Ahmadinejad battles on the home
front By Khody Akhavi
WASHINGTON - Iranian President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad has garnered headlines around the
world for his defiance of Washington, as well as
his rhetorical grandstanding on Palestinian
issues, Israel and his government's alleged
support of Shi'ite militias in Iraq.
Still, it appears that Iran's
parliamentary elections in March will be
determined less by debates over the country's
foreign policy than by rising criticism of
incompetence and economic mismanagement of
conservatives and hardliners in the legislature
and in Ahmadinejad's office.
"Ahmadinejad
is in trouble, not only because his economic
policies have not worked; he
has managed to antagonize almost the entire
Iranian elite because of his exclusivist
management style," said Farideh Farhi, an
independent researcher on Iran and political
scientist at the University of Hawaii.
The
president and his allies in the Majlis
(Parliament) face opposition from prominent
reformists led by former president Mohammad
Khatami, as well as from conservatives who expect
to challenge Ahmadinejad should the president's
hardline slate fail to win votes.
Khatami's coalition brings together 21
moderate parties, including the Islamic Iranian
Participation Front, Khatami's Association of
Combatant Clerics, and the Executives of
Construction Party (Kargozaran), founded by
ex-cabinet members from the presidency of Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani.
Defined as a
"pragmatist" or a "centrist", Rafsanjani's
political history suggests the former president is
more of an opportunist. But his support for the
slate and the inclusion of high-profile
candidates, many of whom previously worked in key
ministry positions, will make it difficult for the
Guardians Council, Iran's electoral watchdog, to
disqualify them.
The hardline faction was
bolstered last week when more than 2,000 reformist
candidates were disqualified from running,
according to the Associated Press. The council
will not announce the final slate of approved
candidates until March 5, which gives prospective
parliamentarians little time to campaign before
the March 14 vote.
Out of an initial 7,200
prospective registered candidates, some 5,000
remain in the running, according to Ali Reza
Afshar, a top Interior Ministry official. That is
a significant decrease from the more than 4,000
reformist candidates disqualified in 2004 by the
Guardians Council, an appointed clerical body that
is only answerable to Iran's actual executive
power, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran's 2004 parliamentary crisis fractured
the reform movement, leading to a split over
whether to boycott or participate in elections.
Ahmadinejad, bolstered by populist rhetoric and
the support of the paramilitary groups closely
linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps and
loyal to the Supreme Leader, became the unlikely
winner of the 2005 presidential contest.
"He wasn't the candidate of the right
until right at the end," said Farhi during a talk
at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars. "Let us note
the unpredictability."
A strong showing
for centrists and reformists would constitute a
rejection of Ahmadinejad and his policies, which,
Farhi says, have been described by critics as
"expansionary, inflationary, incompetent". It
would also enhance the role and stature of
Parliament, she said. "Everybody feels that the
seventh Majlis has been totally ineffective."
The president himself has been criticized
for slowing the pace of privatization, mismanaging
the budget and appointing incompetent bureaucrats.
He has been attacked by reformists and centrists
such as Rafsanjani, and must contend with
conservative opponents who could exploit
dissatisfaction with Ahmadinejad to seem more
palatable to voters. Khamenei's enthusiasm for him
also appears to have cooled.
For
conservatives, the major fight will be over who
should lead the party's election slate. "Whoever
is on top of Tehran's list becomes the main
candidate to challenge Ahmadinejad in the coming
presidential elections," Farhi said.
That
list includes former nuclear negotiators Hassan
Rowhani and Ali Larijani, both powerful
conservative politicians, who may appeal to voters
dissatisfied with Ahmadinejad. Other possible
names include former foreign minister Akbar
Velayati and former Intelligence Minister Ali
Fallahian.
Iran has held 27 elections
since the 1979 revolution, and Iranians
participate in them, sometimes to a greater extent
than US citizens who vote in US elections.
Fifty-five percent of eligible voters turned out
for the 2004 presidential election, the highest
turnout in 36 years. Iran reported a 60% turnout
in 2006 elections for local councils and the
powerful Assembly of Experts, in which
Ahmadinejad's allies suffered a crushing defeat
after a majority of seats when to reformists and
conservatives opposing him.
Unlike past
elections, talks of boycott do not seem to be
resonating, and, contrary to the perceptions
abroad, conservatives have managed to control the
foreign policy debate, particularly in light of
recent developments over Iran's nuclear program.
A US intelligence estimate released last
year said that Iran had - at least temporarily -
suspended its nuclear program in 2003,
contradicting findings in a similar 2005 report,
which assessed that Iran was 10 years away from
developing weapons.
"They have managed to
push 'the Great Satan' back on the nuclear issue,"
said Farhi. If anything, she said, US foreign
policy has succeeded in entrenching the hardliners
in power.
"I don't know if that is the
intention," Farhi added.
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