IRAN VOTES Battle of
the conservatives By Sami
Moubayed
DAMASCUS - With elections taking
place in Iran on Friday, the popular joke among
Iranians says: Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Ali Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani (current and former
conservative presidents) are in an airplane over
Tehran. Ahmadinejad says, "I am going to throw
down $100, and let 10 Iranian citizens get them
and pray for me." Rafsanjani, who is richer by
far, replies, "I am going to throw out $1,000, and
let 100 citizens pray for me." Provoked by the
bravado of both men, the pilot mumbles, "I am
going to throw both of you out, and let 65 million
Iranians pray for me."
It is no wonder
that Iranians are not enthusiastic about voting
for the 28th parliamentary elections. Instead of
heading to the ballots, they are shopping for the
Iranian New Year (the March 20 holiday of Nowruz).
The reasons vary, including lack of
inspiring
candidates, along with lessons
learned - the hard way - being that the Iranian
Parliament (Majlis) cannot deliver real change in
Iranian society.
Most Iranians are young -
70% of them are below the age of 25, born after
the Islamic revolution of 1979. Slogans about
preserving or exporting the revolution are no
longer attractive. Typical politicized college
freshmen, for example, who are usually the
catalysts for voter turnout on election day, were
born in 1989 or 1990, 10 years after the
revolution.
These young people are
searching for ways to combat the 20% unemployment
rate in Iran and 22% inflation. Female
unemployment, as a result of increased religious
conservatism in society, stands at a staggering
21.2%. Another 31% of young men and women, aged
15-29, are unemployed. Within this range, 34% are
in the 15-19 age group and 16% in the 25-29 group.
Currently, 800,000 Iranian youths enter
the job market every year. This is very large when
compared with countries in the neighborhood, like
Syria, which welcomes 250,000 new job-seekers
every year. In 2005, one of Ahmadinejad's campaign
slogans was an additional "US$550 for every
citizen".
But the exact opposite happened;
oil prices tripled, but living conditions stayed
the same. According to Economy Minister Davoud
Danesh-Jaafari, foreign investment in Iran under
Ahmadinejad has reached $10.27 billion. He added
that Iran also had an impressive 6.7% economic
growth rate, and is aiming at revenue of $63
billion from oil money. None of that extra money
is streaming into state coffers, however,
materializing as more food on Iranian dinner
tables, or as more money in their pockets. The
candidates competing for the 290-seat Parliament,
however, have failed to attract these young
people.
In Iran, there are reformers,
conservatives and the really conservative. Those
running for office are the really conservative.
They have introduced a new term into political
discourse, "Principalism"; commitment to the
principles of the Islamic revolution. In January,
Mohammad Ali Jaafari, the commander-in-chief of
the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC -
currently numbered 10 million) referred to the
"Islamic government" in Iran, rather than the
"Islamic republic".
At first glance, the
two words may sound the same to a Western
audience. In reality, the new title (coming from
such a senior official) is noteworthy, says
Mustapha Tajzadeh, a senior official at the
Ministry of Interior, because "an Islamic
government is a regime that has no free elections,
free political parties, freedom of speech, or
freedom of the press ... a garrison thought
creates a garrison society".
Most people
simply no longer buy the rhetoric of someone like
Jaafari. The Iranian Parliament, in theory, can
draft legislation, approve or veto treaties and
budgets, and even dismiss the government or
impeach the president.
In practice, all
its work cannot pass into legislation unless
signed off by the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and
the 12-man Guardian Council. Running the "show"
and supervising the ballots on Friday are Mustapha
Poor-Muhammadai, the minister of interior who was
minister of intelligence under Rafsanjani, and his
political deputy, Alireza Afshar, an ex-commander
of the IRGC.
Both are conservative to the
bone. As if their presence is not enough, the
Iranian system has already disqualified over 2,000
reformist candidates wanting to run for office.
