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The recent elections
for Iran's 290-seat parliament may have been a
crafted "farce" judging alone by the mass
disqualification of reformist candidates (and many
of Ahmadinejad's supporters). But while they are
unlikely to impact Iranian foreign policy, they
represent yet another bellwether for the mounting
anxieties faced by the regime and its enigmatic
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Firstly, the electoral majority secured in
round one by the shifting alliance of
conservative-principlists and
ultraconservatives
translates into an exercise in
regime discipline and defiance. This comes at a
particularly sensitive time when Iranian
isolation, international sanctions and all that
"loose talk of war" are reaching a critical
juncture owing to Iran's alleged nuclear program.
And because of the semblance of legitimacy it
confers, turnout - in this case 64.2% of the
roughly 48 million eligible voters, triumphantly
reported by Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad
Najjar - proved just as crucial as the votes cast.
Secondly, overshadowed by months of
high-profile tensions between President Mahmud
Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Khamenei, these
elections embodied the struggle for the Islamic
Revolution in its current iteration, under the
rule of the supreme leader. On the surface,
Ahmadinejad has been in Khamenei's bad books ever
since his unsuccessful attempt at firing
Intelligence Minister Heydar Moslehi last April.
The president's growing political influence and
maneuvering is also viewed askance by some within
the elite. Yet deeper down, it was Ahmadinejad and
his associates' claims of direct communion with
the Hidden Twelfth Imam that crossed Khamenei's
red line, prompting even Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi
Mesbah-e Yazdi, Ahmadinejad's erstwhile Messianist
mentor, to disassociate himself from "the deviant
current" so reminiscent of the Hojjatieh Society
that Khomeini sought to eradicate in the 1980s.
The uniquely Iranian narrative of
Velayat-e Faghih posits the jurisconsult (the
supreme leader) as the divinely-appointed mediator
between imam and ummat. To be sure, this doctrine,
or at least its politically absolutist version,
lacks recognition by the Shi'ite mainstream
outside of Iran, including Najaf-based Grand
Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani who is widely considered
Twelver Shi'ism's highest living authority.
Nonetheless, these claims by Ahmadinejad, his
chief-of-staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei and their
associates concerning a backchannel with the imam
have come to be regarded as a direct challenge to
Khamenei's divine appointment, and therefore more
nefarious than earlier "deviations" including the
reformists and the Bahais.
During a speech
last October, Khamenei also hinted at removing the
presidency and reinstating the parliamentary
system. Since 1989, Iran's chief executives have
been elected by direct popular vote despite an
existing representational parliament, and many
blame this hybrid system for its dysfunctional
governments, let alone fraught relations between
the president and the supreme leader. In addition,
Ahmadinejad has been summoned for parliamentary
questioning for his economic mismanagement and
dispute with Khamenei, among other charges, an
unprecedented development in the Islamic
Republic's 33 years.
Thirdly and more
significantly, the results of these elections may
bespeak Ayatollah Khamenei's own growing
insecurities. For over two decades, Iran's second
supreme leader officially sought to transcend the
fray, making it a matter of personal imperative to
balance the competing factional and institutional
interests. After all, it was Khamenei who famously
quipped that conservatives and reformists
functioned as "both wings of a bird".
However, his increased meddling in favor
of regime hardliners (most prominently in 2005 and
2009), either in thinly-veiled statements of
support or through the Guardian Council's vetting
apparatus, signal a departure from years of
carefully cultivated impartiality and the source
of his broad if tacit support base. Either he
feels sufficiently impregnable, which is unlikely
following the "trauma" of the reformist era
(1997-2005) and Ahmadinejad's recent Mahdist
pronouncements, or that his political fortunes are
at stake.
Khamenei's position is indeed
increasingly tenuous. If his overnight promotion
from the mid-level Hojjatol-Eslam to Ayatollah
following Khomeini's death in 1989 only
underscored the lacking erudition and clerical
qualifications hitherto required of Vali-ye Faghih
(Iran's leading Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali
Montazeri, who died in 2009, called him
"unqualified and illegitimate"), his recent and
controversial shift to "imam" (and therefore
infallible) status among his supporters suggests a
sharpening crisis of spiritual and temporal
authority.
But Khamenei foresaw this
moment. In order to compensate for this, he
invested heavily in relations with the security
establishment and especially the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its lumpen
Basij militia. According to Karim Sadjadpour, it
was precisely his revolutionary rather than
clerical credentials that influenced this choice.
Yet the IRGC is also a double-edged sword
given that it has evolved into a
multi-billion-dollar economic juggernaut which
interests largely depend on Khamenei's sustained
ability to provide. While he regularly rotates its
leadership, Khamenei still treads a fine line by
allowing the IRGC to insinuate itself into key
political positions (indeed, a Wikileak cable
claims that Ahmadinejad was slapped in the face by
an IRGC commander when he dared raise the specter
of popular discontent in Iran). How Iran's economy
reacts to the sanctions could grant the IRGC still
greater leverage over the Supreme Leader.
And then there is of course the perennial
question of succession. While Khamenei is still
relatively youthful at 73, rumors abound of him
suffering from some form of cancer ("terminal
leukemia", according to another Wikileaks cable;
prostate cancer, according to other sources).
Although a successor has yet to be named, the
closest candidate so far appears to be Ayatollah
Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, the Iraqi-born former
chief justice who was appointed to head the
recently formed "Supreme Board of Arbitration".
Many see this as Khamenei further marginalizing
his chief rival, current chairman of the
Expediency Council (to which the task of
arbitration originally belonged) and former
president, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani,
shortly after the latter lost his position as head
of the powerful Assembly of Experts. If Khamenei's
dynastic impulse prevails, his second son Mojtaba
could be another candidate.
Having
concentrated so much power in his person rather
than in the institution he represents, and short
of a dramatic change in domestic politics, the
next supreme leader will likely be characterized
by a mix of strong personal interests and
considerable dependence on the IRGC.
In
the meantime, Khamenei's chief challenge would
simply be to preserve the status quo and his
influence-patronage networks. This latter of
course begins with the individuals heading the key
institutions, including the next presidency in
2013. However, if unchecked, growing elite
factionalization and narrowing interests under his
watch could make it much more difficult for the
Supreme Leader to retain both control and
legitimacy in the longer run.
So while
Ahmadinejad may be "politically spent" to quote
Tehran-based Professor Davoud Hermidas-Bavand, the
2012 parliamentary elections are arguably more
indicative of Khamenei's own anxieties and
therefore reflected in regime behavior. How he
balances both "Islamic" and "Republic" will
ultimately decide not only his own political
future but that of Iran's ailing Revolution.
Kevjn Lim is an independent
writer and associate analyst with Open Briefing:
the Civil Society Intelligence Agency
(Copyright 2012 Kevjn Lim)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please
click hereif you are interested in
contributing.
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