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President:
Patrick Belton
Director of Studies:
Robert Kokta
National Director:
Justin Abold
Vice President:
John Ciorciari
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Iranian Elections: Post-Mortem
Patrick Belton, for the Democracy Program
This inaugural briefing by Patrick Belton reviews developments in
Iran after the February 20th elections.
This is the first in a weekly series of democracy briefing papers
prepared in our democracy studies program, which has a website at http://www.foreignpolicysociety.org/democracy.htm.
TOP TOPICS
- Analysts report that
Ayatollah Khamenei has emerged from his nation's elections with more
power but less authority. That the basis on which Khamenei's power
rests is growing narrower, even as last week's elections removed the
parliament and presidency as sources of opposition, is indicated by the
disqualification of the candidacy of firebrand Behzad Nabavi, along with
those of several heroes of the Iran-Iraq war - all of whom are now all
considered beyond the pale of the Ayatollah's narrowed constituency.
Notably, even Hizbullah founding member Ali Akbar Mohtashami refused to
stand for election, declaring the electoral process undemocratic and
corrupt.
- In protest to the
disqualification of the 2,400 reformist candidates, abstention from
voting was widespread. Nobel laureate Shirin
Ebadi abstained from voting in protest. Columnist Michael
Ledeen reports an average turnout of twelve percent, with Tehran's
slightly lower, and Isfahan's and Qom's (the latter the headquarters of
the Shi'a religious establishment) closer to five percent. Writes
Ledeen, "The only major city with a substantially higher turnout was
Kerman, due to a local factor: A widely hated hardliner was running, and
many people judged it more important to demonstrate their contempt for
him personally by voting for others."
- After the election
results, democracy advocates are considering mounting
a massive campaign of passive civil disobedience. Many argue that
Khatami's gradualist reform agenda had failed to produce change, and
they would not have supported him in elections even without the Guardian
Council's disqualification of reformist candidates.
- Speculation after the
elections has rested on who Khameini will appoint to succeed President
Khatami as president when his term ends later this year. The more
pragmatic of the conservative factions are putting forward National
Security Council secretary Hassan Rohani, while the more hardline
faction is favoring Ali
Larijani, the head of Iranian media and a leading figure
in the suppression of reformist views in the media, known principally
for his aired "confessions" of political prisoners and
broadcasts into Iraq encouraging opposition to the American presence.
- During the two nights
of Ashoura, pro-democracy protesters held demonstrations to use the
religious holiday to criticize the lack of democracy in the Iranian
government, according to the Iranian
students. Prominent young film director Ardeshir
Afshinzadeh died from wounds inflicted during torture following his
participation in the Ashoura protests.
Other
topics today include: How bad was it?; the U.S.
response; Iran and the U.S. presidential election;
crackdown on Iranian bloggers; responses of Iranian students and other
democratic advocates, and their plans for a way forward.
HOW BAD WAS IT?
- Conservatives loyal
to Iran's Islamic leaders took 149 seats in the 290-seat parliament. Reformers
and independents held only 65 seats. In February, the Guardian Council
-- with its blanket political veto on candidates and laws which it
judges to be contrary to the principles of the Islamic revolution --
ruled on barring 4,000 reformist parliamentary candidates, including the
president's own brother and 80 members of Parliament. Half were then
overturned, by a plea from Ayatollah Khamenei, who was speculated to be
seeking legitimacy for the clerical institutions of government.
Immediately before the election, two reform-leaning newspapers were shut
down for running a letter of protest which questioned the clerical role
in the Iranian government.
THE US RESPONSE
- The White House
released a strongly worded, highly
condemnatory response: "I am very disappointed in the recently
disputed parliamentary elections in Iran. The disqualification of some
2,400 candidates by the unelected Guardian Council deprived many Iranians
of the opportunity to freely choose their representatives. I join many
in Iran and around the world in condemning the Iranian regime's efforts
to stifle freedom of speech -- including the closing of two leading
reformist newspapers -- in the run-up to the election. Such measures
undermine the rule of law and are clear attempts to deny the Iranian
people's desire to freely choose their leaders."
