By Nirmal P Acharya
Another round of elections in Nepal has finally come to an end. In my impression, Nepal is always either in the midst of an election or preparing for one. Everyone actually knows that elections won’t change much, but war can.
The most watched election in the world currently took place in Iran. After the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran on February 28th and beheaded Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and many other high-ranking officials, on March 8, the Iranian Expert Conference officially elected Muqtada al-Khamenei as the third supreme leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran. According to the Iranian constitution, the supreme leader, as the highest leader of the country, has the final decision-making power over all major affairs such as internal affairs, foreign affairs, and defense, and also serves as the supreme commander of the armed forces, with power above that of the president.
After the news was released, Israel issued extremely tough threats. The Israeli Defense Forces explicitly listed Muqtada al-Hameini and all the Iranian experts who participated in the presidential election as “military strike targets”. A spokesperson for the Israeli Defense Forces wrote in Persian on social media, warning that Israel would “hunt down” any successor of the Iranian supreme leader and those involved in the appointment process. Israeli Defense Minister Katz had previously stated that any Iranian supreme leader who opposes Israel would become a “target for elimination”.
US President Trump made the same claim during an interview, stating that the selection of the supreme leader of Iran “must be approved by the United States”, otherwise the leadership of Mujtaba “will not last long”. Previously, on March 5, Trump also said that “he must personally participate” in the selection of Iran’s next leader, threatening not to accept the son of the late supreme leader Khamenei as the new leader. If Iran produces a new leader who “continues the policies of Khamenei”, the US will be forced to “return to war within 5 years”.
This is almost an open declaration to the entire world: The election results of the entire world must be determined by Trump and Netanyahu.
If the elected top leaders or the leadership collective of a country do not conform to the wishes of Trump or Netanyahu, they can be simply arrested or killed by launching a war. So, what is the point of such an election?
In this era filled with wars and war threats, what Nepal can do perhaps is to hold elections every year. Otherwise, there would be almost nothing to do.
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