by Mohammad Ali Kadivar
It took only a few months after president Hassan Rouhani’s inauguration for the broad but fragile alliance behind him to face challenges after the shutdown of a reformist newspaper as well as the harassment of the daughters of Mir Hossein Mousavi and [...]]]>
by Mohammad Ali Kadivar
It took only a few months after president Hassan Rouhani’s inauguration for the broad but fragile alliance behind him to face challenges after the shutdown of a reformist newspaper as well as the harassment of the daughters of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Zahra Rahnavard, two leaders of the opposition Green Movement who are still under house arrest.
Reformists and supporters of the Green Movement that had voted for Rouhani in June 2013, outraged from these incidents, urged him to take a more aggressive and confrontational stance against hardliners. Ayatollah Dastgheib, the most outspoken clerical supporter of the Greens who had also endorsed Rouhani in his presidential campaign, reminded the President that his vote for him had been on the condition that political prisoners be released and Rouhani should do anything to fulfill that condition. Jaras, a major website of the Green Movement, also published multiple articles with a similar theme. One of those articles warned Rouhani that if he stayed silent and did not join popular forces, he would be defeated from that point forward. The Organization of Iran’s Republicans, an elite opposition group in exile that has an astute strategic vision, concluded that these actions show that Iran’s Leader and governmental organizations under his supervision are determined to abort Rouhani’s policies, similar to what they did in paralyzing the reformist administration of Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005.
Responding to this wave of criticism on Oct. 30, former president Khatami, a key supporter of Rouhani in the 2013 election, stated that hardliners “want to detach Rouhani from his social backbone, and pretend that his administration is inefficient.” Khatami also highlighted the positive role of the Leader Ali Khamenei in the outcome of the 2013 election, and asked the youth in particular to be patient and maintain realistic expectations for Rouhani. Political commentators in the opposition received this speech rather differently. While some urged the people to stay moderate and take Khatami’s advice seriously, others recalled that during his presidency, Khatami’s approach to demobilizing his popular supporters and following reformist demands through established institutions and elite negotiations was ultimately unsuccessful.
As different sides of the debate draw analogies and examples from the Reform Era (1997-2005), the content of their arguments resonate a great deal with hot discussions during that eight year period. In a recently published article in the American Sociological Review, I explain the major strategic debates within the Reform Movement and how these strategic chasms derived coalition changes within the movement. I argue that the positions of reformist actors in these debates can be better understood and classified along the lines of three different dimensions: optimism about the incumbent elite in the Islamic Republic of Iran, optimism about the possibility of reform through the institutions of the Islamic Republic, and optimism about the viability and consequences of popular mobilization. The convergence or divergence of reformist groups’ perceptions along these three dimensions drove the formation and disintegration of alliances in the Reform Movement.
The Reform Movement took off in Khatami’s landslide victory in the 1997 presidential election. It hoped to promote the rule of law, hold officeholders accountable, and strengthen civil society. Three major actors backed Khatami’s campaign and later constituted the grand reformist alliance that supported Khatami’s policies and plans: a clerical reformist party (the Assembly of Militant Clerics), two lay reformist parties (the Organization of the Mujahedin of the Islamic Revolution and the Participation Front), and the student movement (represented by the Office for Strengthening Unity).
These three groups all shared a strategic assessment of the political context in Iran at the time that was key to sustaining the alliance. This assessment, the political negotiation model, was based on optimism toward the incumbent elite in the Islamic Republic, optimism about reforming the regime through its own institutions, and pessimism about the consequences of popular mobilization for the Reform project. This model indicated that dialogue and negotiation with hardliners would finally convince them of the benefits of reformism.
“The best way to engage the enemies of civil society is to give them this opportunity to rethink and to let them readjust,” one affiliated newspaper suggested. “We should show them in practice that transition to democracy presents greater opportunities than threats” (Hayat-e No, June 1, 2000). This model was also credited with stating that institutions of the Islamic Republic were capable of reforming the regime from within (Asr-e Ma, December 1999/January 2000). As a journalist affiliated with the lay reformist parties put it, the political institutions of the Islamic Republic were not “dead-ends.” Indeed, he continued, “there is no way to change the world than to act within legal institutions” (Neshat, July 13, 1999). In addition, supporters of this model feared that because of deep grievances, mass mobilization would stir up emotions, spawning radicalism and provide hardliners with an excuse for repression, possibly leading to civil war. In addition, these reformists felt the Reform Movement lacked the organizational capacity to keep public demonstrations under control.
This model was dominant among the clerical reformist party, lay reformist parties, and the major organization of the student movement between 1997 and 2000, and even survived earlier waves of repression. At the same time, the nationalist opposition — the Iran Liberation Movement, and the Nationalist-Religious Activists — were the one set of reform organizations that did not share this view of political opportunities. Their perception profile, which I call the political-activist model, was not optimistic about persuading the conservative elite of the Islamic Republic to accept democratization, and stressed the possibility and necessity of contentious collective action to confront the regime. Nationalist groups encouraged Khatami to adopt the political style of Mohammad Mossadeq, the democratically elected prime minister who mobilized mass support for the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry in 1950, forcing his better-placed opponents within Iran’s political institutions to accept his programs (Iran Liberation Movement, statement #1369, May 19, 1999). At the same time, the nationalist opposition shared the political-negotiation view that Iran’s political institutions offered opportunities for democratization. Nonetheless, nationalist groups did not act in alliance with the other three reformist groups. The alliance in this period was only between groups that shared the political-negotiation model.
