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The Roots of Iran's Election Crisis

Amin Saikal Available online: 28 Sep 2009

To cite this article: Amin Saikal (2009): The Roots of Iran's Election Crisis, Survival, 51:5, 91-104 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00396330903309873

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The Roots of Irans Election Crisis

Amin Saikal

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The Iranian leaderships handling of the dispute over the

June

presidential election, which the challenger, reformist Islamist Mir Hossein Mousavi, claimed was rigged in favour of the incumbent conservative Islamist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, not only bi erly alienated a sizeable proportion of the population; it also deeply split the ruling clerics. The government has lost the support of many ranking Islamist gures, whose continued backing is necessary to maintain its coherence and eectiveness. Its legitimacy has been eroded to the extent that it will now nd it increasingly dicult to cope with some of the daunting domestic and foreign-policy challenges it faces, including those arising from US President Barack Obamas call for improved relations with Iran in particular, and the Muslim world in general. If the Iranian government fails to modify its authoritarian Islamist mindset and power structure to claw back some, if not all, of its lost clerical and public support, the scene is set for a greater popular backlash in the long run. Just such a backlash propelled the mass revolution of , the overthrow of the Shahs pro-Western autocracy and the establishment of Islamic rule. The current turmoil, ostensibly sparked by the June election results, stems from a conuence of factors, including growing public discontent with the regimes theocratic behaviour, economic mismanagement and foreign-policy embarrassments, especially since Ahmadinejad became
Amin Saikal is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (the Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University, and author of The Rise and Fall of the Shah: Iran from Autocracy to Religious Rule (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009).
Survival | vol. 51 no. 5 | OctoberNovember 2009 | pp. 91104 DOI 10.1080/00396330903309873

 | Amin Saikal

president in Iran.

. These are symptomatic, however, of deeper structural

problems in the nature of the Islamic government that has evolved in

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Two-tiered sovereignty Irans political system was originally shaped by the Shia Islamic vision of its founder and the leader of the Iranian revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The countrys Islamic Constitution, adopted in October and amended ten years later, prescribes a two-tiered system of governance. On the one hand, it upholds the sovereignty of God embodied in the position of a supreme religious and political leader, which Khomeini called velayat-e faqih (rule of the jurist or philosopher-king). On the other hand, it enshrines the sovereignty of the people to ensure that the Islamic political system also rests on a pillar of popular legitimacy. A government composed of an elected president and National Assembly and an appointed judiciary provides for public participation and political contestation, and therefore an expression of the will of the people within an Islamic framework. The president and the National Assembly are elected through universal surage every four years, with the presidents tenure limited to two terms. The supreme leader is selected by the Assembly of Experts on the basis of an individuals qualities as the repository of Islamic knowledge and wisdom, justice and impartiality of the highest order.1 The Assembly, whose
members are popularly elected for eight-year terms from a government- screened list of candidates, is theoretically empowered to monitor the supreme leaders work and dismiss him when he fails to act in conformity with the precepts of Shia Islam and the constitution. The constitution vests the supreme leader with enormous above-thefray religious and political authority, enabling him to act as the ultimate arbiter in the Iranian polity, with a determining say in all important ma ers. He is responsible, in conjunction with a small body called the Guardian Council, for ensuring that all aairs of the state conform to Shia Islam and the constitution. The Guardian Council comprises members, half of whom are appointed by the supreme leader from amongst senior clerics,

The Roots of Irans Election Crisis |

the other half drawn from the ranks of non-clerical lawyers, elected by the parliament from a list of nominees provided by the judiciary, whose own head is appointed by the supreme leader. Initially, Khomeini lled the position of the supreme leader himself. But shortly before his death on June , he designated one of his middle-rank clerical protgs, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (who was serving as president at the time), to succeed him, an anointment the Assembly of Experts forDownloaded by [University of California, Berkeley] at 11:36 13 September 2011