- At lower levels of
the federal government, AEI Iran expert Reuel
Marc Gerecht reports "a sense in certain quarters" that
Rafsanjani and Khamenei "may play a very rough game
domestically--Hezbollah thugs beat dissidents, "rogue"
intelligence agents knife and run down liberal intellectuals, the
judiciary jails any dangerous political opposition figure too prominent
to off, and the Council of Guardians preemptively disqualifies
troublemakers from office--but externally they are... responsible,
rational actors who are principally motivated by geopolitics and
economics (and, in the case of Rafsanjani, lucre). They are, in other
words, real men, not distracted by all the leftist intellectual debates
that consumed so many on the Khatami side of the political house."
- The Democratic
foreign policy establishment is calling for a conciliatory, realist
approach to Iran. Writes Sandy Berger in the International
Herald Tribune, "Washington should publicly offer to normalize
relations with Iran - including a commitment not to change its
government by force - and help it integrate into the global economy,
provided that Iran gives up, definitively and verifiably, its weapons of
mass destruction programs and ties to terrorist organizations."
IRAN AND THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
- Senator Kerry
continues to call for normalization of ties with the Iranian regime.
Reporters identify
Kerry's fundraiser Hassan Nemaze, a longtime proponent of closer ties
with Iran, as an influence of many of his campaign's statements.
- The Iranian students condemned
Kerry, arguing that his current position would result in an
abandonment of all U.S. support for the cause of
democracy in Iran.
OTHER RELATED EVENTS IN IRAN
- Along with the
crackdown on print media, one is underway on Iranian bloggers - see BBC (and see also WiredÕs
story on Iranian bloggers from last May).
- There has been
widespread consensus that last week's election results mark the end of
the gradualist reform movement associated with Khatami. Leading
dissident Hashim
Aghageri has declared that Iran's reform movement is finished.
Similarly, commentator Reza Bayegan writes "At the beginning of
Mohammad Khatami's presidency, even many of those Iranians who were
sympathetic to the Islamic Revolution privately felt reform was the
regime's last chance. They argued that either Khatami would succeed in
transforming the religious state into a democracy, or his presidency
would be remembered as the final nail in the coffin of the Islamic
republic. Unsurprisingly, a term and a half into his presidential
mandate, Khatami is looking increasingly like an undertaker. His public
credibility has all but vanished and the political movement that became
synonymous with his name lies in tatters."
- The student democracy
protesters are of mixed feelings with regard to the Khatami party's
downfall, having never accepted their reformist credentials in the first
place. Psuedonymous Iranian student Koorosh
Afshar writes: "Nearly four years ago, when we, the Iranian students,
started the first phase of our new dissident movement, the so-called
reformers (i.e., the pro-Khatami types) never staged "sit-ins"
to support us. Vigilantes, revolutionary guards, and the Islamic
republic's riot police were assailing us from every corner, as the
reformers seemed to turn a blind eye to our struggle. Only when their
own interests were on the line did the reformers stage sit-ins and
resign.É You will have to excuse us Iranians for our lack of sympathy
for these so-called reformers: Just ask yourself, as we ask ourselves,
where they were while Iranian youths were being beaten, tortured,
abducted, maimed, and deprived of their legitimate rights to continue
their university studies. "
- Nobel laureate Shirin
Ebadi, testifying before committees of the European Parliament, decried
the Iranian government's disqualification of thousands of parliamentary
candidates as being contrary to Iran's commitments under the Charter of
Human Rights. She called for an EU report on
Iran, but rejected financial assistance for reformists, saying
"Don't give us financial help because we'll be accused of being
spies! We need your spiritual aid but not your financial help."
Posted at March 5, 2004 09:04 P.M.
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