The escalation of repression against the movement in 2000 triggered new strategic debates within, disillusioned many reform movement supporters about the political-negotiation model and transformed their political perception. The most radical reaction came from the student movement. They became discouraged about the prospects of convincing hardliners through dialogue as well as reforming the regime through its own political institutions. The statement of the Unity Office (the main organization of the student movement) after the 2003 municipal elections explained this position: “To speak of the ineffectiveness of the May 23 Front is to acknowledge the reality that the strategy of ‘self-reforming’ the regime has reached a dead-end. Of course, this is not just because of the weaknesses of the reformists. The fact that the hard core of power does not surrender to the process of reform has been one of the root causes of this dead-end” (Asr-e No, March 10, 2003). Accordingly, they did not participate in any elections from 2000 to 2005.
Lay Reformist parties ultimately lost their optimism about Iran’s dominant elite and stated that reformists in the government should take a confrontational position and use all of their institutional and legal authorities in their struggle with the hardliners. This new perception brought these groups closer to the Nationalist groups who were also pessimistic about Iran’s incumbent elite but optimistic about the capacities of Iran’s political institutions. At the same time, president Khatami and his allies in the clerical reformist party maintained the negotiation profile even after the Guardian Council disqualified thousands of reformist candidates from the 2004 parliamentary elections, including dozens of incumbents.
Shifting perception profiles resulted in a new set of alliances during the 2005 presidential election. Adherents of the political-negotiation model supported Mehdi Karroubi, who emphasized his pragmatism and bargaining skills. The student movement’s Unity Office boycotted the election based on its radical perception profile that saw no chance of reforming the regime through institutions such as elections. Lay reformist groups nominated Mostafa Mo’in, who stressed his confrontational stance, and promised for example that he would never hold elections with mass candidate disqualifications, as Khatami had done in 2004 (ISNA, May 15, 2005).
When the Guardian Council disqualified the candidate of the Nationalist opposition, they entered into negotiations with the lay reformist parties and chose to support Mo’in’s candidacy, formalizing the alliance between the lay reformist parties and the nationalist groups. They justified this decision by pointing to the threat they perceived if the hardliners were to solidify control of all political institutions, adding the executive branch to their control of parliament, the municipal councils, and the unelected branches of government. Late Ezzatollah Sahabi, head of the Nationalist-Religious Activists at the time said that “if we do not participate in the election, the right faction will win the election, and that will be a disaster for the country, as we can observe in the behavior of the mayor of Tehran [Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]” (ISNA, June 6, 2005). This marked the first time the nationalist opposition had allied with other opposition groups since the 1979 revolution and resulted in a coordinated electoral campaign on behalf of Mo’in. Although this short-term coalition was not successful in the 2005 election, it became the pioneer strategic cooperation among pro-democratic forces of different ideologies and backgrounds within Iranian politics.
The outcome of the 2005 election was disastrous for reformists though; their votes were divided between multiple candidates and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad managed to win the election in two rounds.
The 2009 massive protests reshuffled the perception profiles of many reformist groups and individuals. However, eight years after the end of the Reform Era, we again observe that supporters of democratic change in Iranian politics are debating similar themes about the possibility of reform through negotiation with Iran’s incumbent elite, participation in political institutions, and popular mobilization.
Are these debates and quarrels going to create fractures in the alliance behind Rouhani? Is the moderation project repeating the fate of the Reform Movement, as several well-known commentators fear? While there are definite similarities between Iran’s political landscapes now and the period between 1997 and 2005, there are also important disparities. One distinctive feature of these two eras is the fact that now we have the experience of the Reform Era for reference. While multiple political actors draw examples from the Reform Era to make sense of the current situation, they are also working to avoid the same mistakes by charting a new way to the future rather than engaging in a tragic repetition of history.
]]>After a long night, the results came in on Saturday: Hassan Rowhani, former foreign minister, former nuclear negotiator and reformist by default will be the Islamic Republic of Iran’s next president. The outcome of this seemingly unfraudulent election has led to surprise and hope both inside and outside Iran. But how much [...]]]>
After a long night, the results came in on Saturday: Hassan Rowhani, former foreign minister, former nuclear negotiator and reformist by default will be the Islamic Republic of Iran’s next president. The outcome of this seemingly unfraudulent election has led to surprise and hope both inside and outside Iran. But how much is Iran’s next president willing to do, and perhaps more importantly, how much can he do?
Predicting the outcome of Iranian elections is a thankless exercise — after all, the last four presidential elections in Iran were surprises. But after months of crackdowns and statements that no dissent would be tolerated”, it seemed this election would come and go with no notable change other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad being shooed out in favour of an appointed hardline conservative. Although the crackdown that followed Iran’s fraudulent 2009 election and Ahmadinejad’s turbulent presidency had damaged the system, it seemed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei would not risk another four years of uncertainty for a little bit of legitimacy gained from freer elections. But, again, we were surprised.
Iranian authorities even kept polls open late to accomodate a surge of voters who had initially refrained form voting, feeling that their vote would be ignored. But it became apparent that the government was intent on repairing some of the damage done to its system by demonstrating it was capable of holding elections with a high turnout (80% according to the government) and “only minor issues that were fixed quickly”, as stated by the Guardian Council.
