by Jasmin Ramsey
We proudly featured some indispensable analysis here at LobeLog in the run-up to Iran’s 2013 election, including scholar Farideh Farhi’s discussion of the centrists’ and reformists’ role this time around and economist Djavad Salehi-Isfahani’s informed take on the lack of economic policy debate among the candidates.
Some other articles [...]]]>
by Jasmin Ramsey
We proudly featured some indispensable analysis here at LobeLog in the run-up to Iran’s 2013 election, including scholar Farideh Farhi’s discussion of the centrists’ and reformists’ role this time around and economist Djavad Salehi-Isfahani’s informed take on the lack of economic policy debate among the candidates.
Some other articles of interest include Reza Aslan’s unique discussion of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s legacy, a former political prisoner’s spotlighting of the Iranian peoples’ struggle and what the international community should and shouldn’t do about it, and arguably the most thoughtful essay written on Iran’s 11th election since its 1979 revolution, Farhi’s “Should Iran’s Election Really be Discounted?“.
For live election updates in English, consider following the New York Time’s generally excellent Lede Blog, this Tumblr site, and on-the-ground tweeters Najmeh Bozorghmehr, Thomas Erdbrink, and Tehran Bureau, which tweets messages from its Iranian sources regularly. Some other perceptive Tweeters include Golnaz Esfandiari, Arash Karami, Abas Aslani, Scott Peterson, Reza Marashi, Hooman Majd, Laura Rozen, Meir Javedanfar, Muftah and Barbara Slavin.
I’m sure I’ve accidentally left out a lot of other excellent resources, but it’s hard enough keeping up with my own Twitter feed at this point! For now, everyone is anxiously awaiting the results (extended voter times are just about to end) as much as they are hoping for the votes to be counted fairly…
]]>by Farideh Farhi
It is fair to say that since Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s disqualification, a good section of the Iranian pubic has been in a state of shock and silence. A friend who is also a keen observer of Iranian politics described the mood not only in Tehran but also the [...]]]>
by Farideh Farhi
It is fair to say that since Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s disqualification, a good section of the Iranian pubic has been in a state of shock and silence. A friend who is also a keen observer of Iranian politics described the mood not only in Tehran but also the capital of a province she visits often as eerie silence.
The excitement that was generated by Hashemi Rafsanjani’s candidacy was unexpected, perhaps even to him. In all likelihood, it was also the reason for his disqualification. Iran’s conservative establishment would have preferred yet another Rafsanjani defeat at the polls as in 2005. But the potential for voter mobilization along the lines of 2009 made that route too risky.
So now the question of what to do must be on the minds of people who identify with the reformists and centrists. Their two key leaders — former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Hahsemi Rafsanjani — have been silent on this since the disqualification.
Voter silence may eventually transform into a turning of the back against the electoral process. It will not be an organized boycott but an effective lowering of the participation rate, particularly in large cities, to which the conservative establishment will probably respond by announcing “a higher than expected” turnout rate along the lines of the “epic” event so desired by Iran’s Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. This is what happened in the rather lackluster 2012 parliamentary election when a participation rate of 66.4 percent was announced to a skeptical and yet indifferent electorate at least in Tehran.
And it is precisely this possibility that compels the reformist and centrist political leaders to mull alternatives. After all, low participation rates have never posed a challenge to the conservative political establishment. Given the solid support from a committed base, lower participation rates can even ensure a conservative victory without ballot box-tampering if the conservatives can agree on a candidate — which as I will discuss hasn’t been the case so far — forcing them to face some decisions of their own in the next two weeks.
But going back to the self-identified reformist and centrist organizations and individuals, in the coming two weeks the two former presidents must decide whether to let the scenario that played out in the 2012 parliamentary election — involving essentially a competition between hardliners and traditional conservatives — to reoccur, or gamble on the energy that was generated for Hashemi Rafsanjani’s candidacy in support of one of the two non-conservative candidates: former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani and former first vice president Mohammadreza Aref. Given their lack of name recognition throughout the country everyone knows that for either of these candidates to have any chance one probably has to withdraw in favor of the other and then receive the public backing of the two former presidents.
