Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has stage-managed his country’s upcoming elections following the helicopter crash that killed President Ebrahim Raisi last month.

Barred from running were any potential spoilers harboring even moderate leanings or figures with past hints of defiance. Khamenei barred former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani, and former Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri.

The interior ministry’s final list approved by Iran’s Guardian Council on Sunday reads like a who’s who of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cronies, hardline insiders, and regime apologists.

According to Iran International, there’s Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator described as “uncompromising,” is the frontrunner after recently being tapped by Khamenei to serve on the Supreme National Security Council.

His chief rival is likely to be fellow hardliner and current parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, whose long IRGC service was marked by human rights violations and terror attacks.

Rounding out the field are mass murderers like Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the infamous henchman behind the “Death Commission” massacres of the 1980s, and Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, whose record includes viciously cracking down on Iranian women found breaking the regime’s compulsory Hijab law.

While a single “reformist” candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, was permitted to compete, critics assess he stands no chance against Khamenei’s puppets. His mixed ethnicity alone disqualifies him in the discriminatory eyes of the anti-democratic regime.

For all the choreographed political theater, the true casualties of this rigged election remains the Iranian people. After groaning under four decades of tyranny, the handful of loyalist figureheads decorating this years ballot are at best a distraction from the oppression that will inevitably grind on under Khamenei’s rule.