Iranians have made clear their desire for change. Some will paint this as a victory for the sanctions regime, while others will see it as Khamenei’s willingness to act leniently in the face of public pressure. But a problem remains: constitutionally, the Iranian president has little power — Khamenei is still the ultimate decision-maker, which suggests the big picture won’t change much.
The president is responsible for the state of the Iranian economy (which Ahmadinejad did little to improve) and the general mood and direction the country is taking. Depending on their relationship, Iran’s new president might be able to sway the Supreme Leader’s views on some subjects.
Rowhani has not revealed his plans for tackling Iran’s major economic problems like rampant inflation, unemployment and the drop in the value of Iran’s currency, the rial. But he has stated that he will begin to address economic problems first. During his campaign, he often criticised government policy on a range of issues, from the nuclear negotiations to the treatment of prisoners, indicating that he would try to tackle them. And during his first press conference as President-elect, to the great relief of many international watchers, Rowhani highlighted that he would make Iran’s nuclear program more transparent and help build mutual trust to end Iran’s international isolation.
But the pessimist in me remembers that Rowhani passed the Guardian Council’s screening. He is a cleric with a long tradition of loyalty to the Islamic Republic; he did not support the opposition in 2009 and supported the clampdown on student protests in the nineties. Some (even more pessimistic than I) believe his recent liberal tendencies were intended to woo the reformists and reinvigorate those who had lost confidence in the system.
And that’s just the first layer of suspicion. Willingness and ability are two separate things. Think Mohammad Khatami’s presidency — his hands were tied.
It is likely, that as many Western analysts are predicting, not much will change, especially in Iran’s foreign policy. The Islamic Republic has already invested far too heavily in Syria for example, and at no point did Rowhani indicate he would revisit this policy during his campaign. On the nuclear front, he focused on critiscizing the government’s handling of the negotiations, not the existence of the nuclear program.
Having said that, it would be foolish to dismiss the events of the past twenty-fours hours because substantial change, especially vis-a-vis the outside world, seems unlikely. Past presidents have been successful in influencing politics as well as the general mood and image of the country. Khatami was also able to loosen some of the restrictions on the daily lives of Iranians. Moreover, the Iranian population is tired of the current state of affairs; they want breathing space from international pressure to address domestic concerns. This recent victory, no matter how uncertain, has made space for some hope and cautious optimism.
– Dina Esfandiary is a Research Associate and foreign affairs and security analyst focusing on Iran, the Middle East and nuclear issues at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
]]>Hassan Rouhani’s stunning and sweeping victory in the Iranian presidential election is already generating much debate among expert Iran-watchers about how to interpret this outcome. There are different views, for example, on what inference should be drawn regarding the posture of Supreme Leader Khamenei toward the election. [...]]]>
Hassan Rouhani’s stunning and sweeping victory in the Iranian presidential election is already generating much debate among expert Iran-watchers about how to interpret this outcome. There are different views, for example, on what inference should be drawn regarding the posture of Supreme Leader Khamenei toward the election. Was this outcome one that the leader might have anticipated and is part of a skillful management of contending factions, or does the election result instead indicate that the leader’s control of Iranian politics is less than was often surmised? There also are different views on what role sanctions-induced economic strain may have had on the election. These are genuine questions on which objective and well-informed observers can disagree. Not genuine is the spin from some other fast-off-the-mark commentators who are endeavoring to deny any significance to Rouhani’s victory and to portray the Iranian regime as nothing but the same old recalcitrant adversary—a spin motivated by opposition to reaching agreements with Iran and the favoring of confrontation and even war with it.
Useful implications for policy toward Iran can be drawn without resolving all these analytical questions, even the genuine ones. Sometimes a particular course of action is the best course under any of several different interpretations of exactly what is going on in another nation’s capital. This is one of those instances. In particular, there are clear implications for approaching the next stage of negotiations on, and policy toward, Iran’s nuclear program—which, for better or for worse, is the subject dominating discussion of relations with the Islamic Republic.
One thing that the Iranian election would have changed no matter what the outcome on election day is that we soon will not have Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to kick around any more. The end of his distracting and annoying presence can only be to the good. Perhaps at least a little more serious attention will be devoted in the United States to policy and diplomacy when there is a little less energy allocated to expressing outrage over the outgoing Iranian president’s mistranslated quotes about wiping maps and his other intentionally inflammatory rhetoric.
Rouhani’s win brings to Iran’s presidency the candidate who was least associated with attributes of the Iranian regime that the West finds most offensive. While one must always be careful in affixing labels to individual leaders and factions in Iranian politics, the pre-election characterization of Rouhani as the most moderate of the six candidates remaining in the race until election day is accurate. The election result also is a vote in favor of flexibility and going the extra mile to reach agreement in the nuclear negotiations. In this regard one of the significant aspects of the result is not only how well Rouhani did but also how bad the result was for one of the other candidates, Saeed Jalili, the current nuclear negotiator. Conduct of the negotiations was an issue in the campaign. Yet another candidate, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati (who possibly could become foreign minister again under Rouhani) pointedly criticized Jalili in one of the candidates’ debates for apparently expecting too much from the other side while offering little in return. Jalili, who before the election had been dubbed the supreme leader’s man and was considered by some the favorite, finished a far-behind third place, with less than a quarter as many votes as Rouhani.