In other words, the silence that has followed Hashemi Rafsanjani’s disqualification is underwritten by a turn of the eye towards what these two politicians will call upon their supporters to do.
A call for a boycott is out of the question for Hashemi Rafsanjani who is still the chair of the Expediency Council. It is also highly unlikely for Khatami who knows that such a move would become an occasion for the further purging of reformist parties and organizations from the political system.
The two former presidents can tell their supporters to follow their conscience and vote for anyone they wish or actively try to use their clout in an attempt to shape the election’s outcome. After all, Khatami had already corralled the reformist support behind the centrist Hashemi Rafsanjani. Couldn’t the two former presidents do the same for either Rowhani or Aref — both of whom have performed well in their television appearances so far and staked positions on the economy and foreign policy that are similar to Hashemi Rafsanjani’s while being highly critical of the direction Iran has taken in the past eight years?
Uncertainty in response to this question is the reason for hesitance. Convincing supporters — as well as themselves — that the conservative establishment, which was willing to disqualify one of the fathers of the revolution, will not use other schemes to ensure a conservative presidency will be difficult. The only argument against this deep skepticism is yes, the other side might cheat, but non-participation may ensure its victory without cheating or any challenges.
Electoral mobilization has been the centrists’ and reformists’ only successful instrument against the conservative establishment over the years. True, the last successful mobilization turned into a disaster when post-election protests led to repression and the further securitization of Iran’s political environment. The tired and economically pressured Iranian population certainly has no stomach for a repeat. But throwing away the only instrument that societal forces who have been calling for change have to display their existence — and yes, potential power with — in fear of a repeat of a previous experiment’s consequences is tantamount to prematurely surrendering to authoritarian powers who are perfectly happy if voters mostly stay home.
This argument, while persuasive to me, will nevertheless have a hard time countering legitimate worries that electoral participation in support of either of these two candidates will be pocketed by the conservative establishment as a vote of confidence in the Islamic Republic without giving the centrists and reformists a fair chance.
Still, the decision by both Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami — to either not support anyone or clearly back one candidate — is yet to come. There is no reason for them to rush either. In the next two weeks of campaigning getting double air-time for two candidates with similar views that are not generally shown on state television is better than getting air time for only one. But in a week or so the pressure on them will increase to make their move. Already, the reformist Shargh Daily is reporting on a plan by the former presidents’ “advisors” to give support to a slate that has one of the two candidates at the top and the other campaigning as his first vice president in case of a win. The challenge of figuring out who should be at the top, the argument goes, will be resolved by the extent of support each can garner after his performance in the three television debates among the eight candidates that will begin this Friday and end next Friday.
There are two reasons why these former presidents and their supporters have not yet fully abandoned strategizing for a possible reformist/centrist victory. I already mentioned the first reason and it’s related to uncertainty about the length to which the conservative establishment will go to ensure a conservative victory. The argument that the system needs a “clean” election to erase the memory of the botched 2009 election works in favor of trying to mobilize the voters in order to force or impose an election day win.
But there is also a second reason that’s related to the disarray within the conservative camp itself. As I previously mentioned, the conservatives have been unable to consolidate support behind a single candidate. In fact, as of today two of their candidates — Saeed Jalili and Ali Akbar Velayati — have received organizational support from the two polls of the conservative spectrum. Jalili was formally endorsed by the hardline Steadfastness Front (Jebheye Paydari, which is sometimes translated as the Constancy Front) while Velayati was formally endorsed by the Followers of the Imam and Leadership Line Front, which consists of 14 traditionally conservative organizations and parties.
At this point, despite Jalili’s assiduous efforts to portray himself as such — because believe it or not, trying to convince people that one has the Leader’s support in Iran is an art that is practiced by quite a few people in order to push one’s self ahead — it is not clear which one of these two candidates will by Election Day be the favorite of the “system”, called nezam in Iran, or more accurately, Khamenei’s favorite. If the 2012 parliamentary election is any guide — and parliamentary elections occurring before the presidential race with no running sitting president have been good guides in the past — the candidate of the traditional conservatives should do better or become the favorite. But so far this decision doesn’t appear to have been made.
