IRAN VOTES A new political space opens
By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
"By holding approximately 30 free and popular elections in less than 30 years
and in difficult circumstances, the Islamic Republic has shown that it is the
most dedicated system of popular sovereignty in the new world."
Iran's spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
With 25 million Iranians casting their votes on Friday in the first round of
parliamentary elections in Iran, featuring some 4,225 candidates representing
various hardline, centrist, reformist and independent points of view, Western
criticism of the process as purely "cooked" or "orchestrated" or even
"predetermined", are vastly exaggerated, overlooking the competitive and
pluralistic sides warranting serious attention.
The various shortcomings of Iran's elections for the 8th Parliament (Majlis),
such as the pathetically short duration of merely one
week for political campaigning, [1] should not cloud the fact that on the
whole, the Iranian political space has expanded and a new qualitative depth to
the democratic process can be discerned by merely looking at the makeup of
successful candidates.
Initial reports indicate that the two factions known as osoolgarayan "principalists"
have gained a solid majority of 71% of the votes for the 290 seats in the
Majlis, but the two lists of reformists, as well as independents, have also
gained seats. This portends a more pluralistic assembly (than the previous one)
and, thus, reflects a qualitative deepening of the democratic process.
Already, the reformist camp, which a mere month ago was bitterly complaining of
unfair disqualification of many of its candidates, is now branding the results
as a mini-victory, having secured, at a minimum, 50 or so seats in the next
Majlis, including six or more from Tehran.
While we await the final official results, and at the moment there are
conflicting reports about the exact outcome, it is already clear that the
reformists have ended up with a bulkier minority presence, up from their 40
seats in the 7th Majlis, partly because "a solid majority of 39 or so
independents who have won seats are pro-reform", to paraphrase a Tehran
University political scientist.
According to Mehr news agency, the (pro-President Mahmud Ahmadinejad) "United
Principalists Front" has won 88 seats and 27 of its candidates are competing in
the second round, the "Broad Principalists Coalition", that is, the other
"conservative" faction, has won 75 seats and 27 of its candidates have made it
to the run-off, the "coalition of reformists" (who are supporters of former
president Mohammed Khatami) have won 23 seats and 10 of their candidates are in
the second round, while the other reformist group, Etemad-e Meli, has won 17
seats and 11 of its candidates are competing in the next round. Forty-seven
winners of the first round are identified as "independent" by this news agency,
although the conservative daily Kayhan gives a much lower estimate while
another source, www.rajanews.com, gives a higher figure regarding the
independents.
Per a report in Kayhan daily, elections in 42 voting districts have been
inconclusive and out of the 290 Majlis seats, only 204 seats have been
conclusively determined, the rest to be determined in the second round - when
the two factions of "principalists" will compete with each other over 13 seats.
The issue now is how these two factions will relate to each other in the 8th
Majlis, and on this many Tehran analysts are hedging their bets on a more
critical attitude toward the Ahmadinejad administration; if true, this would
mean a minor setback for Ahmadinejad as a result of this election.
A number of Iranian analysts have also predicted a moderating influence by the
next Majlis on foreign policy issues, perhaps even the nuclear issue, given the
blistering criticisms of the government's rhetoric by some leading clergy, who
hope that the new Majlis will exert pressure on Ahmadinejad to show more
flexibility on the issue of nuclear negotiations.
Already, former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has gone public by
calling for "negotiation without preconditions" and this may resonate with the
deputies filling the Majlis committees dealing with foreign and security
issues. However, this does not mean the government has closed the doors to
nuclear negotiations and the Foreign Ministry has flatly rejected the
allegation that it is not prepared for more negotiations.
At the same time, how the Majlis elections will impact next year's presidential
elections is an open question that depends on several variables, for example,
whether or not potential presidential candidates such as Ali Larijani, the
former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, who opted to run
from the holy city of Qom instead of Tehran, will be able to shine as an
effective lawmaker. Larijani's legislative coalition-building will be his dress
rehearsal for the presidential race and this is a new challenge that he must
meet before he can challenge Ahmadinejad come next summer.
Contrary to some erroneous outside reports, it is far from certain that Supreme
Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will favor Larijani, or for that matter Mohammad
Bagher Ghalibaf, the current mayor of Tehran, over Ahmadinejad, who received a
much-needed blessing of the leader on the nuclear issue recently. Also, it is
worth remembering that Khamenei did not oppose Ahmadinejad's shuffling the
nuclear deck by replacing the more flexible Larijani with his close confidant,
Saeed Jalili.
A word of caution here, and that has to do with the purported leader-centric
tendencies of Iran's political reality as painted by certain Western analysts,
who give a false image of the electoral process as a Khamenei-led
"orchestration" pure and simple. This loses sight of the dynamic political
competition and the multiple sources of input in the election process that are
not inferable from any single variable.
This aside, US Vice President Dick Cheney has begun a tour of the region,
focusing on the Iran threat, which in the wake of the recent resignation of
Admiral William Fallon, the man in charge of the US's Middle East and Afghan
wars, is emblematic of the continuing US-Iran standoff, with the military
threat seemingly once again rejuvenated after a temporary hiatus.
This alone adds to the (in)security perceptions in Iran, favoring the
hardliners who counsel a tough stance with regard to the Western superpower
that preaches multilateralism and soft (smart) power and yet continues to rely
disproportionately on weapons of hard power.
Consequently, between now and the second round of Iran elections a few weeks
from now, with the specter of conflict between Iran and the US casting a larger
shadow than before the elections, the political fortunes of Iran's
"principalists" may actually increase, to the detriment of reformists, some of
whom favor rapprochement with the US. Surely, if the US's intention is to help
Iran's "democratization", the present ominous signs of new US anti-Iran
belligerency serve the opposite purpose.
Note
1. Dr Gholamali Rajaii, writing in the website, www.tabnak.ir, has rightly
posed the question: "How can a representative in a big city like Tehran within
less than a week appear in different locations and speak with the people?"
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) and co-author of
"Negotiating Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World Affairs, Volume
XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping
Iran's nuclear potential latent", Harvard International Review, and is author
of
Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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