There clearly is an opportunity for diplomatic progress. More to the point, there is a challenge, to the United States and its P5+1 partners in the nuclear negotiations, to do their part to make such progress possible. This is true no matter which of several possible interpretations of the details of politics in Iran is valid. Whether the supreme leader is stage-managing a process that leads to an outcome he has always welcomed, or is being pushed toward that outcome by forces and sentiments he cannot control, the implication for western policy is the same. We should spend less time trying to interpret what’s happening on the other side and more time thinking about how the other side interprets our policies. This is important because a lack of Iranian confidence in the West’s desire and willingness to make a deal and to stick with it almost certainly has been one of the impediments to progress in the nuclear negotiations.
Rouhani’s election presents the United States and its partners with a test—of our intentions and seriousness about reaching an agreement. Failure of the test will confirm suspicions in Tehran that we do not want a deal and instead are stringing along negotiations while waiting for the sanctions to wreak more damage. Passage of the test will require placing on the table a proposal that, in return for the desired restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, incorporates significant relief from economic sanctions and at least tacit acceptance of a continued peaceful Iranian nuclear program, to include low-level enrichment of uranium. The sad fact is that the criticism Velayati leveled at Jalili’s negotiating approach could be applied just as easily to the approach of the P5+1, which so far have coupled their demands about the nuclear program with sanctions relief that is only a pittance compared to the large and ever-growing array of sanctions applied to Iran. Passage of the test also means not making any proposal an ultimatum that is coupled with threats of military force, which only feed Iranian suspicions that for the West the negotiations are a box-checking prelude to war and regime change.
The Iranian electorate has in effect said to the United States and its Western partners, “We’ve done all we can. Among the options that the Guardian Council gave us, we have chosen the one that offers to get us closest to accommodation, agreement and understanding with the West. Your move, America.”
]]>Talking to ordinary people in Neishabour and Tehran about Iran’s June 14 presidential election, economic issues seem foremost on their minds. But whom they will vote for is based on vague promises to pull the economy out of its deep crisis rather than well-defined economic programs.
Significant differences on economic philosophy divide [...]]]>
Talking to ordinary people in Neishabour and Tehran about Iran’s June 14 presidential election, economic issues seem foremost on their minds. But whom they will vote for is based on vague promises to pull the economy out of its deep crisis rather than well-defined economic programs.
Significant differences on economic philosophy divide a confused public about how to end economic stagnation and high inflation.
In the last three decades of the Islamic Republic’s history, Iranians have experienced both market-based economic growth and populist redistribution.
This election cycle would have been a good time to debate which of these two economic development strategies should be used in moving forward.
However, the decision by the Guardian Council to eliminate two important candidates, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, from the list of those eligible to run has sharply limited the value of this election as a space for vibrant public debate about the issues that are of greatest daily concern to most Iranians.
These two politicians could have represented the contrasting economic strategies and turned the election into a referendum on the past eight years of populist economics practiced by the Ahmadinejad administration.
Mr. Rafsanjani, the former two-time president, is well known for his preference for market-based economic growth as a solution to poverty and equity issues.
Early on in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure, Mr. Rafsanjani rejected Mr. Ahmadinejad’s populist policy of cash distribution as “fostering beggars.”
His elimination from this election has deprived voters of a critical assessment of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s populist program that has inflicted serious damage on Iran’s economy.
A further blow to a meaningful debate on populism came from the elimination of Mr. Mashaei, who was Mr. Ahmadinejad’s close associate and in-law.
It would have been highly interesting, if not very informative, to watch him debate Mr. Rafsanajani on such important issues as the record of the government’s three ambitious populist programs — low-interest loans to small and medium producers, low-cost housing and cash transfers.
What this election should be about is how to achieve a key promise of the Islamic Revolution.
More than three decades ago, a vast majority of Iranians supported the revolution, expecting that it would divide Iran’s oil wealth more equitably.
Early on, Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolution’s leader, tried to limit these expectations by famously saying that “economics is for donkeys.”
But the failure by two previous administrations (Mr. Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, each serving for eight years as president) to reduce inequality has kept the issue of income and wealth distribution at the forefront in recent elections.
Mr. Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 promising to take the “oil money to peoples’ dinner table,” which he tried to do.
The last two years for which we have survey data, 2010 and 2011, show falling poverty and inequality, but the economy is in shambles.
Prices rose by 40% last year according to official figures, and the same surveys show unemployment at about 15% overall and twice as high for youth.
It would have been valuable for the public to learn if Mr. Ahmadinejad’s redistribution policies are responsible for the current economic mess, or something else, like incompetence in execution or international sanctions.
What the candidates have said in the short time they have had to campaign is that they will do something different. What and how is not clear.
The four front-runners, Saeed Jalili, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, Hassan Rowhani, and Ali Akbar Velayati, have expressed their differences on how to deal with sanctions.
Sanctions loom large in voter minds, but few believe that whoever is elected will be able to influence Iran’s nuclear policy, which is being tightly directed by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
What seems to distinguish these candidates most clearly at this point is social rather than economic issues.
They all promise to reduce inflation, increase employment and run a less corrupt and more efficient administration. The differences exist in emphasis rather than specifics.
Mr. Jalili is the most conservative candidate in the race and closest to Mr. Ahmadinejad in economic philosophy but has also been careful to neither defend nor criticize the latter’s policies.
