Monday, February 29, 2016

Iranian Moderates Make Big Gains In Parliamentary Elections- Tori Gilchrist, 1st period

Iranian parliamentary elections under way, and reformists are speaking up. However, most reformist candidates were not allowed to run in the election. They've been virtually shut out of Iranian politics since 2004 but now have "swept the seats in Iran's capital." Moderates have taken around 20 seats in an 88-member assembly in charge of choosing Iran's supreme leader. There's confusion as to what exactly a moderate is, though. According to this reporter, a politician who is identified as Moderate can open minded when it comes to economic forms but still very socially conservative, or vice versa. What does this mean for Iran's future?

The confusion of what exactly constitutes a Moderate is similar to the confusion surrounding the Republican party. For example, Donald Trump is leading the Republican polls, but is rejected by nearly all other Republican candidates. Immigration policies, within one party, range from "let them stay, just don't let them vote" to "let's immediately deport all eleven million of them." Issues of women's rights also span from one extreme to the other, from "allow women to make their own choices about their own bodies" to "shut down Planned Parenthood because they offer safe abortions and women shouldn't be allowed to have those." Overall, political parties are a mess. Should we really have them?

No comments:

Post a Comment