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Iran

What U.S. commentators get wrong about Iran — and why Iran’s election matters

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Mark Dubowitz, the executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes in The Atlantic this morning that Iran has a ‘presidential selection,’ not a presidential election.Iran Flag Icon

That will come as some surprise to Iran’s 75 million citizens, many of whom have turned out today to participate in the first of what is likely to be two votes to determine who will succeed outgoing Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  Moreover, the ultimate winner of the election will pay a vital role in shaping policy for the struggling Iranian economy over the next four years and, more crucially for the United States, help determine the tone that Iran will take with respect to ongoing P5+1 negotiations over the future of Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Iran’s democracy is, shall we say, less than perfect from any objective standards of democracy — Western, Islamic or otherwise.

But Dubowitz is essentially arguing that the election has no consequences:

But Iranian voters know better. The election may indicate changes in the interfactional balance of power within the regime, and a victory by [Hassan] Rouhani or [Mohammad Baqer] Qalibaf may temper the tone of the regime’s nuclear intransigence, but there will be no change in substance. In the Islamic Republic of Iran, election in reality means selection. [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei will remain in charge.

But that Khamenei will remain in charge is a coals-to-Newcastle argument.  Today’s election is for president, not for Supreme Leader.

We may not like it, but the dual roles of the Supreme Leader and the Iranian president are part of the system of Iran’s government for over three decades.  You can, perhaps, think of the Supreme Leader as a strong head of state and the president as the head of government.  It’s perhaps easier to think of Iran’s president as akin to a prime minister — Iran had a prime minister in the 1980s, but the office ended in 1989, largely because of the overlap between the president and the prime minister.  It’s arguable that Iran’s president has more independence from the Supreme Leader than, in effect, French prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has from French president François Hollande.

Perhaps Iran’s is not the most representative system, but it’s more representative than the dictator-for-life model that Hosni Mubarak effected in Egypt for three decades with the full bipartisan support of U.S. policymakers.  It’s also more representative than the current system of selecting the leadership of the People’s Republic of China as well.

Dubowitz is right that there are many reasons to cast doubt on the role of the Guardian Council, a gatekeeper body comprised of 12 members, six appointed by the Supreme Leader and six by Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament.  Despite hundreds of hopeful presidential candidates, the Guardian Council approved just eight candidates to run in today’s election, though two have already dropped out.  The Guardian Council has never approved a woman to run for the presidency, and its dubious refusal to approve former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, a moderate seen as the best shot in 2013 for reformist-minded voters, calls into question the even-handedness of the Guardian Council.

It also refused to allow Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei to run, though many believe Mashaei’s campaign was a stalking-horse candidacy designed to provide Ahmadinejad a way to continue to influence policy despite a limit of two consecutive presidential terms.

Without doubt, these disqualifications (and Guardian Council interference in other minor elections, such as for Tehran’s city council, and in Iran’s parliamentary elections last year) call into question whether Iran’s odd style of democracy is as robust as it once was.  Remember that eight years ago, the relatively unknown Ahmadinejad leapt over many more experienced rivals into the presidency on a conservative and populist agenda, and 16 years ago, reformist dark-horse candidate Mohammed Khatami won the presidency in a landslide as well. Continue reading What U.S. commentators get wrong about Iran — and why Iran’s election matters →

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Voting wrapping up in Iran’s presidential election

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It’s only 10 a.m. on the U.S. east coast, but that means we’re approaching nighttime in Tehran — it’s now 6:30 p.m. and voters are finishing a day of voting to select a new president.Iran Flag Icon

All of the candidates, plus Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (pictured above), have cast their ballots in what is expected to be just the first round of the election.  With eight candidates originally approved to run by Iran’s Guardian Council and with six candidates remaining in the race today, it seems unlikely that any single candidate will win the 50%-plus support required to avoid a runoff of the top two vote-winners next Friday, June 21.

Polls showed that the most likely runoff would be between moderate cleric Hassan Rowhani, Iran’s former nuclear energy negotiator, and conservative ‘principlist’ Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, though I have argued that the race is so fluid that any of the top five candidates could wind up in the runoff, including current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati and the former head of the Revolutionary Guards Mohsen Rezai.

The winner will replace outgoing president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, himself the former mayor of Tehran, whose populist focus on economic issues swept him to power in 2005 and to reelection in 2009, though his relationship with the Supreme Leader has frayed in recent years and many of the current candidates have blamed him for Iran’s economic woes and the international sanctions and diplomatic isolation that Iran suffers today.