He has defended Iran’s stance in the nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 group (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany), which he led in recent years, with the usual anti-Western rhetoric.
By saying the least of any candidate about the economy, he has clearly indicated that economic issues are not his top priority.
In the televised debates, Mr. Jalili made it clear that a more effective enforcement of cultural values was the right way to solve the country’s economic problems.
More specifically, he seemed to reject compromising with the West over Iran’s nuclear program in order to lessen the pain of Western sanctions on ordinary Iranians.
If Mr. Jalili is Mr. Ahmadinejad’s favorite candidate, Mr. Ahmadinejad has not said anything.
He has not made any public statement regarding the candidates so far, except to request time on national television to respond to their criticisms, which was denied.
Word on the street in Tehran is that Mr. Ahmadinejad secretly roots for Mr. Jalili because he believes a President Jalili would be the most likely to make him look good, not by defending his policies, but by taking the economy further into the deep end.
Mr. Rowhani, the only cleric in the race, is the most moderate candidate among the four front-runners.
In the eyes of liberal voters, following this week’s departure of reformist candidate Mohammad-Reza Aref (after an explicit request from the popular former president, Mohammad Khatami), Mr. Rowhani has inherited the reformist mantle of Mr. Khatami as well as Mr. Rafsanjani’s pro-business legacy.
Mr. Rowhani energized Iran’s young voters after the second televised debate in which he criticized the heavy hand of security forces in social affairs.
He appears to have gained the same lift that former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi achieved four years ago upon declaring he would end police enforcement of public chastity.
However, like Mr. Mousavi, Mr. Rowhani has not offered clear economic policies to address the youth’s more serious problems of unemployment and family formation.
A formidable challenge to Mr. Rowhani comes from Mr. Qalibaf, the current mayor of Tehran and a moderate conservative.
During a recent televised debate, they clashed over how the police should treat student protests, but they have not tried to distinguish themselves on how they would help university graduates get jobs.
If the election goes to a second round run-off between these two candidates, which now seems likely, there is a chance that voters will hear more about their approach to revive the economy.
But then the candidates may find it easier to appeal to voters’ emotions than to their pocketbooks.
Photo: The campaign headquarters of presidential hopeful Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf in the Iranian city of Neishabour. Credit: Djavad Salehi-Isfahani
]]>With the disqualification of former president and current chair of the Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani by a vetting body, the Guardian Council, Iran’s presidential campaign is opening with many in the country in a state of shock.
Although the eight qualified candidates offer [...]]]>
With the disqualification of former president and current chair of the Expediency Council Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani by a vetting body, the Guardian Council, Iran’s presidential campaign is opening with many in the country in a state of shock.
Although the eight qualified candidates offer somewhat of a choice given their different approaches to the economy and foreign policy, the disqualification of Rafsanjani has once again raised the spectre that the conservative establishment intends to manipulate the electoral process in such a way that only a conservative candidate will win when voters cast their ballots Jun. 14.
Rafsanjan’s candidacy, which received solid support from former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, had created hope among a section of the Iranian population — unhappy with the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — that a real contest over the direction of the country was possible.
His stature and name recognition had immediately catapulted him as the most formidable candidate against the conservative establishment.
The possibility that the Guardian Council would disqualify a man who is the appointed chair of the Expediency Council and an elected member of the Clerical Council of Experts was deemed unfathomable by many.
In the words of conservative MP Ali Mottahari, who had pleaded with Rafsanjani to register as a candidate, “if Hashemi is disqualified, the foundations of the revolution and the whole system of the Islamic Republic will be questioned.”
Rafsanjani’s unexpected disqualification poses a challenge for his supporters, who include centrists, reformists and even some middle-of-the-road conservatives such as Mottahari: who, if anyone, will they now support in the election?
The slate of approved candidates includes two individuals — former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani and former first vice president Mohammadreza Aref — who hold mostly similar views to Rafsanjani.
In fact, both had said that they would withdraw if Rafsanjani’s candidacy was approved. But neither is as well known as the former president and they will now have to compete against each other in attracting likeminded voters.
Rowhani has chosen to run as an independent, while Aref is running as a reformist. While Rafsanjani’s candidacy had energised and unified the reformists and centrists, the campaign of these two lesser known candidates may be cause for disunity and/or voter apathy.
A third candidate, Mohammad Gharazi — who may also have centrist tendencies — is even less known throughout the country.
He served first as the minister of petroleum and then post, telegraph, and telephone in the cabinet of then-prime minister Mir Hossein Mussavi — now under house arrest after his 2009 presidential bid — and then in Rafsanjani’s cabinet when he served as president.
But since 1997, Ghazari has not held public office. Furthermore, no one really knows his views or why he was qualified when several other ministers with more recent experience were not.
Reformist supporters, already distraught over the previous contested election and continued incarceration of candidates they voted for in 2009, may see Rafsanjani’s disqualification as yet another sign that their vote will not count.
Apathy or abstention in protest among supporters is now a real issue for the centrists and reformists. This challenge may — and only may — be overcome if one of the candidates agrees to withdraw in favour of the other and the popular former reformist president Khatami throws his support behind the unified candidate in the same way he did with the candidacy of Rafsanjani.
But even this may not be enough. The reality is that the low name recognition of both candidates limits the impact of such political manoeuvring and coalition-building by the reformists, especially if the conservative-controlled security establishment makes campaigning and the spread of information difficult. Already Aftab News, a website affiliated with Rowhani, has been blocked.