mally endorsed. In the process, he dropped his earlier heir apparent, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, in whose loyalty Khomeini could no longer trust. One gure who played a crucial role in Khamaneis elevation was Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of Khomeinis trusted lieutenants and Khameneis close colleagues since the late Khamenei as president. All this reected Khomeinis two-pronged approach to Irans transformation from a pro-Western monarchy to a Shia Islamic republic, based on empowering what he called mostazan (the have-nots or dispossessed) against mostakberin (the haves or oppressors).2 One element of Khomeinis approach embodied a jihadi (combative) course of statebuilding, which Khomeini applied, especially in the early years of the Islamic Republic, to enforce a thorough re-Islamisation of politics and society and purge all opposition to his Islamic vision. Another element was ijtihadi (based on creative interpretation and application of Islam through independent human reasoning) to construct a strong modern Islamic Iran with a degree of domestic political pluralism and foreignpolicy exibility to make Iran palatable in a changing international order.3 Khomeini envisioned the divine and earthly tiers of the system to be in balance, and at the same time to be organically linked to and dependent on each other. His idea was to enforce a political order in which the divine position of the supreme leader would provide for over-arching continuity and stability, and the government beneath it would embody the will of the people within an Islamic frame, enabling the public to connect and identify with the system and popularise it. s. Rafsanjani was, at the time, speaker of the National Assembly (Majlis) and shortly thereafter was elected to replace

 | Amin Saikal

The clerics were by no means monolithic

Conservatives, reformists and pragmatists However, this religiouspolitical set-up within a jihadiijtihadi approach, with all its complexities and ambiguities, opened the necessary space for the new ruling clerical elite to go through a metamorphosis. The clerics were by no means monolithic nor fully united behind Khomeinis Islamic political vision from the beginning. A number of ranking ayatollahs and other clerics (some senior to Khomeini, such as Montazeri and Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, who died under house arrest in ), had already taken issue with Khomeini over the direction that he and his zealots were taking Iran. Whilst Khomeini and his core supporters managed to establish dominance in constructing the system and wielding most levers of power in the rst few years, from the mid s various factional clusters began to coalesce informally around some of Khomeinis followers who shared a common religious and social background but diered from Khomeini in their approach to various degrees. By , three very loosely bonded Islamist factions emerged on the scene: the conservative or revolutionary or jihadi; reformist or internationalist or ijtihadi; and amalgara or pragmatist or centralist. The conservative faction, which coalesced around such gures as Ali Khamenei and Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, argued for a patriarchal Islamic government; consolidation of the revolutions gains; preservation of a traditional style of life; promotion of self-suciency, with no dependence on the outside world; cultural purity; and social conformity. Its core members had dominated most of the states instruments of power from the early days of the Islamic regime in the context of Khomeinis combative approach and the IranIraq War. It was the strongest of the factions, nurtured by Khamenei up to the present day. The reformist cluster, which evolved around leaders such as Mehdi Karroubi and Mohammad Khatami, united in its support of a pluralist, democratic Islamic political system. Some of its leading gures, most importantly Khatami, argued for promotion of civil society, relaxation of political and social control, economic openness, cultural renaissance and more interaction with the outside world.4 They were inspired by such Iranian thinkers

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The Roots of Irans Election Crisis |

as Ali Shariati and later Abdul Karim Saroush, who blended Islamic with Enlightenment ideas to argue that there was no inherent tension between democracy and Islam, and therefore a modern Islamic society could be democratic. Some of the reformists leaders, who tended to be more realists than idealists, emphasised the importance of maintaining a balance of power in domestic politics. The pragmatist cluster, which coalesced around Hashemi Rafsanjani,
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stood between the conservative and reformist clusters, and organised itself within two parties: the Executives of Construction Party (Hezbe Kargozaran Sazandegi), which supported the reformists approach to culture, and the Justice and Development Party (Hezbe Etedal va Toseeh), which leaned towards the conservatives on cultural issues. The camp as a whole was motivated by the intellectual work of a number of economists, with a belief in economic modernisation from above, favouring technical and economic relations with the West, including the United States, but with no serious interest in the democratisation of politics. It has ip-opped on many issues, whenever opportune and desirable.5 Khomeini seemed quite comfortable with this degree of political diversity, so long as the factions remained loyal to and operated within his Islamic vision and refrained from public display of their frictions. Initially, the factions had no structural cohesion, and they all deferred to Khomeinis authority and judgement regarding important issues. Even when Khomeini had gone, the pragmatist and reformist clusters, whilst becoming more assertive in promoting their factional ideological solidity, refrained from acting in any way that might undermine the cohesion of the ruling elite or seriously challenge the dominance of the conservative core of the system. They remained conscious of the fact that their survival depended on the continuity of the regime and that their dierences in approach to Irans Islamic transformation had to take secondary importance. Until the election of Ahmadinejad to the presidency in , the factions generally operated interactively. The conservatives upheld the ideological purity of Khomeinis legacy whenever needed; the reformists sought to popularise and pluralise that legacy and make it acceptable in the international community; and the pragmatists straddled the two. There was almost