In any case, the interesting aspect of this election may be that for these two candidates even becoming the favorite may not ensure a win if there is no substantial fraud on Election Day. The so-called mashin-e entekhabat (electoral machine), an army of loyalists the system can mobilize in support of a particular candidate even at the last minute, is at most 6 to 7 million people. This is not sufficient for a win even if only 50 to 55 percent — a historical low only recorded for elections in which either a sitting president was seeking reelection (as in 1985 or 1993) or the victory of a specific candidate was assured like in 1989 — of the announced 50 million eligible voters participate. To be sure, both Velayati and Jalili can try to woo votes beyond the machine. But they do not have much in the way of independent organization and given their lack of personal charisma, and the fact that neither of them has held positions related to domestic policy making, the chances of their success is low. (Again, if the assumption is that the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of conducting the election, will inflate the participation rate, it’s unlikely to substantially tamper with votes in favor of one candidate or another).
The only conservative candidate who can add the machine vote to his own personal following is the more popular Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, who has so far garnered no support from conservative organizations and parties. But Qalibaf has been organizing in almost every city and even quite a few villages throughout the country; he has been practically planning and running for the presidency for the past 8 years.
Yet his basic problem remains with the electoral machine vote, which in the 2005 election shifted in the last minute and favored Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, leaving him with only 4 million votes — and fourth position — out of the 28 million votes cast. A decision made to shift the machine towards Qalibaf will probably be dependent on the assessment of how well the reformist/centrist might do. If the election ends up going to the second round with no one mustering 50 percent plus one vote, then Qalibaf is probably the strongest candidate against the reformist/centrist choice — again provided the absence of a systemic will to ensure a conservative win at any cost either in the first round or by pitting two conservative candidates against each other in the second round.
At this point, all I can say is that betting on the win of any given candidate — or point of view — seems premature. It is true that some candidates such as former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaie, former minister Mohammad Gharazi, or even former speaker of the parliament Haddad Adel have no chance, but some of the other candidates and their supporters will still have to make choices and react to the choices made by others. The reformist and centrist leaders’ choice to become more aggressive players at the immediate political and tactical level and risk the possibility that the electorate will not follow is a gamble that, if successful, will again force the multitude of conservative constituencies and candidates to revisit their calculations, formulate new tactics and tricks, and even re-arrange their alliances.
]]>by Farideh Farhi
Okay, it is time to admit that the only thing predictable about Iranian politics these days is its unpredictability!
There are people who know Iran well and as early as a few months ago thought that the next president of the country was already decided by the powers [...]]]>
by Farideh Farhi
Okay, it is time to admit that the only thing predictable about Iranian politics these days is its unpredictability!
There are people who know Iran well and as early as a few months ago thought that the next president of the country was already decided by the powers that be. There are also others who will say that they predicted all this. I am not one of these.
I am stunned. As of late yesterday (Friday), I did not think that former president and current Expediency Council chair Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani would run for the presidency. All the talk about his entry – and the previous talk and hope about former president Mohammad Khatami’s entry – was mostly tactical, I thought. The loud calls – and pleas – for either Khatami or Hashemi Rafsanjani to run were to show the depth of their support among various sectors of Iranian society, from a good number of the urban middle classes to the business community. I thought it was sort of a flexing of social power muscle. But, given the hysterical reaction both former presidents elicit from the hardliners, I thought they would ultimately be reluctant to run, in the end preferring to throw their support to another candidate who would try to carefully pull the country to the middle.
Khatami had said that if he thought his candidacy would cause further turbulence and polarization, he would not run and made clear in the past week that his candidacy was not forthcoming. Hashemi Rafsanjani had explicitly stated that he would only run with the consent of the Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. I thought he would act the same way as Khatami.
