The final episode of Iran's sham presidential election played out, and Hassan Rouhani finished first.  What really happed, however, was not just his victory over a notorious "hardliner" opponent, Ebrahim Raisi, posing as champion of the poor.  What happened in Iran's May 19 election was a simple demonstration of a bankrupt regime.  Stepping back from the smokescreen released by the mullahs at the time of elections, masking the reality of the compounded anger and frustration mostly from bottled up youth fed up with restrictions, unemployment, gender segregation, imposed dress codes, and simply no prospect of a future, the election allows just enough breathing space for the mullahs to keep going.  

A day after the election results were announced, Rouhani's campaign hastily asked its supporters to stop street celebrations.  The statement read in part: "We have achieved a great deal and from now on we must strictly abide by the regulations. No street gatherings should take place without proper permits from the authorities."  So much for freedoms!  

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was the sole loser of the election day.  His engineering failed to accomplish what was intended, and his favored pawn, Raisi, did not win.  According to reliable reports from inside Iran leaked by the main Iranian opposition, the People's Mojahedin (PMOI/MEK), even in the final hours before polling stations closed, Khamenei's men did all they could to ensure Raisi's victory.  The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and paramilitary Basij forces tried to stuff the ballot boxes for Raisi.

As in previous election, identification cards belonging to the deceased were used; duplicate IDs were obtained from Iran's Bureau of Vital Statistics and distributed; IRGC members and military men voted once in their barracks and then again in polling stations.  Purchasing votes was another scheme.  Voting without presenting both national ID cards provided an opportunity to vote in another polling station in a rural area.        

Rouhani's government tried to block these electoral manipulations.  Rouhani himself warned before the elections that his interior ministry would stop all such voting irregularities and the IRGC's meddling.  He knew full well that Iran's former firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is now out of favor with Khamenei, yet Ahmadinejad won both terms in 2004 and 2009, with Khamenei engineering his rise to the top.  Ahmadinejad's second term, however, was not a walk in the park.  It was a big mistake not taking into account the angry people's reaction, and we all know what happened: massive demonstrations ensued, and the regime barely escaped its downfall.  It's an event Khamenei to date bitterly recalls and often reminds his two fighting factions of.

One more pressing issue that led Khamenei and IRGC commanders to seriously reconsider their plans for Raisi was an MEK opposition campaign in the streets of major cities across Iran, calling for an election boycott.  Huge banners of Maryam Rajavi, president of National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), were hung from highway bridges, sending a clear signal to the regime that its main opposition is once again active.  Students in colleges frequently grilled Raisi and his team across Iran for his role in the 1988 massacre of 30,000 political prisoners, mostly members and supporters of the MEK.  Raisi was a member of the "Death Commission" put together by the late Iranian supeme leader Ruhollah Khomeini.  Fearing the outcome of such vote-rigging in favor of Raisi is what stopped Khamenei short of getting what he truly wanted in Raisi's election.

Will Rouhani be at all different in his second term?  Considering his past as an influential figure in the mullahs' regime hierarchy, there is hardly a chance for a U-turn despite his "change" slogans in his last days on the campaign trail.  Unexpected words came out his mouth about fighting corruption, or of having the financial empires such as those of Khamenei and Raisi pay taxes, or of creating jobs for Iran's army of unemployed youth and last, but not least, individual rights.  But unless he thinks he is preaching to a totally ignorant audience, Rouhani's words and promises will fool no one.  Certainly not the Iranian people.

Is there any hope that the mullahs will change their behavior?  Not a chance.  Khamenei was crystal-clear in his speech when he said last month that "changing behavior means regime change.  Make no mistake."

 With or without Rouhani, the mullahs' regime has left no room for compromise.  It has to go.

Reza Shafiee is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).