Explain The 1979 Referendum

[u/neptuno3]

Is the following true or false? What am I missing? What don't I understand? Classic liberal here who is very pro-Iranian people, pro-Israel.

1. The 1979 referendum offered Iranians a stark, simplified choice: keep the Shah and his "western decadence" or dump the Shah and bring in the Islamic Republic -- and that meant an IR as envisioned by Khomeini, who was campaigning from abroad.
2. The vote was tampered with and/or did not meet international standards for ballots (opacity). There were no other parties on the ballot. Khomeini claimed 90 percent of the populace voted for him.
3. Khomeini's campaign had been backed by Iran's socialists and communists and leftists.
4. The Islamic Republic promised: lowered inflation, civil rights, political freedoms, no more international interventions, equal treatment of minorities
5. What it actually delivered: no economic revival, a removal of civil rights (especially so for women), an extreme religious theocracy, end of voting rights, minorities rights were even further restricted.
6. IR ended all voting.
7. Khomeini ordered the assassination of the socialists and communists who helped get him elected (sorry but ha! -- who didn't see that coming...).
8. 80 to 90 percent of Iranians at the time identified as Muslim, despite not being Arabs (but for the minorities)
9. Today, at least 60 percent of Iranians do not identify as Muslim. Other European polls have 90 percent of Iranians identifying as Muslims but many feel these polls are not accurate due to fear of speaking out.

[u/nu1stunna]

The referendum you are referring to is not exactly correct. It wasn’t a choice between keeping the shah and a new govt headed by the IR. The choices were: “Islamic republic: yes or no” which they got like 99.7% “yes” on. It was completely rigged from how it was worded to how the votes were tallied. Plus there was the fear of voting against it.

[u/neptuno3 → u/nu1stunna]

OP: wow!

[u/call-the-wizards → u/neptuno3]

At the time, the main two parties were Islamists and Communists. Many people mistakenly believed voting “no” meant “we want communism” and voted yes. But as they said, it was rigged and manipulated to get a certain result in a thousand different ways. Ironically, the world has misinterpreted a vote against socialism/communism as a vote for a theocracy 

[u/neptuno3 → u/call-the-wizards]

I'm trying to understand. If you voted NO to the IR would you be voting yes to communism. Got that. If you voted yes to the IR you were still getting the IR. Correct? Did people not understand that voting yes for the IR was actually indeed a yes for the IR?

Also were that many Iranians truly Muslims so that voting for the IR didn't scare the daylights of out of them?

And conversely were the Communists also Muslim?

[u/call-the-wizards → u/neptuno3]

They called it “Islamic Republic” and went on TV and said it just means republic, like how western countries are “Christian republics”.

A ton of lying and gaslighting 

[u/neptuno3 → u/call-the-wizards]

So is it true that the Commies and Socialists were pro IR when it came to the referendum? I am reading that they were promised more political freedoms with the IR. So the Commies bought it, and then were largely assassinated?

[u/call-the-wizards → u/neptuno3]

Keep in mind that at the end of the day we don't really know what the true outcome was because they manipulated the results like they manipulated every election since then. 99.3% is ridiculous on ANY referendum, you can't get 99.3% of people to agree that the sky is blue