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Too early for a Tehran
spring
By Sami Moubayed
DAMASCUS - On May 15, the Iranian Ministry
of Interior announced that 1,014 candidates had
registered for the presidential elections in Iran
scheduled for June 17. This has been hailed by the
Western media as a great leap forward, directly
resulting from the winds of American democracy
sweeping through the Third World. A closer look,
however, shows that the polls in Iran, although
carrying some positive indicators of pluralism,
are not a fully fledged Tehran spring.
Of
the 1,014 nominated for presidential office, only
14 are likely to remain after the Guardians
Council (GC) filters the applications. If
democracy were to prevail in Iran, then the power
of the GC should be significantly curbed, because
it is not elected by the people but rather
appointed by conservative Supreme Leader Grand
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
This has been
echoed by Iranian democracy activists such as the
reformist cleric Grand Ayatollah Yusef Sanei, who
said: "There should not be guardianship. In an
election, guardians are not needed; it is contrary
to human liberty."
The fact that more than
1,000 people submitted applications means nothing
as long as only those approved by the regime will
be allowed to run. In May 2001, the GC turned down
804 applications of the 814 that were submitted.
Then, during the legislative elections in 2001, it
turned down more than 2,000 applications.
Of the 1,014 applicants at present, some
of them should be turned down because they should
not have been accepted by authorities in the first
place. Thirty of them are under the age of 20,
with no political experience, and five are above
the age of 80 - hardly fit to lead a country of 65
million, where a majority are youths. More
startling is that 126 are unemployed.
Yet,
there are some promising applications: 22 clerics,
two lawmakers, 22 doctors and 34 scholars. Ali
Larijani, a much-loathed former director of
Iranian Radio and Television, will be running for
office - but he is likely to lose, although his
candidature will be accepted by the GC because he
is an adviser to Khamenei. So will Mahmud Ahmad
Nezhard, the mayor of Tehran; Ahmad Tawakuli, a
former presidential candidate who lost against
current President Mohammad Khatami and who is now
a member of the Legislative Council; and the
reformer Mostafa Moin, who is the former minister
of science, research and technology.
Another reformer who is running for office
and who might win, due to his balanced standing
among conservatives and reformists, is Mahdi
Karroubi, the former Speaker of parliament. Also a
possible victor is Ali Akbar Velayati, the former
minister of foreign affairs who also is an adviser
to Khamenei.
The two most serious
candidates are former president Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, 70, who ruled Iran in 1989-1997, and
the chief of police, Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf, 43.
Probably better than both men, who are a product
of the existing order and who in effect offer no
real change to the Iranian people, would be the
independent candidate Hooshang Amirahmadi,
director of New Jersey's Center for Middle Eastern
Studies.
The only liberal amid a bunch of
clerics and conservatives, Amirahmadi (supported
by 89 tough-minded liberal women) calls for
appeasement and collaboration with the United
States. While this would gain him votes with the
reformers, it would unleash hell from
conservatives, who would not hesitate to accuse
him of treason. He bluntly said in an interview
before leaving the US to campaign in Iran, "My
biggest challenge is not being accepted by the
Iranian people. It is being accepted by the
Guardians Council, and even being allowed to run."
In 1997, Amirahmadi founded the
American-Iranian Council to conduct dialogue
between Iranian emigres and the regime in Tehran.
He has been accused by some opposition elements of
cozying up to the mullahs in Iran, but he argues
that it is to nobody's benefit that Iran be
invaded, attacked, or destabilized at this stage.
"A destabilized Iran, whatever some people
think, benefits nobody," he said. The current
regime, with all its faults, he added, must be
reformed from within through a democratic process,
and not through military collaboration with the
US. Amirahmadi has accused his critics of being
Iranian Ahmad Chalabis and has said he would never
enter Iran under US protection. Instead of
isolating the regime, one should engage it, he has
argued, saying that isolation did nothing to
weaken Cuba, for example, but rather only gave
Fidel Castro more room to practice his autocracy.
Of all the candidates, Amirahmadi seems to be the
best, but authorities in Tehran might think
otherwise.
The current president, Khatami,
was elected to office twice, in 1997 and 2001,
with more than 20 million votes each time, the
bulk coming from the country's youth, who were
enchanted by his reform program. Elaine Sciolino,
author of Persian Mirrors: The Elusive Face of
Iran, described Khatami's campaigning: "He was
a populist candidate, would get on a bus and kiss
babies and shake hands. And he had such an
extraordinary personality and such charm. It
sounds sort of trite or superficial, but he's as
charming as [former US president] Bill Clinton.
And that goes a long way. He charmed the people of
Iran. He charmed them with his personality, with
his good looks, and with his promises."