Despite initial disappointment at the Guardian Council’s refusal to permit former president Hashemi Rafsanjani to run, the race has turned out to be incredibly competitive, and the six candidates represent a relatively wide diversity, as far as Iranian elections go.  Candidates come from both the ‘founding’ generation of the 1979 revolution that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic and the younger generation that came of age during the brutal war with Iraq in the 1980s.  Candidates also come from both the principlist camps and the moderate/reformist camps.

Far from boycotting the race, Rafsanjani and former president Mohammed Khatami have urged voters to back Rowhani, and Khatami’s vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, dropped out the race earlier this week in favor of Rowhani, and former supporters of the 2009 presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi and the ‘Green movement’ are likely to back Rowhani as well.

I’ll have additional thoughts when the winner(s) of the race become clear.  In the meanwhile, you can follow all of my coverage of the Iranian election here.

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And then there were six: the dwindling Iranian presidential field

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It’s been a fast-paced 36 hours in Iran’s presidential election, with two of the eight approved candidates exiting of the race following Friday’s third and final presidential debate. Iran Flag Icon

Monday brought news that Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel would drop out of the election, reducing the number of conservative ‘principlists’ competing for votes in the first round of the June 14 presidential race.  Haddad-Adel, who served as the speaker of Iran’s Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majles) from 2004 to 2008, and whose daughter is married to the son of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, did not specify an endorsement for any particular candidate, though he previously belonged to the ‘2+1 Principlist’ coalition that included former longtime foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati and Tehran mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and his exit from the race will likely mean fewer votes spread among Velayati, Qalibaf and Iran’s current top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili (pictured above preparing for a recent presidential debate).

Today brings the news that Mohammad Reza Aref will also drop out in favor of moderate candidate Hassan Rowhani, which gives moderates and reformists a chance to unite behind one candidate.  Aref, who served as communications minister and vice president under former reformist president Mohammed Khatami, allegedly ended his presidential bid after Khatami asked him to step down.  Khatami has now endorsed Rowhani, who is seen as more of a moderate than a reformist.  Rowhani is very close to former Iranian president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was controversially disqualified in May to stand as a candidate in the current election by the Guardian Council.  It’s a development that wasn’t entirely unexpected, and to the extent reformists and moderates don’t boycott the election entirely, it is very good news for Rowhani, who can try to unite to reformist and moderate camps in the hours ahead of Friday’s vote.

So where does that leave the six-candidate field?  Realistically, it’s a five-man race.  Though he remains a candidate, it’s hard to believe that Mohammad Gharazi could win.  Although he served as Iran’s oil minister from 1981 to 1985 and as communications minister from 1985 to 1997, he’s a leftist in the mould of Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who served as prime minister in the 1980s before his resurrection as a reformist presidential candidate in 2009.  He’s run a campaign focused largely on economic management and controlling inflation.

The remaining five — three principlists, another independent conservative and a reformist/moderate — are not so much vying to win outright on Friday so much as vying to win one of two spots in a runoff that will be held on the following Friday, June 21 in the event that no candidate wins over 50%.  If that happens, as seems likely, there’s really no way to know who will emerge in the top two spots.  Though polling is not incredibly reliable in Iranian elections, a recent telephone poll by the U.S.-based IPOS indicates 57% of Iranians have not yet decided but, among those who have, Qalibaf has a wide lead of around 40% against the remaining four candidate essentially tied for second between around 10% and 20%.  That generally corresponds to other field polls, though Rowhani has led other similar polls.  Rowhani has led the lion’s share of unscientific online polls since the campaign began in earnest, but those are even less reliable indicators of true support.

So what are the chances for each of those five candidates?  Here’s a look at the pros and cons of each candidate, and how each would shape up in a potential runoff.  Continue reading And then there were six: the dwindling Iranian presidential field →

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What will Mohammed Khatami do?

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Despite the fact that many U.S. commentators have written off Iran’s upcoming presidential election as somewhat of a bore with the rejection of the candidacy of former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, there’s still plenty of intrigue.Iran Flag Icon

If the first step of the Iranian presidential election was the ‘pre-qualification’ phase, and we’re currently in the second phase, the third and final phase is likely to be the whittling down of the current eight remaining candidates to just one or two major conservative frontrunners (perhaps Iran’s nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili) and one moderate candidate.

Rafsanjani’s exit from the campaign doesn’t mean that reformists don’t have options, and one of the key questions is whether reformists (and moderates like Rafsanjani) will unite behind a single candidate and, if so, who they will support and how strongly they will support him.

No one is more central to that question that another former Iranian president, Mohammed Khatami, who succeeded Rafsanjani in 1997 as a surprising dark-horse presidential candidate.

