TEHRAN - When Iranians vote on Friday to
elect more than 110,000 members to city and
village councils across the country and also
choose the 86 members of the powerful Experts
Assembly, they may well be deciding the future
course of Iran.
The city councils are
considered the crucible in which national leaders
are molded - a prime example being President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad himself.
City councils,
established in 1999 during the reformist
Mohammad Khatami's
presidency, hold a degree of independence from the
government. They appoint mayors and govern
municipal activities. Yet, in their short history,
they have played an important role in Iranian
politics and are now seen as a springboard for
political factions. The Tehran city council holds
great importance in the coming elections.
Weary of internal conflicts among
reformists and Khatami's inability to cope with
pressure from other centers of power that stalled
reforms, voters stayed away from previous council
elections. With a new platform and new faces, a
hardline faction that called itself Developers of
Islamic Iran took over Tehran city council from
its reformist rivals in 2003.
That
hardline council then elected Mahmud Ahmadinejad
as mayor, and he went on to become Iran's
president. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of
Ahmadinejad's rivals for presidency from within
the hardline camp, was elected by the council as
mayor when Ahmadinejad took office as president.
"Ghalibaf has much at stake now. If a
coalition of Ahmadinejad supporters wins the seats
of the council, he will be out as mayor, and the
political career of the former Revolutionary
Guards air force commander will come to a very
early end. Ahmadinejad and his supporters are
absolutely determined to eradicate him," said a
political analyst in Tehran, asking not to be
named.
"It is not only Ghalibaf they want
out. Hardline Ahmadinejad supporters have no
respect for the traditional conservatives either.
They are refusing any concessions to enter into a
coalition with the others because they have an
exaggerated estimation of the votes Ahmadinejad
got as president," he said.
Hardliners and
conservatives are now divided into Ahmadinejad
supporter groups, the mayor's supporters,
traditional conservatives and a number of other
hardliners of different leanings. There are also a
number of independents who can sway the results.
In Tehran more than 1,200 candidates are running
for 15 seats.
Ahead of the polling,
hardliners and conservatives have managed to
narrow down their electoral lists to two, those
supporting Ahmadinejad and those with Ghalibaf.
Defeated by hardliners and conservatives
for their failure to unite in three consecutive
elections for city councils, parliament and
presidency, reformists claim they have learned
their lesson. They are now backing a 15-member
list of candidates for the Tehran city council and
Khatami has accepted nominal leadership of this
reformist coalition.
The success of
reformists in uniting and the failure of the
"Principled" (the name chosen by hardliners and
conservatives for their coalition in the past) to
offer a single slate of candidates so far has
caused bitter concern in the latter camp. And to
worsen things, much of the bickering has now
become public, with Ahmadinejad supporters getting
blamed for the failure by hardliners.
"If
reformists win, international pressure on the
Iranian government will increase. There will be
more pressure domestically from the opposition,
government supporters will be disillusioned and
blame the ones whose illusions of victory led to
defeat of The Principled. The real losers will be
The Principled," Ahmad Tavakkoli, influential
hardline member of Parliament and Ahmadinejad
critic, wrote in an editorial on the Alef portal.
Conservatives who were left out of centers
of power by the younger hardliners after last
year's presidential elections are being blamed for
the failure too. "If The Principled fail to unite
with conservatives, they will have to go their
separate their ways and create a new political
entity," Mohsen Rezaiee, former Revolutionary
Guards chief commander and present secretary of
the Expediency Council, was quoted as saying by
the Baztab website. Rezaiee recently joined forces
with the mayor's supporters.
The other
elections are for the Experts Assembly that
convenes only twice a year. Its main function is
choosing the country's supreme leader, deposing
him if he is found incompetent, and supervising
his performance while in office - a responsibility
the assembly has been accused by critics of not
taking seriously.
A number of reformist
parties, including the one headed by Khatami,
while not boycotting the assembly elections, have
not put forth any candidate lists as most
reformist clerics have been vetted out by the
Guardian Council.
A six-member group, the
Guardian Council appointed by the Supreme Leader,
interprets the constitution, gives final approval
to parliamentary legislation, and vets election
candidates and supervises all elections except
those of city and village councils. In some
constituencies, the Guardians have left just one
candidate to vote for.
The main
competition in the Experts Assembly elections is
between supporters of the fundamentalist Ayatollah
Mesbah Yazdi (Ahmadinejad's mentor),
conservatives, and a few that are more inclined
toward reforms. The most prominent among the
latter is former president Akbar Hashemi,
currently chairman of the Expediency Council and
incumbent vice chairman of the assembly. Another
is Hasan Rohani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator
under Khatami.
On the streets of Tehran
there is little enthusiasm for upcoming elections.
"I'm not going to vote. What difference can it
make? I'll never vote if elections are not really
free and most candidates are disqualified for
their beliefs," said Hanieh, 20, a college student
in Tehran.
Others are more enthusiastic.
''We always refused to vote, thinking if the
turnout was low, the system would lose its
legitimacy and collapse. This has gone on for
years now and nothing has changed. I think I'm
going to vote this time, and I'll encourage my
family, too," said a middle-aged taxi driver who
did not want to be named.
''Hardliners and
conservatives have the advantage of using the
extensive network of mosques for their campaigns
and all the favors they receive from the state-run
TV," a reformist journalist choosing to remain
anonymous said. "But now that reformists have
overcome most of their internal conflicts and are
acting in relatively high unison, and with support
from the Nationalist-Religious opposition that has
lost all its candidates to vetting, they have a
good chance to pave their way to come back to
power, but only if turnout is high and vote
rigging and election fraud can be prevented.
"Elections are held by the Interior
Ministry. Just a few months ago Ahmadinejad's top
aide and adviser, Mojtaba Samare-Hashemi, resigned
from his high position to become a deputy of the
Interior Ministry in charge of holding and
supervision of elections. The appointment
strengthens suspicions of plans to influence the
results by the government," she said.
"In
view of strong allegations of millions of fake
identity cards being used by organized bands in
voting and influencing of elections by the militia
arm of the Revolutionary Guards in different ways
in Ahmadinejad's favor in presidential elections
last year, there is great concern, not only among
reformists, but also among some hardline rivals of
the president's supporters. The way elections are
held this time is going to be a real test of
democracy for the Islamic Republic," she said.