Well, I was wrong big time! The 78-year-old Hashemi Rafsanjani decided to run and with him came a whole slew of candidates signing up at Minute 90 (what else but a soccer reference). Former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati also walked into the Interior Ministry at the last minute. So did Saeed Jalili, Iran’s current nuclear negotiator, who had previously said he would not run; and so did Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, Ahmadinejad’s beloved who has been talked about as Medvedev to his Putin. Against all tradition (and perhaps even the law), Mashaie, in presenting his candidacy was flanked by Ahmadinejad himself and several other cabinet ministers, raising eyebrows about whether his interior ministry can run an impartial election when the president is so openly supporting one candidate.
So here we are. There are now more than 35 relatively well known candidates and over 600 unknown candidates, including 30 women – one of whom named Eshrat Kazemi insists on being called Elizabeth! The Guardian Council will have five days to go through these applications and disqualify almost all of them. Given the high number of well-known candidates, the Council may eventually extend its examination period for another five days in order to figure out what to do. But that’s all the law allows. Campaigning in full force among the very few who get past the Guardian Council for the June 14 election will begin no later than ten days from now.
So what does it all mean and how will it all work out? In this rather competitive political environment, it is very hard to say. It is like trying to guess the next move in a three-dimensional chess game. Folks who have called upon Rafsanjani to run -– including Khatami, as well as the conservative MP Ali Mottahari who visited Rafsanjani just a couple of hours before he made his decision to run — have done so based on the argument that second-tier centrist or reformist candidates will not be strong or popular enough to issue a significant challenge and change the direction of the country from its trajectory of the last four years which, from their point of view, has underwritte both its domestic economic troubles and international woes.
No matter what the reason, both Hashemi Rafsanjani’s and Mashaie’s candidacy pose a couple of challenges for the political system as well as for the conservative political players.
First, there is the question of their qualification by the Guardian Council. It is hard to imagine how the this body can disqualify the current chair of the Expediency Council. Hardliners – including the current Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi – have accused Rafsanjani of being the “source of sedition,” a reference to the former president’s statement that he had foreseen the post-2009 election turmoil and had a tape of his warnings to prove it. So the Guardian Council could conceivably disqualify him on these grounds. But then this move will shine the spotlight on Khamenei who re-appointed Rafsanjani to chair the Expediency Council after the 2009 protests.
Mashaie’s disqualification may be less of a challenge. After all, there is already a public letter written by Khamenei to Ahmadinejad asking for the Mashaie’s removal as first vice-president. So, conceivably disqualifying him for president given the fact that he was not seen as suitable for vice-president should not be that hard. Nonetheless, some may argue that now that Rafsanjani is running, the Council will more likely approve Mashaie’s candidacy to block Rafsanjani. In this view, the two would then split the anti-systemic vote and allow a conservative to rise. This to me is not a convincing argument. Mashaie’s candidacy arguably poses more of a challenge to conservatives due the likelihood that it would draw votes away from whichever candidate they eventually develop a consensus around, if, in fact such a consensus is in the cards. I cannot fathom the Guardian Council risking the election going to a second round – a real possibility with multiple candidates – with Rafsanjani and Mashaie as the two top candidates running against each other. But all bets are off at this point. In this messy political environment, I have a hard time believing that a backroom deal has been made to qualify both Rafsanjani and Mashaie, but I will no longer be surprised if the latter is qualified.
Which brings me to the second challenge Hashemi Rafsanjani’s candidacy poses. This one is to the conservatives – or the Principlists as they are called in Iran – who have been acting more like a herd of cats than a solid political front. Unlike 2005, when Rafsanjani was challenged by both conservatives and reformists, this time he will be coming in with solid support from the reformists. It is true that the reformists are also a herd of cats, but few doubt Khatami’s ability to convince the herd to rally behind Rafsanjani. In fact, most reformist and centrist candidates have already said that they will withdraw if Rafsanjani runs. The exception may be former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani, but, without support from Rafsanjani or Khatami, he will not be a significant candidate anyway. In effect, if Rafsanjani is qualified by the Guardian Council and if he chooses not to back off in favor of another candidate, the conservatives will be facing a centrist/reformist consensus candidate who may even peel away some of their own, particularly the ones in the commercial sector and many in the clerical community in Qom and elsewhere.
