by Alireza Nader
via USIP
Iranian politics are personal. Indeed, the theocrats are decidedly earthly in their rivalries. But the 2013 election is particularly telling. It may be settling a score dating back a quarter century between the revolution’s two most enduring politicos—Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and former President [...]
by Farideh Farhi
via IPS News
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 [...]
by Gary Sick
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 [...]
by Kevan Harris
Sociologists sometimes get lucky. In June 2009 I arrived in Tehran for a routine research trip. Over the next several months I witnessed the largest political demonstrations in Iran since 1979. Arising from protests against the results of the June presidential election, which were perceived by many Iranians as fraudulent, these marches [...]
via Lobe Log
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 Yasaman Baji
via IPS News
As the five-day registration period for presidential candidates began here Tuesday, the question of whether Iran’s upcoming election will represent the will of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or the people of Iran is uppermost on many people’s minds, including those of the potential candidates.
In the [...]
via Lobe Log
by Alex Vatanka
In this rowdy Iranian election season, all of the 26 or so presidential hopefuls are naturally looking for trademark political platforms to adopt. Slogans are plentiful, but going by the different camps’ daily announcements, the aspiring candidates keep probing and yet keep failing to make inroads in public [...]
via Lobe Log
by Omid Memarian
Traditionally, a few months before a presidential election in Iran, the government opens the public sphere, giving more freedom to the press, more space for activists to speak out and even loosening social restrictions like the one on women’s clothing and hijab. But less than two months before [...]
via Lobe Log
According to Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian, the spokesperson for Iran’s nuclear negotiating team (2003-2005) and now a visiting scholar at Princeton University, an Iranian nuclear weapon “would provide only a short-term regional advantage that would turn into a longer-term vulnerability”.
Arrested for apparently politically motivated reasons during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, [...]
via Lobe Log
It must be considered pure fortuity for the Islamic Republic of Iran that the decision to hold the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) summit in Tehran was made three years ago in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt. Although the previous NAM summit took place shortly after Iran’s contested 2009 presidential election, it’s unlikely that anyone [...]
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