Khatami is by far the most liberal of the four major presidents of Iran’s Islamic Republic — the conservative Ali Khamenei has been the country’s Supreme Leader since 1989, Rafsanjani has always been a middle-of-the-road, moderate conservative in Iranian politics, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been a stridently conservative president, even if he’s clashed with the Supreme Leader and even though he’s been more populist than his predecessors.

Although Ahmadinejad has, in some ways, proven more successful in clawing more power for the presidency, Khatami wasn’t wholly ineffective as president.  He oversaw a period of looser restrictions on freedoms in Iran, deeper engagement among Iranian civil society groups and, while U.S.-Iranian relations were not necessarily good during the Khatami era, he promoted what he called a ‘dialogue among civilizations’ between the Islamic Republic and the West.

Khatami, who openly supported Rafsanjani’s now-aborted presidential campaign, has been coy about his favorite among the eight remaining candidates.  For his part, Rafsanjani has also been quiet.

But there are essentially just two candidates that either Khatami or Rafsanjani are likely to support: Mohammed Reza Aref and Hassan Rowhani. Continue reading What will Mohammed Khatami do? →

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A look at the eight presidential candidates approved by Iran’s Guardian Council

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Provided that the Guardian Council’s decision stands and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani is not permitted to run for president in the June 14 election, who are the eight remaining candidates from which Iranian voters will choose? Iran Flag Icon

Despite the rejection of the candidacies of both Rafsanjani, the current chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, chief of staff to incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Guardian Council approved eight candidates that include both conservatives and liberals, including two figures who were part of the administration of reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

So if Rafsanjani and his supporters ultimately accept the outcome, the race won’t necessarily lack for drama or intensity.  With eight candidates in the race, at least initially, the election could well go to a runoff on June 21 if no candidate wins over 50% of the vote, though there’s reason to believe some of the candidates will fall aside as conservatives in particular unite around one or two candidates.

Without further ado, here’s a look at each of the eight approved candidates and their chances to become Iran’s next president. Continue reading A look at the eight presidential candidates approved by Iran’s Guardian Council →

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Rafsanjani, Mashaei both disqualified from running for Iranian presidency

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Iran’s Guardian Council has spoken — it has announced a list of eight presidential candidates for the June 14 election.Iran Flag Icon

As expected, the list doesn’t include Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, a key advisor and chief of staff to incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

But the list also doesn’t include Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the original leaders of post-revolution Iran and himself a former president from 1989 to 2007, chair of the Expediency Discernment Council, and a former presidential candidate in 2005 as well.  Rafsanjani’s rejection wasn’t exactly unexpected, but it  has the potential to make the 2013 presidential election already as politically explosive as the 2009 presidential election, when Ahmadinejad won a victory that supporters of his opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a former Iranian prime minister in the 1980s, who ran as a reformist candidate with the support of former reformist president Mohammad Khatami.

The Guardian Council is a 12-member council that vets presidential and parliamentary candidates and otherwise serves as Iran’s final constitutional interpretative body.  Its decisions are widely seen as a means of extending the interests of the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei (pictured above), given that half of its members are appointed by the Supreme Leader and the other half are appointed by the Iranian parliament, which is dominated by Khamenei’s conservative (or ‘principlist’) supporters.

While Rafsanjani himself wasn’t part of the ‘Green movement’ that challenged the election results, Rafsanjani gently chided Iran’s regime for its harsh and sometimes lethal crackdown, which included jailing many activists and journalists, curtailing freedom of assembly, speech and the press, and resulted in the house arrest of both Mousavi and another reformist presidential candidate, Mehdi Karroubi.  Although Rafsanjani lost the chairmanship in 2011 of the Assembly of Experts, he remained the chair of the Expediency Council.*

Rafsanjani, a sometimes-ally and sometimes-rival to Khamenei, dominated Iranian politics in the 1980s alongside Khamenei.  Rafsanjani was the speaker of Iran’s parliament when Khamenei was president.  When Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini died in 1989, the Assembly of Experts chose Khamenei to succeed him, but Rafsanjani quickly won the first of two terms as president, therefore extending their dual dominance of Iranian politics through the end of the 1990s.  Given that Rafsanjani is the most powerful politician in Iran after Khamenei, he would have had the credibility and legitimacy as Iran’s president to challenge the principle authority of the Supreme Leader.

There are essentially three potential outcomes from here:

Rafsanjani accepts the decision, reformists back another candidate.

