colonial settings as they got independence, but which was very much colonized, which was a specific colonial parliamentary system which was overseen by the colonial power. which was actually directed in a specific, you know, eurocentric direction, but with the islamic revolution, we actually entered a new era, and an era of an independent democratic system which was based on islamic principles

and was not unicopy on other, you know, colonial systems with their... own you know with their own deficiencies, so here we have an independent system of having the will of the people being counted, having the people being part participating in how the country is run, having you know the people, people's voices being heard in terms of how the country is run, and as you said this is something that is very much division in... the west asia region, we have many countries around us with which the united states actually has no problem, in which we see no electoral system in terms of how the country is run, so this is very much unique to the islamic republic, but the problem is that

when it comes to elections in third world countries, you know countries like the united states have had this dual vision, basically if it is elections, a country which is an adversary, it is by definition, you know, considered to be unfair, considered to be on free, and of course considered to be illegitimate and... "the will of the people is never actually recognized as such, but if it is being conducted in another country which is actually friendly to the united states, then you see that that country's elections and electoral participation of the people is considered to be a sign of legitimacy, and of course you in those conditions usually, as you know that as it has been documented in many academic books including in the..." book by professor chamsky and professor herman manufacturing consent, it is very much you know elections

that are controlled or overseen or hampered with on the side of the united states and the countries of of the like countries, sure mr. sharara, you address the comments of earlier about calling for massive voter turnout, but also top iranian officials, they say huge turnout in the elections will give the country great advantages in the international arena. what advantages are they talking about? well, it depends on on which countries you're referring to, because if you're talking about very uh adversarial like adversarial countries like the united states for example, or take for example germany, france, some countries that have shown actual animocy towards iran. i don't think it's really going to matter in this case, but

there are certain countries that are not exactly nor friendly nor adversarial towards iran. you're talking about neutral countries that reside in the gray area and actually look at the extent of popular support that any given administration has as an actual indicator for for how well a certain system or establishment. it's doing uh via its people, so i think they were referring to such case, and uh, that's on the one hand, now on the other hand, again a high turnout is an indication in front of all, is an indication on the international scene that this country, this establishment, this uh, this administration, this whatever you want to. call it the system uh actually enjoys popular support by the majority of its people

and is therefore indicative of these people's the of this people's uh willingness to adopt the system, to believe in it, to believe in meaningful change through the system, to believe in the actual democratic process that occurs within the system, so that in and of itself will make adversarial countries think, twice about wanting to do anything with iran, it uh, it could make some countries, perhaps even someho are adversarial to lesser extent than the united states or some of the let's say hard liner countries against iran, it would make them think twice about wanting to take on iran uh in terms of creating internal sedition for example, because such a... because such such an such an adventure would be would be, i think it it they they would

believe that would be it would be more likely to lose and would therefore seek other avenues to tackle iran, that's basically the gist of it. miss vedia, iran has in the past had record uh turnouts come election day, i believe the average number is hovering just under uh 52%. western media outlets. of course we're trying to portray that lower, very low voter turnout will occur um uh during this round, what motives are they pursuing by uh presenting this type and pursuing this type of narrative? of course as mr. sharar said, it is that what western media trying to do is exactly what the united states is trying to do to to create... the this sort of this picture of the iranian the

islamic republic as a country that lacks public support and as as i said it is something that from the very beginning of the islamic revolution we have had this problem that every election we have had this you know sort of calculation on the part of the western media that the iranian people are not going to show up or that there is no uh what do you say, there is not going to be that many, that that much border turnout, but then when we come to the at the end of the day, see that the picture is different, but still you know we see that this happens time and again with every election, but with this election, especially we have seen this very, you know, this this enthusiastic public movement on the part of the ordinary people

and you know people who are concerned about the... both of this system of governance that they did do the enthusiasm to bring the people to come out to vote, we we have seen that over the past couple of weeks and it actually is paying out today that we see that people astic about participating in the future of the country in who is going to run the parliament and of course that is very important institution in the political system of iran. it is, so as i said, the western media are actually imitating or copying the framework, the framing that has been set up by the american government over the years regarding iran, and this time the same thing is happening and we are witnessing the same

kind of uh, instead of for them to wait and see what is going to happen, you see that... are basically trying to create this picture that turner voter turn out is going to be low, but we have to wait and see what the results are. karim sharado, one of the main goals of the islamic revolution was establishing political independence emits all the hurdles and hindrances and sanctions that the islamic republicans managed to overcome, do you think that that goal was achieved and has it been maintained over? past four and a half decades, political independence, that's a tricky one, because not the answer, the answer is actually quite simple, of course iran has been politically independent ever since the islamic revolution came to be, but i think the goal of the islamic revolution

