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Iranians do it their
way
By Safa Haeri
PARIS
- Several lessons can be drawn from last Friday's
presidential elections in Iran. The first is that
regime change, or even reforming the present
system from within, is not an option - there is
too much opposition to such a course of action.
Instead, the way forward is to concentrate on a
smooth and slow process of modernizing the
constitution, with emphasis on improving human
rights.
For the first time since the
inception of the Islamic Republic of Iran 26 years
ago, a presidential election goes to a second
round, as none of the seven candidates managed to
obtain 50% of the votes cast.
This Friday, 72-year-old
former president Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani, who won 6,159,453 votes, will face off
against his nearest challenger,
conservative Mahmud Ahmadinejad, who to many
people's surprise garnered 5,710,345 out of
29,317,042 votes cast.
The result
indicates that all those who advocate regime
change must now change policies, slogans and
projects, and look for new ways and means in tune
with the real demands of the people.
Another lesson is that the Iranian elite
and opponents of the regime are not in tune with
the population, as they had expected less than 50%
of the voters to exercise their right to vote.
According to the latest figures released by the
authorities, albeit to be taken with slight
reservations, turnout exceeded 60%.
Dissidents of all categories inside
and outside Iran, as well as some
candidates, immediately denounced both the results and
the number of voters, claiming that the
powerful Guardians Council, in order to please
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, inflated the
number of votes, a claim that, it must be said, is
not without foundation.
"The traditional gap between the people and the system
has changed into the people versus the elite,"
commented Amir Hoseyn Dadgar Parsi, a researcher. "The
problem is no more one of changing the Islamic
republic or reforming it - the priority now is
reconciling the people with the elite."
Considering that most veteran, seasoned,
respected and popular political and intellectual
dissidents and student associations had called for
a boycott of the elections, the outcome is a big
slap in the face from the voters, including their
traditional supporters. Further, Mostafa Moin, the
leading reform candidate, fared unexpectedly
badly.
Most independent sources, Iranian
and foreign, agree that participation was
unexpectedly high, confirming that Iranians are
among the most unpredictable people in the world.
Asked his view on the surprisingly high
participation, a contact, who asked not to be
identified, said, "One good reason might be the
indecent American intrusion in the political life
of the country," referring to President George W
Bush's outburst, describing the elections in Iran
as "undemocratic".
"No matter for which
one of the seven candidates we vote, the winner
means victory of the system," Khamenei told a
large crowd of journalist in response to the
American accusations.
What came out of
this first round, and regardless of who Iran's
next president will be, should serve as a lesson
for the Bush administration in its dealings with
Tehran, analysts said.
In a message to the
people broadcast immediately after the final
results were provided, Khamenei congratulated
Iranians for having "not listened to the stupid
[American] leaders who, in order to confuse our
great people, disseminated all kind of fabricated
lies, insulted and humiliated Iranians by claiming
on June 16 that our elections are not democratic,
correct and fair".
"With your votes, you
yourselves have responded to Bush's insults, to a
president who has been elected with rigged votes,
who has created the Guantanamo prison camp [in
Cuba], who has committed crimes in Iraq and in
Afghanistan, who has insulted humanity with crimes
and torture of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq, who has always supported despots and
dictatorial regimes all over the world," the
leader said, urging the next president to start
addressing people's most urgent demands "as soon
as taking the oath".
That Rafsanjani took
the lead is not a surprise, given the dynamism of
his American-style electoral campaign, which was
quickly copied by all other runners, except for
Ahmadinejad. But the important message is that
even if elected in the run-off this Friday, he
already knows he is not the darling of as many
voters as he would believe and that many people
have voted for him with reluctance.
But
the real surprise was the two who trailed
Rafsanjani - Ahmadinejad and Mehdi Karoubi, the
latter being a former Speaker of the majlis
(parliament).
"Maybe this election is more
realistic, the most serious as well as the most
unforeseeable of all the elections held in the 26
years of the Islamic Republic," commented
political analyst Sa'id Leylaz in the independent
Sharq (Orient) newspaper, explaining that "for the
first time, people did not vote with sentiment or
excitement, punishing some or accepting the line
adopted by the [state-owned, leader-controlled]
radio and television, or in reaction to foreign
threats, real or unreal, for the simple reason
that in the past eight years, they understood the
meaning of voting or not, realizing what democracy
is about".
One of the reasons explaining
the outcome could be that for the first time in
Iran, a presidential election was fought on a
multiparty basis, instead of the traditional race
between lead candidates from the so-called
reformists versus conservatives, or the right and
the left. Four of the runners came from the
conservative side, including, also for the first
time, former members of the military.
As
usual, there were clashes between the Guardians
Council, the conservative-controlled organ in
charge of vetting all candidates, and the Interior
Ministry, which is in charge of the organization
and other processes of the election. Initially,
the council announced Ahmadinejad as coming in
second, while the ministry had pro-reformist
Karoubi in that position.
In an impromptu
press conference, Karoubi talked of "invisible
hands", hinting, without explicitly giving names,
at the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij
(volunteer forces) militia; he charged that the
Guardians Council had manipulated the count and
warned of "damaging revelations".
However,
after 24 hours of charges and counter-charges over
the position of the second runners, all sides
agreed that Ahmadinejad had clinched the crucial
berth.
"It has been a completely
unpredictable election and one still cannot
foresee the final result," Mahmoud Mirlohi, a
deputy interior minister told reporters.
Of the seven runners, Ahmadinejad was the
only one to avoid "big" issues, such as Iran's
controversial nuclear program and relations with
the United States. The former Revolutionary Guard
officer, who is considered a follower of Khamenei,
based his electoral campaign on Islamic and
revolutionary values, ignored by the other
runners.
Elected mayor in 2003 in an
election that saw a very low turnout, Ahmadinejad
is credited with a number of popular measures in
favor of the lower classes of Iran's capital of 12
million inhabitants. But he was criticized for the
closure of many cultural and social centers
considered "anti-Islamic" created by former
reformist mayor Qolamhoseyne Karbaschi, who was
jailed over financial scandals and deprived of his
civil rights for 10 years.
Given
Khamenei's strong statement, the prospect of
normalization of relations with the US appears out
of question for the foreseeable future, while the
nuclear issue will remain a priority for both the
European three (EU-3) handling the issue (Germany,
France and Britain) and Washington, with the
latter getting ever harder in its drive to prevent
Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
But as
stated by Hasan Rohani, the secretary of the
Supreme Council for National Security and Iran's
top negotiator on nuclear projects, "Whoever
becomes president, our legitimate rights under
international conventions, including the [nuclear]
Non-Proliferation Treaty for acquiring advanced
nuclear technologies and using them for peaceful
and civilian uses, will continue unabated.
"It is possible that the Europeans think
that the [presidential] elections might have an
impact on the nuclear question, but one must have
in mind that the nuclear problem is a national
cause in direct relation with national interests,"
he said, and added that enriching uranium would go
ahead "as planned".
In answer to the
concerns of many Iranians, mostly women and
youngsters, that a victory for Ahmadinejad would
put the clocks back to the rigid social and
cultural situation prevailing before the election
of Mohammad Khatami in 1997, analyst Leylaz said
the election "is the start of a new chapter
towards greater and more important achievements".
He added, "What the people have won in their
struggle cannot be taken from them, be it a person
or a political current."
Safa
Haeri is a Paris-based Iranian journalist
covering the Middle East and Central Asia.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd.
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