Rafsanjani could simply accept the Guardian Council’s decision, call on his supporters to back another candidate, and the election will proceed without Rafsanjani.  Given his relatively cautious and conciliatory past, this may well be the most likely outcome, especially if Rafsanjani, Khatami, Mousavi and others rally around one of the remaining candidates approved by the Guardian Council, not all of whom are necessarily conservatives.  Although five of the eight candidates are ‘principlist’ conservatives who are clearly loyal to the Supreme Leader and unlikely to challenge Khamenei’s imperative, the Guardian Council approved Rafsanjani’s former communication minister, Mohammad Gharazi, as well as the chief nuclear negotiator during the Khatami administration, Hassan Rowhani.  The Guardian Council also approved Khatami’s former vice president, Mohammad Reza Aref, who will be the most pro-reform candidate of the eight.

Rafsanjani appeals for Khamenei’s intervention.

Rafsanjani could initially challenge the Guardian Council’s decision and call upon Khamenei to step in to allow his candidacy.  That’s not unprecedented — in 2005, Khamenei intervened to request the Guardian Council approve two reformist candidates that it had previously rejected.  If Rafsanjani does go to  Khamenei, and Khamenei ultimately assents to the request, it would allow Rafsanjani to run while also demonstrating in a very public way Khamenei’s dominance.  If the presidential drama plays out this way, it wouldn’t be surprising at all — Rafsanjani remains a candidate, but he’ll owe his candidacy to the goodwill of the Supreme Leader.

Rafsanjani’s supporters boycott the election — or take to the streets.

If Rafsanjani or his supporters don’t accept his rejection, however, it could become very difficult very quickly for Khamenei.  If reformers and moderates boycott the election, it would be a significant setback to a regime that hopes to turn the page from the 2009 election, its violent aftermath and the antics of the Ahmadinejad administration.  If Rafsanjani’s supporters take to the streets in a way that’s even vaguely reminiscent of the 2009 ‘Green movement,’ it would be difficult for Khamenei to effect another election-related crackdown, especially against Rafsanjani, who was one of the leading figures of the revolution’s first generation.  Khamenei lost credibility both in Iran and abroad with the 2009 crackdown, but to take on Rafsanjani would amount to nothing less than a street war between Iran’s two top revolutionary figures at a time when Iran’s economy and its position in the world hang precariously in the balance.  Continue reading Rafsanjani, Mashaei both disqualified from running for Iranian presidency →

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Iran awaits Guardian Council decision on Rafsanjani, other presidential contenders

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In less than 24 hours, Iranians will know who will be clear to run in next month’s presidential election, the first since the June 2009 race that led to the ‘Green Movement’ that attracted global attention.Iran Flag Icon

That’s because within Iranian democracy, the Guardian Council, a 12-member body of clerics and attorneys that advises the Supreme Leader on constitutional matters, also functions as a gatekeeper for presidential and parliamentary candidates in Iran.  In theory, the Guardian Council approves only those candidates who meet the criteria to run for the presidency.  In reality, it means that minor, independent, secular, liberal, and/or female candidates, or anyone who appears too radical a threat to the current system or simply deemed unacceptable by the Supreme Leader, can be excluded from the race.  It also means that the Guardian Council can shape the contours of the race by determining the number of relative conservatives and reformists.

As such, although 686 presidential candidates — including 30 women — have registered to run in the June 14 presidential race, just a handful are expected to be confirmed to run.  In the 2009 election, for example, the Guardian Council approved just four candidates out of 476 initial hopefuls; in the 2005 election, the Guardian Council approved just six candidates from among 1,014.

But the question on everyone’s mind is whether the Guardian Council will approve Hashemi Rafsanjani (pictured above), widely seen as the most powerful politician in Iran after the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.  Rafsanjani, who served previously as Iran’s president from 1989 to 1997, is as the current chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council, a 34-member body that mediates between the elected Iranian parliament and the Guardian Council.  He placed first in the first round of the 2005 presidential election, but ultimately lost widely in the runoff to the more conservative and populist Tehran mayor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  As Khamenei’s contemporary, Rafsanjani was a political rival in the 1980s when Khamenei was Iran’s president (before his 1989 elevation as Supreme Leader), and that makes him a potential president with the profile and support base to potentially challenge Khamenei as Supreme Leader.  On the other hand, Rafsanjani is someone Khamenei knows well, even if they’re not best friends, is somewhat of a consensus-builder, and would be unlikely to unleash the kind of erratic leadership that Ahmadinejad has embraced.