This leaves the competition among the other five candidates who come from the conservative bloc. One, former presidential candidate, Mohsen Rezaee, is also running as an independent and is both the most likely to last until Election Day and the least likely to garner many votes.
It is the competition among the other four conservative candidates — Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, former Parliamentary Speaker Gholamali Haddad Adel, and current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili — that will in all likelihood determine the fate of the election.
If Rafsanjani had been qualified, there would have been an urge for unity among these candidates since, without such unity, the former president could have received the 50 percent plus one necessary to win in the first round.
Now, however, the same forces that had prevented the conservative candidates from rallying behind one candidate remain in play.
Polls published by various Iranian news agencies, although not very reliable, uniformly suggest that Qalibaf is the most popular conservative candidate because of his management of the Tehran megapolis and the vast improvement in the delivery of services he has overseen there.
But Qalibaf’s relative popularity has not yet been sufficient to convince other candidates to unite behind him. This may eventually happen after televised presidential debates if he does well in them and if Velayati and Haddad Adel drop out in his favour since, from the beginning, the three of them had agreed that eventually the most popular should stand on Election Day.
But there is no guarantee that this will happen. Velayati in particular has ambitions of his own and has implied that Leader Ali Khameni’s preference should be given at least as much weight as polls, giving rise to speculation that he is the Leader’s preferred candidate despite clear signs that he has not been able to create much excitement even among conservative voters.
Convincing the hard-line candidate Jalili to drop out in favour of Qalibaf will be even harder.
In fact, from now until Election Day there will probably be as much pressure on Qalibaf to drop out in favour of Jalili as the other way around in the hope that a unified conservative candidate can win in the first round, avoiding the risk of either Rowhani or Aref making it to the second round where the top two candidates will have to compete on Jun. 21.
Jalili is the least experienced — and well known — of all the conservative candidates and, in a campaign in which economy is the number one issue by far, there are real concerns regarding whether he is experienced enough to manage Iran’s deep economic problems.
But his late entry in the presidential race, minutes after Rafsanjani entered it, has also given rise to speculation that he, instead of Velayati, may be the Leader’s preferred choice.
What is not a subject of speculation is the fact that Jalili takes the hardest line of all the candidates.
His campaign slogan of “hope, justice, and resistance” suggests that he is the most likely to continue current policies, although perhaps with less bombast and populist flair than the current president.
As such, Jalili stands apart from the other seven candidates who will campaign on the need for both change and competent leadership.
Jalili jumped into the race at the last minute as a hard-line counter to Rafsanjani’s call for moderation. Ironically, with the latter’s disqualification, he now stands alone as the candidate whom others will try to mobilise voters against.
]]>Farideh Farhi has done her usual excellent job of unwrapping the Iranian internal political scene. I very much share her surprise about this weekend’s events.
I thought that the Supreme Leader had decided unequivocally that there was to be no repetition of 2009, i.e. no credible individuals challenging the existing [...]]]>
Farideh Farhi has done her usual excellent job of unwrapping the Iranian internal political scene. I very much share her surprise about this weekend’s events.
I thought that the Supreme Leader had decided unequivocally that there was to be no repetition of 2009, i.e. no credible individuals challenging the existing system and no mobs in the street with grievances after the vote. He had even talked about eliminating the presidency entirely, in favor of a parliamentary system.
So what has happened?
Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie (among others) must have believed that Ali Khamenei: (1) acquiesced in their candidacy; or (2) could not prevent it; or (3) was essentially irrelevant. Whatever the rationale, their decision to proceed with their candidacy implies that Khamenei was either unable or unwilling to exercise control of the process or that his objectives were quite different from what we had understood from his observable actions and words.
At a minimum, these candidates were willing to put Khamenei in an embarrassing position by publicly ignoring his well-known preferences, apparently without concern for the consequences.
Of course, it is still possible that the Guardian Council will simply disqualify all but the “safe” candidates, despite the past history of leaders like Rafsanjani and their intimate association with both the Leader and the revolution. That would confirm the cynical interpretation of Iran’s leadership after 2009 — that it realized the revolution was dead and there was no need to pretend that it was about anything other than raw power. That would be the counterpart of the Soviet Union in the 1930s when Joseph Stalin killed off his fellow revolutionaries and simply seized power.
But if that was his intent, why permit these troublesome characters to register at all? Could Khamenei not tell Rafsanjani simply to stay out of the race (the story is that he gave an ambiguous response to Rafsanjani’s query)? And how about all those obvious Khamenei supporters? Why not designate one of them to carry the banner and let the others know that they were not welcome? For those who believe that he didn’t care because he can easily jigger the voting system, I draw attention to the fact that the president of Iran has a horse in this race and that he has unequaled access to the voting process. He could make 2009 look like a picnic.
At this point, the most likely interpretation is that each of the candidates was in it for himself, and the Supreme Leader had very little to say about it. The notion that the Supreme Leader is far less supreme than his clique would pretend is neither new nor surprising. But this apparent evidence that he is not only lacking in political clout but is in fact essentially irrelevant to the decision-making process is something new — especially if this plethora of candidates risks another train wreck of the magnitude of 2009.
As Farideh says, Iranian politics still has the capacity to surprise.