went far beyond just the political independence that some of strike. for, but to answer your question, uh, ever since the islamic revolution came to, i mean, began, you've always had the same, the same model being repeated, neither east nor west, islamic republic, and to to have such a model being repeated throughout the cold war is actually very significant, because because here you have people who were largely under a... pro-american rule, and now suddenly you have ideologes presenting an entire world view that was not just new to the world, but also somewhat novel in in terms of what we had seen in the past decades before that, meaning you have, you have increasingly

secular outlook towards the world, religion is is being cast aside by... many and so to have people, millions of people going to the streets and uh calling for a return not just to religion, but to culture, to traditionalism, it really means, it really means a lot to have uh, mean it, it really explains why iran was one of the... major revolutions that the world has known, you have the french revolution, the russian revolution, and the iranian revolution, in what said the iranian revolution apart was that it was a cultural revolution. now back to your question, has iran achieved political independence? yes, has iran been able not just to achieve political independence, but to, i mean, iran has surpassed its goal, if

if the goal was just political independence, iran is no longer just - just domestically politically independent, but has also actively sought to rid the region of american influence, and so it's not just political independence that it created for itself, it also provided the opportunity for other actors in the region, other actors who were simply sick and tired of american and western influence in the region, american in in, and western of subservience of of subservience to the west of being forced to abide by western cultural norms and western uh uh and western fashion and everyth, mean being turned into consumerist culture, this was affirmation of life, not just independence, this was

affirmation of wanting to create, not consume, this was affirmation of our capacities as peoples in the region to produce a new kind of outlook towards the world and... misspido staying uh on that uh topic, we can also turn our attention to the uh american enmity towards uh iran. why has there been this level of hostility coming from the united states towards the islamic republic? is it because of iran's independence? as uh we were just um discussing right now, is it because iran is a force to be recken with in the region, or is it because iran has stood firm against the israeli occupying regime and it's destabilizing active? in the region it is all the above basically if you look at us relations with the world over the past 100 years with each and every country of the

world and that is what professor silvan and professor majski did in their book us foreign policy in perspective clients enemies and empire we see that the united states historically has start you has started a complex process of enmity with any country that seeks. that six systematic independence, that is an important word, it's not just independence, but it is systematic independence, and iran's system of independence is very unique, it is very dynamic and very complex and multiayered system of independence, when you look at the views of imam khameni and the views of this regard, it starts with the idea that independence is at the foundation of the being of any nation. that wants to live according to the will of god, basically you cannot give in to the will, you cannot give in your agency completely to any power that

is ungodly, and of course we had this during the colonial era, we had this during the time the bipolar world and of course in the unipolar american world, so this is very foundational in the system of the in the political thought of imam and which is at the base basis of this revolution and the islamic republic is political system, but on the second layer we need to, do the idea is that iran needs to achieve internal strength and power in term in order to be independent, so independence means strengthening iran from within, and part of that is the political process, you need to have vibrant electoral system, you need to have vibrant economy which is resilient, you need to have vibrant cultural system, each and every one of that iran has had you know progress and setbacks, so there is a system in the making, you know,

when we talk about iran's independence, we are not talking about some product that has been made by the victory of the revolution or any time after that, we are looking a system that is living, and of course the people of iran are part of that, if they participate in it, it is going to work, 'if they don't, it's not going to work in terms of politics, in terms of economics, in terms in terms of culture, in terms in terms of security and everything, so that's why the there is so much emphasis on the part of the leaders of the islamic revolution for the people to participate in every aspect of running this country, but then we have you know the extra, what do you say national independence, which is about the region that iran is located'. it is about the ummah of islam, it is about the world that you know as mr. sharara was talking about, iran has tried to read this region of american influence, that is part of

this system of independence that iran has sought to create and to pursue over the years, and of course, as i said, it is a system in the making because of the goals that are there that we still need to reach, when we can talk about you know the problem the presence of the... israeli regime in this country in this region having been solved, we can say that iran has basically approached this go, we can talk about independence of this region as a whole, we can say that iran has has approached that goal of independence, but it is the iranian people are part of that system and they have to be underground for it to work, sorry to jump in there, we're running short of time for tonight's program, allow me to thank my guests i joining us from tehran and thanks to iran affairs expert speaking to us from the lebanese capital bayroot and a special thanks to your viewers

for staying with us on tonight spotlight. it's good night for now. see you next time, palestine has risen from the ashes, the nation has gone a long way in its struggle against the occupation regime of israel from throwing stone to flying drone. but who can deny your decades long sport this arduous journey.

the second special media, television, radio, new media, and a special section for palestine. the deadline for sending your work is april 8th, 2024. for more information, visit sobfestival.com.

your headlines on press tv, millions of iranians have cast their ballots to elect the members of the country's parliament and the assembly of experts. the number of palestinin lives lost to the israely on slot on the gaza sriff has topped 30,200 as deadly bombings continue unabated. and the world health organization says almost all the lifelines in gaza have been cut and the health system and the beast. is more than on his knees.