That poured cold water on anybody expecting real
change in these elections. Nearly 7,600 applied,
but only 4,500 qualified, something ex-president
Mohammed Khatami described as "catastrophic".
Surprisingly, even the hardline Jamhoori-e
Eslami newspaper spoke against the
disqualifications, saying they harm the Islamic
revolution, and Ahmad Tavakkoli, a prominent
conservative parliamentarian, wrote an open letter
to the Guardian Council advising it to change
course, saying, "A pagan government may last, but
an unjust government will not."
Reformers
are expected to win no more than 30 seats at best.
Surprisingly, even the highly charged student
community, which traditionally would be the first
to object to these disqualifications, was
relatively silent. This leaves the stage open for
conservatives and ultra-conservatives; men who
make Ahmadinejad look like a dove. All indicators
are expecting an ultra-conservative coup within
the political system, cementing the hold of
Khamenei.
On January 27, there was a
meeting of "giants" in Iranian politics; Khamenei,
Khatami, Rafsanjani and ex-Parliament speaker
Mehdi Karrubi. Khatami, Rafsanjani and Karrubi
pleaded the grand ayatollah to change course
vis-a-vis the disqualifications. Khamenei made a
public speech on February 8, saying, "Everybody
has to participate in the elections." He then
described Friday's elections as "one of the most
accurate in the world".
Then, suddenly,
after a hardline stance on the disqualifications,
Khamenei allowed 280 disqualified candidates to
re-enter the race. These included Eli Eshragi, the
grandson of the republic's founder, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini. Some voices simply refuse to be
silenced and are still hopeful that a Tehran
spring is in the air. Boycotting the elections
will only harm whatever hope people have for
change, say many Iranians. They site how in 2005,
nearly 11 million people boycotted the elections,
because of the disqualifications, and as a result,
Ahmadinejad was elected president.
What
makes things all the more worrying is the alliance
of conservatives preparing for the upcoming
presidential elections in 2009, spelling danger
for Iran.
Ali Larijani, who has his eyes
set on becoming the next speaker (after having
failed in the presidential elections of 2005),
feared that he would not win in Tehran and
therefore is running for Parliament from Qom. He
is teaming up with Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf, the
mayor of Tehran, and Mohsen Rezai, the
ex-commander of the IRGC.
Speaking to the
student agency last week, Larijani (who stepped
down as senior nuclear negotiator in 2007) noted
that there were "ideological differences" with
Ahmadinejad. Qalibaf, 46, is a former general and
commander of the Nasr Forces during the Iran-Iraq
war of the 1980s. A decorated war hero while still
in his early 20s, Qalibaf headed the IRGC in the
1990s, becoming chief of police in June 2000.
Among his memorable achievements is the
purging of the police force of all political
elements, particularly those opposed to the
Iranian revolution. This was done to ensure that
if rioting ever erupted, as was the case during
the Shah's era in 1979, and the army sided with
the demonstrators, then a loyal police force would
be there to maintain order. His reputation as a
hardliner was cemented in July 1999 when, along
with 24 IRGC members, he told Khatami that unless
the government intervened to suppress student
demonstrations in Tehran, he would take matters
into his own hands and crush them. Iranians view
him as pragmatic, ruthless and "very
conservative". He is also very unpopular, seen as
a little dictator.
The other conservative
heavyweight is Larijani. He was director of
Iranian Radio and Television in 1994-2004. Loathed
by many as much as Qalibaf, he succeeded Khatami
at the Islamic Culture and Guidance Ministry in
1992. Larijani was "impeached" from this position
at the ministry because he had too liberally
allowed the influx of foreign films and music into
Iran. To prove his merit, Larijani did the exact
opposite and was backed by his brother, Sadegh
Larijani, who is an influential member of the
Guardian Council. He is close to Khamenei and
serves as his representative at the National
Security Council.
Sami Moubayed is
a Syrian political analyst.
(Copyright
2008 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.
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