]]>Iran’s June 14 presidential election, only about a month and a half away, will get ample attention — and more than a dose of speculation — from everyone interested in the big picture items: whether there will be an actual choice of candidates, whether the result will have an [...]]]>
Iran’s June 14 presidential election, only about a month and a half away, will get ample attention — and more than a dose of speculation — from everyone interested in the big picture items: whether there will be an actual choice of candidates, whether the result will have an impact on the way the nuclear file will be approached, whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will go out quietly, and so on. But smaller, parallel events are fascinating because they reveal the kind of dilemmas the country’s political class faces as it tries to manage the strange institutional hybrid that it oversees.
Let’s take the case of the Guardian Council, which is in charge of vetting candidates for the presidency. This body of six clerics appointed by Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and 6 lay jurists suggested by the Judiciary head (himself appointed by the Leader) and approved by the Majles, effectively has complete leeway in deciding who can run and considers its task to be a closed affair. It doesn’t explain the reasoning behind why a particular candidate is disqualified because it doesn’t have to. As such, it’s justifiably accused of disqualifying candidates with points of view that differ from those held by its current conservative members.
This year, however, the Council may face a dilemma in vetting candidates simply because of the large number of conservative candidates who will likely apply. I would love to be a fly on the wall and listen to the reasoning behind choosing one candidate over another when they are essentially clones of each other. This was less of a problem in previous elections because there weren’t that many candidates with some sort of name recognition.
To be sure, a large number of candidates registering and even running is not new. In the Islamic Republic’s first election — when there was no vetting mechanism — 96 candidates ran. Frontrunner Abolhassan Bani Sadr won in the first round before he was booted out of office and the country in a year and a half.
In the 2005 election, the last time there was no sitting president running for reelection, the number of registered candidates topped one thousand! The Guardian Council disqualified all but 6, presumably because the overwhelming majority of them did not meet the constitutional requirement of being among the “political and religious elite” endowed with “managerial capability and prudence”; “a good past-record”; “trustworthiness and piety”; and a “convinced belief in the fundamental principles of the Islamic Republic.” Later, upon the Leader’s prodding, the Council re-qualified two Reformist candidates it had rejected. One candidate eventually dropped out and the contest among the seven candidates went to a second round among the top two candidates — a first in the Islamic Republic. In the 2001 election, ten candidates were qualified out of over 800 registrants, but a popular president, Mohammad Khatami, was re-elected overwhelmingly in the first round.
The large number of past government officials announcing their intent to run makes this election a bit different. The competition is promising as many as 20 conservative or centrist registrants with some sort of ministerial or parliamentary background, hence qualifying them as among the elite or prominent personalities, and few political reasons for disqualifications. The parliament did try to bring some order to this unwieldy process by introducing age limits and educational requirements to the eligibility criteria. But the Guardian Council, in wanting to maintain full control over the qualification process, declared the parliamentary legislation unconstitutional.
Despite this, the Council does seem concerned. Its spokesperson Abbasali Kadkhodai said it’s in the process of developing internal guidelines regarding qualifications. Another council member, Hosseinali Amiri, said the Council is trying to clarify the exact meaning of “political elite” in terms of past experience. For instance, can a minister who has been impeached by the parliament be qualified? What level of government service is representative of sufficient managerial experience (minister? deputy minister? lower?) It’s not yet clear if any of these clarifications will be made public to set precedent for future elections.
Kadkhodai also said the Council is mulling the idea of interviewing potential candidates for their plan of action or presidency program. This is totally new and if it happens, one could call it a direct result of the “Ahmadinejad effect.” The question of whether the Council members are themselves qualified or astute enough to assess through interviews a candidate’s preparedness for running the country — it took the Iranian political class about 8 years of Ahmadinejad’s presidency to reach a consensus about his lack of competence — was not addressed by Kadkhodai.
Less new is the Council’s decision of requiring more than mere acceptance of Iran’s constitution for assessing a candidate’s commitment to the Islamic Republic. According to Kadkhodai, it’s not sufficient for a president to say that he will implement the constitution because it is the law of the land. He must also be “attached” to it and “deeply believe” in it. Kadkhodai did not elaborate on how hard it may be to figure out someone’s true beliefs and feelings in a country where pretending to be a deeply pious believer is a requirement of all government jobs. Based on this criterion, everyone is suspect.
Of course, the Guardian Council can continue to maintain the tradition of only disqualifying candidates with politics it does not approve of and qualifying everyone else with the hope that the majority will drop out in favor of candidates who are more likely to be successful. Or it can decide to live with the risk of another second run election. But as of now, it appears to be scratching its head while trying to figure out new ways to disqualify even committed believers of the Islamic Republic.
As usual, improvisation remains the name of the game in trying to manage the conflicting impulses of a system that seeks to be both Islamic and a Republic, at least in appearance.
]]>via Foreign Policy Association
With less than two months into the elections, what is your assessment of this year’s election dynamics and of the absence of key presidential contenders in the country’s faction-based political system?
In the upcoming elections, there is no sitting president running for re-election. So lack [...]]]>
via Foreign Policy Association
With less than two months into the elections, what is your assessment of this year’s election dynamics and of the absence of key presidential contenders in the country’s faction-based political system?