In light of the controversial aftermath of the 2009 election, during which ‘Green movement’ supporters of Mir-Hossein Mousavi took to the streets in opposition to the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad’s reelection, the regime’s crackdown left many reformists, journalists and others killed or in jail (Mousavi and others remain under house arrest even today).  As a result, many of the movement’s backers have settled upon Rafsanjani as their preferred candidate.  That includes former president Mohammad Khatami, who served as president from 1997 to 2005 as a strong advocate for liberalization in both domestic and foreign affairs, though he wasn’t necessarily effective at enacting reform.

Rafsanjani himself didn’t openly support the ‘Green movement’ in the wake of the 2009 election, but he made some remarks indicating, ever so gently, his preference for the right to open speech, free assembly, and greater press freedom, and his opposition to the harshness of the crackdown.  Though he’s certainly not as reformist as Mousavi and Khatami, he’s never been a full-throated conservative either, which makes him in many ways a great compromise choice in light of the post-2009 battles.  At age 78, he was Iran’s president at the end of the war with Iraq in the 1980s, so he’s far from the kind of fresh face who would push for rapid change.  But for all the reasons above, he’d start the race with the support of Iran’s reform movement and he has the personal platform to push through reforms that Khatami could not a decade ago.

But Rafsanjani’s disqualification, given his status as a former president, would be unprecedented in Iranian politics, and could well lead to the kind of widespread protests that followed the 2009 election. His opponents in the Guardian Council may well be looking to Rafsanjani’s advanced age as an excuse to disqualify him, according to Iranian new reports today:

Iran’s Guardian Council Spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei says the body may consider the physical condition of presidential hopefuls in its approval process. If an individual, who is supposed to carry out a macro executive task, can work for only a few hours a day, he cannot be approved, Kadkhodaei said in an interview with Iran’s Arabic-language al-Alam news network. The Guardian Council may take physical condition into consideration in its vetting of presidential hopefuls but no discussion has been held yet regarding the issue, he added.

Given that Khamenei is just five years younger than Rafsanjani, I’m not sure that’s such an incredibly useful precedent, and I’m not sure that it will ultimately be the reason for his disqualification, if it happens.

So what happens if Rafsanjani isn’t permitted to run?

Continue reading Iran awaits Guardian Council decision on Rafsanjani, other presidential contenders →

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Official Iranian parliament results

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Iranian officials announced the final results of last Friday’s parliamentary elections today, confirming weekend reports that conservative supporters of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have routed conservative supporters of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

With reformers and moderates largely boycotting the election, Iranian conservatives were left to contest the 290 seats in Iran’s National Consultative Assembly. With 65 seats yet to be determined in a second round in April, it appears that Ahmadinejad has been sidelined as a lame duck with just over a year to go in his second and final term as president — term limits prohibit Ahmadinejad from running in the 2013 election.  Even Parvin Ahmadinejad, the president’s sister, failed to secure a seat in the parliament from the city of Garmsar, the president’s hometown.   Continue reading Official Iranian parliament results →

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Iranian parliamentary elections: in the shadows of 2009 and 2013

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Iranaian voters went to the polls today in a parliamentary election that will determine who fills the 290 seats of the National Consultative Assembly of Iran.

Hooman Majd, the author of two books on Iranian political system and governance, The Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran and The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge, spoke with Al Jazeera’s The Stream yesterday (video above) to discuss the current state of internal Iranian politics.

In the aftermath of the 2009 presidential election, which was widely seen as rigged by incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, key leaders of the opposition, which came to be known as the “Green movement,” are boycotting today’s election, including former moderate president Mohammad Khatami, and many reformers — including presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi and moderate refomer Mehdi Karroubi — remain under house arrest.

Accordingly, given that fewer reformers were allowed to stand for legislative elections, with other Green movement leaders laced under house arrest or otherwise quieted, and with the remaining reformers simply boycotting today’s election, it is expected that various groups of conservatives will win decisively today and make further gains.  In particular, the election has pitted one group of pro-Ahmadinejad conservatives against another group of more anti-Ahmadinejad (and pro-Khamenei) conservatives, as described today in an editorial in The New York Times by Ardeshir Amir-Arjomand, a professor of international law and adviser to Mousavi, who declared today’s election a farce:

There are no genuine ideological differences between these factions; what motivates them is a lust for power and control of the country’s oil wealth. And they are competing in a polemical race to describe how they would “stamp out” what, in official spin, is labeled as the “remnants of the sedition” — officialese for Iran’s popular Green protest movement, which was brutally attacked three years ago but has nevertheless survived.     Continue reading Iranian parliamentary elections: in the shadows of 2009 and 2013 →