The conservatives meanwhile have not been able to reach consensus on a candidate of their own. The hard-line conservatives now have at least three candidates – former health minister Kamran Bagheri Lankarani, MP Alireza Zakani, and Saeed Jalili. They now have to decide whether to field one of the three – both Lankarani and Zakani have said that they will withdraw if Jalili runs – or join others in finding yet another candidate behind whom they can all mobilize. But they are not the only ones facing the need for readjustment with Rafsanjani’s entry into the race.
The most important conservative alliance – involving former foreign minister Velayati, Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and former Parliament speaker Gholamreza Haddad Adel – has also not been able to decide which one of them should run. All three have now registered, and there is a real possibility that both Qalibaf and Velayati will run. Finally, there are the old-style traditional conservatives. Deputy speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Hassan Abutorabifard has registered on their behalf but so has former foreign minister Manuchehr Mottaki who chose to ignore the choice of traditional conservatives and enter the race himself.
Rafsanjani’s entry into the fray with solid support from Khatami and his followers will force the conservatives not only to scramble for a consensus candidate, but also search for one who is relatively popular or at least better known. The opinion polls reportedly suggest that the most popular conservative candidate is Qalibaf because of his widely hailed management of the city of Tehran. He also has quite a following in his home province of Khorasan Razavi and where he won in the first round of the 2005 presidential election (Khorasan Razavi is one of the most important provinces in electoral calculations given its population of over 5.6 million, second only to Tehran as the country’s most populous province).
Qalibaf, however, has a problem with the most committed base of the Islamic Republic. In fact, in the 2005 election, it was that base that shifted its allegiance from him to Ahmadinejad, reportedly due to its anger over the flamboyant and western-style campaign he ran. This time around, Qalibaf is not making the same mistake. In his interviews and public speaking he is emphasizing that he is NOT a “technocrat,” a term used to refer to Rafsanjani supporters and worldview. He keeps talking about jihadi economic management and jihadi foreign policy –which presumably combines revolutionary ideals and strivings with competence and prudence – to distinguish himself from the technocratic brand that the die-hard conservative base considers a liability. He may do a Romney and move to the center if he emerges as the consensus conservative choice, either through negotiation prior to the June 14 election or by process of elimination if he manages to get to the second round. But his path to becoming the consensus conservative candidate is not smooth.
Meanwhile, the hardliners who really don’t like Qalibaf will be scrambling to push for another consensus conservative candidate. Whether that candidate will be Jalili – who doesn’t have any executive experience and as such raises the specter of another Ahmadinejad in terms of his management capabilities at a time when competence and prudence are central campaign issues – or Velayati “because he is really the candidate Leader Khamenei wants,” or somebody else is yet to be determined.
Also yet to be determined is the extent to which this election will end up being relatively tamper free among the candidates who are cleared by the Guardian Council. Lack of clarity regarding who is really the “system’s favorite candidate” should work in favor a competitive election; that is, within the ideological confines of the Islamic Republic, of course. But with Rafsanjani’s entry, a rather intense battle over the direction of the country has been unleashed with many players having to reassess their previous stances based not only on who they would like to see win but also who they think might win.
Starting with his famous July 17, 2009 post-election speech, Hashemi Rafsanjani has repeatedly made clear that he does not think the highly securitized turn the country has taken has been the right approach. He has also harshly criticized Ahmadinejad’s economic policies and erratic management style and has expressed serious concern about the direction of Iran’s foreign policy. Finally, he has also made the case that, in the face of the external threats the country faces, domestic reconciliation among all significant forces should be the framework for the next government which he says must include representatives from across the political spectrum.
In the coming month, the Iranian electorate will listen to what he and others have to say and will have to decide whether their own participation will also make a difference in the country’s direction. After the traumatic 2009 election experience, the decision to participate on the part of a good number of voters cannot be considered a given. But my bet is that Rafsanjani’s candidacy has just made the Iranian election a bit more interesting even to them.
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