A
familiar reformer, Khatami had been fired when
serving as minister of culture and national
guidance in 1992 for relaxing controls on films,
art, music and literature. If anything, his two
smashing victories show how much the people were
(and still are) eager for change, and willing to
follow anybody who leads them to a liberal and
better future. Khatami gave his people too much
hope, and when his reforms did not materialize,
disappointment came in.
In 2001, 60
parliamentarians from Khatami's reformist group
were brought to court for their views, and the
president was unable to defend them. In 2002,
another 17 were also brought to court for
liberalism; one was sentenced to 40 lashes, one
was arrested, and another was fired. This ruined
Khatami's credibility inside Iran, and many began
accusing him of having deceived the people.
But if he were to run for a third round
(although the constitution does not allow it), he
would likely win because people are still, as they
were in 1997 and 2001, hungry for reform - though
many would think twice before voting for him,
fearing he would be unable to deliver. In 1997,
for example, voter turnout at the polls was 80%.
When Khatami ran for a second term in 2001, the
voter-turnout rate had dropped to 66.6%.
Khatami's failure might explain why people
would turn to Rafsanjani, who is less radical than
other hardliners. Rafsanjani would be unlikely to
promise sweeping reforms, as Khatami had done, to
avoid disappointing his people; rather, he would
slowly implement reforms without promise, making
them highly appreciated among Iranians, who, due
to his conservative agenda, would expect few
reforms from Rafsanjani. His prime obstacle,
however, would be opposition from Khamenei, who is
the de facto ruler of Iran.
Although the
two men are good friends, they have been
politically opposed to each other for years. Some
speculate that a secret deal has been cut between
them: Khamenei would support Rafsanjani as
president if the latter supported him in getting
rid of radical hardliners inside the GC. What
heightens this conviction is that Khamenei's
adviser, presidential candidate Velayati, has
announced that he might withdraw from the race in
favor of Rafsanjani.
Another obstacle for
Rafsanjani is that many in Iran, despite Khatami's
shortcomings, do not believe that Rafsanjani is
the solution. When running for the Legislative
Council in 2001, he was defeated at the polls by
voters in Tehran. Yet in troubled times, his age,
experience and legitimacy would come in handy,
especially since other candidates are newcomers,
and in some cases nobodies, to Iran's political
scene. He is also believed to have enough
influence to convince hardliners to abandon Iran's
nuclear program and end the dilemma with
Washington, and will be supported by the business
community, because he is open to the private
sector.
Regardless of the who the new
president of Iran will be, some serious challenges
await any candidate. How will he deal with Iran's
strained relationship with the US? Will he abandon
Iran's nuclear program to score points with the
international community? How will he deal with
Hezbollah in Lebanon? Already, more than 500
activists have called on Iranians to boycott the
elections because "the people only have the
freedom to chose from among those candidates
chosen by the state".
And according to the
opposition, "Under the present circumstances,
where the rulers [with regard to the Guardians
Council] are determined to keep the power despite
the people's will and in the absence of real
political parties and a free press, there is no
point in going to the ballot boxes."
Mehrangiz Kar, a famous human-rights
activist, lawyer, and writer, spearheaded a
movement which said that under the current regime
in Iran, reform is impossible. Reform can only be
achieved through a fundamental constitutional
change that ends Islamic rule in Iran. Kar has
called for a nationwide referendum among the
Iranian people on whether to maintain the Islamic
republic or not. Referendums have been common in
Iranian history since in 1963: the Shah launched
his "White Revolution" against feudalism through a
referendum, and in 1979, the Islamic Revolution
was legalized through a referendum.
Today's referendum began in November 2004,
when along with seven intellectuals, Kar launched
an online petition calling for the "staging of a
national referendum with the free participation of
the Iranian people, under the supervision of
appropriate international institutions and
observers, for the drafting of a new constitution
that is compatible with the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights". The website www.60000000.com,
which has been banned in Iran, argues that 60
million of Iran's 65 million support Kar's claims.
To date, the petition has been signed by 35,000
people, among whom are 300 prominent writers,
intellectuals, scientists and activists, including
Reza Pahlavi, the heir to the Peacock Throne, who
was toppled with his father and glamorous mother,
Farah, in 1979.
It will take more than an
online petition to change the mood in Iran. At
this stage, radical change is unacceptable to the
Iranians, and they want to be able to reform their
nation from within, without the help of the US.
The elections can be a golden opportunity to do
that, if the GC stops interfering in political
affairs. As the Iranians bid farewell to Khatami,
a good man who tried, they should welcome someone
who at the least, has the same abilities as the
reformist Khatami. Neither Rafsanjani nor any
other candidate (with the exception of Amirahmadi)
can do that at this stage, resulting in a mild
Tehran spring.
Sami Moubayed is
a Syrian political analyst.
(Copyright
2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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