Yoshie wrote:
The Iranian Revolution managed to make transitions, both in the offices of the Supreme Leader* and the President (elected for a four-year term, with the limit of two terms), through elections. The Supreme Leader is elected (for life) by the Assembly of Experts, which is in turn directly elected by public vote (for eight-year terms), though the Guardian Council* vets its candidates.
Iran has made lots of transitions, but none of them unfortunately are in the socio-economic arena. The Islamic Republic rests on bourgeois property relations. Elections are held for the same reason they are held in places like El Salvador in the 1980s. They give the masses the illusion that voting changes things. There are differentiations among the Islamic politicians, but they don't involve serious matters of who controls Iran. That is left up to the mullah millionaires.