In the upcoming elections, there is no sitting president running for re-election. So lack of clarity regarding the leading contenders is not that unusual. In the 2005 election, the field of candidates also had not fully clarified two months before the election. Former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati was still contemplating a run while former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani had not yet declared his intent to run (and once he did, everyone assumed he would win). This uncertainty is part and parcel of lack of political parties or groups with large social base and lack of established process for candidate selection within and among these organizations. In every election, new mechanisms and processes are invented or improvised as potential candidates jockey to establish their viability or ability to attract votes before the Guardian Council begins the process of vetting. The state of competition remains unclear for the upcoming election because of two unknowns: the so-called Nezam’s—which is usually another way of saying the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s—preferred candidate and the extent to which variety of views will be allowed on the presidential slate. These are unknowns not only to us but to the players themselves. The desire to hold at least a seemingly “clean” election and the hope to “erase the memory of 2009” all work to maintain the uncertainty about the extent to which the coming election will offer a choice, no matter how limited, on the country’s domestic and foreign policy direction, as it has been the case in the past few elections.
Do you believe there is a new cadre of reformists emerging in Iranian politics? If there is one, how genuinely reformist are they and do they have a reform platform?
I am not sure what you mean by genuinely reformist. But there is no doubt that there continues to be a whole array of groups in Iran that think in order for the Islamic Republic to function properly and achieve its revolutionary ideals of independence and freedom, it has to move in the direction of political and social reform. To be sure, some think these reforms have to be more structural or deeper than others. Meanwhile, the conservative establishment, by securitizing the political environment, has so far argued that these folks want to reform the Islamic Republic out of existence. In other words, by reacting as severely as it has, the Iranian deep state –-whose shape remains rather unknown for those who study Iran—has effectively rejected any type of structural reform at this time in no uncertain terms. If anything, it has become more entrenched and reactionary. What we see in the reformist circles in Iran is an adjustment to this reality. Clearly, some reformists are disheartened by this reality and are announcing the death of the possibility of reform within the existing constitutional and political framework. But I would say that the conversations surrounding the upcoming elections – both presidential and municipal – suggest a decision has been made not to abandon the electoral process as a means to both claim some political power as well as pursue gradual change. The way it looks so far, even if the reformists are not able to put forth –or are prevented from putting forth –a strong presidential candidate, they will be actively present in the municipal elections particularly in large cities such as Tehran. They will also be engaged in serious conversation regarding whether to support a centrist candidate in case of the absence of a popular reformist candidate.
With the current dynamics of the post-Arab Spring—the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, the crumbling of the Syrian state, the Turkish-Israeli rapprochement with possible cooperation between the two states on Syria, and the Saudi-Qatari efforts to undermine Iranian interests—do you think Iran is gradually facing a strategic crisis?
The strategic jockeying that is occurring in the region is not a static or linear dynamic with one side losing and the other side winning, particularly since the side that is presumably working to engineer Iran’s strategic decline consists of many actors with different types of relationship with Iran as well as with each other. Egyptian internal dynamics remain highly volatile and as evidenced in the Syria tragedy, the outcome is no longer in anyone’s control. The dystopia created so far is as much a headache – if not more – for Israel and Turkey as for Iran. The disintegration of Syria and reinvigoration of Jihadist forces may count as a “loss” for Iran but raises real and unpredictable security concerns for the neighboring countries of Israel, Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon with no guarantees that even the Persian Gulf countries feeding the insurgency – i.e. Saudi Arabia and Qatar – will not be bitten back. Furthermore, let us not forget that the strategic relationship between Iran and Syria was solidified in opposition to a very different Iraq and may not be as important for Iran given the drastic changes in Iraq. Iran’s strength in the region, although no doubt impacted by its alliances, is better defined by its geography as a crossroad and its resources, both material and human. No other country in the region matches it. In the next decade, Iran’s strategic vulnerability remains its domestic politics. The key question remains whether the country’s contending leadership can develop rules of the game that underwrites relatively peaceful transition of power and allows for forces excluded from the political process, which have nevertheless amassed quite a bit of social power, to have a say in the direction of the country.
Nearly thirty five years since the revolution, the Iranian women remain barred from running for president. Is this a reflection of the state’s ideological conflict with the presence of Iranian women in key decision-making posts?
The silver lining in the refusal of the Guardian Council to explain the reason for the disqualification of candidates is that it has never come out and said that the women who have been disqualified for all the past elections were so because they were women. So while I do not see a viable female candidacy at this point, it is significant that the guardians of Islamism in Iran have not chosen to set up an ideological barrier on this issue; at least not yet.
If sanctions against Iran were further tightened without resulting in achieving any concrete policy objectives for Washington, how, in your view, Washington and Tehran would respond to such measures respectively?
Tehran’s approach to the escalating sanctions regime has followed a pattern. It becomes most active in trying to prevent the impending sanctions. But, once they are imposed, its efforts shift to adapting to and undercutting the sanctions as well as pushing its nuclear program a bit forward in order to remind everyone that the sanctions regime is not changing Iran’s calculations. Under these circumstances, after the imposition of every set of sanctions, the initiative is moved back to Washington. So far Washington has been very successful in instituting an escalating sanctions regime and making sure that Tehran does not rest easy and remains in a constant state of adjustment to new sanctions. But it is not clear how long this dynamic can continue without risking war. Volatility and potential risks are very much hidden in the current dynamics in which containment is declared not an option despite the repeated “all options are on the table” mantra while military attack remains on the menu. Under these circumstances, sanctions are not an alternative but a path to war no matter how uneasy and displeased the American society and military establishment remains about the prospect.
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