 | Amin Saikal

a routine uidity of movement between the factions, with some members changing factional allegiance quite frequently and leaders consulting closely when necessary to adopt coordinated positions on serious national issues or in the face of outside threats. They competed with one another only within the limits necessary to preserve the Islamic regime. It was against this backdrop that Rafsanjani was elected to the presidency in August
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for the rst of two terms, during which he pushed

for pragmatic changes in terms of relaxing some social controls, opening up the economy and showing exibility in foreign aairs, including helping to secure the release of Western hostages in Lebanon.6 His measures and methods did not cause much concern for Khamenei and his conservative supporters. In the same vein, when Mohammad Khatami from the reformist camp was elected in a landslide in in to succeed Rafsanjani, and again , he was careful to push his reformist agenda within the limits of

the system in ways that did not put him in direct confrontation with the conservatives. His reforms certainly focused on widening political pluralism and freedom of expression as well as diminishing Irans international isolation. But on the whole they were limited in scope and results, as he was careful not to go beyond a point that could lead to large-scale confrontation between his supporters and the dominant conservative forces.7 He repeatedly said that he wanted peaceful and educated transformation, not change that could come about as a result of bloodshed. This contributed to a precipitous decline in his popularity towards the end of his second term; he proved to be too cautious for many of those who had voted for him expecting he would bring about substantial changes. Khatamis decline helped propel Ahmadinejad to the presidency.8

Conservative triumph The election of Ahmadinejad tilted the balance substantially to the theocratic tier. For the rst time since Khomeinis death, the conservatives controlled all three organs of the government as well as the position of supreme leader and a host of coercive state instruments. The two bodies left outside the full control of the conservative cluster were the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, whose main function is to resolve dierences or con-

The Roots of Irans Election Crisis |

ict that may arise between the Guardian Council and Majlis, and to advise the supreme leader. Rafsanjani, who was defeated by Ahmadinejad in the presidential election, managed to take the helm of these two organs, which he has used to maintain and strengthen his position as a critical power broker in Iranian politics. Ahmadinejad presented himself as the true follower of Khomeini, and champion of the mostazan, embodying primarily the urban poor and rural
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dwellers (who may comprise a majority of Irans Using Irans vast oil revenue, which in

million population).9

alone amounted to over $

billion, he pursued a policy of wealth redistribution through such measures as salary and subsidy increases, cash hand-outs and pet projects to please this constituency, at the expense of policies that could promote national social and economic growth and development. And claiming that the United States and its allies, especially

Ahmadinejad focused on building Irans military power and nuclear presented programme, as well as maintaining support for Irans partners, including Syria, Lebanons Hizbullah, and fachimself as the tions in Iraq. true follower of The president worked in close concert with Khamenei in all these areas. Despite rumours of occasional tense Khomeini
Israel, were determined to destroy the Islamic regime, he
10 11

relations between the two, Ahmadinejad laboured quietly in subordination to Khamenei to expand and strengthen the dominance of the conservatives in all spheres of government activity, with a determined eort to marginalise or neutralise his factional opponents. The extent of the KhameneiAhmadinejad alliance raised the ire of the pragmatist and reformist camps, which also found Ahmadinejads unorthodox economic policies and combative foreign-policy approach problematic. In aged in , Irans ocial ination rate was . % (the real rate was probably %), with unemployment at similar levels, especially among those , who comprise over % of the population. Economic growth to . % the following year to . % around

declined precipitously from % in .12 From early

, some reformist and pragmatist leaders, most

importantly Rafsanjani and Montazeri, began to criticise Ahmadinejad over

 | Amin Saikal

the rising ination and unemployment, and accused him of foreign-policy embarrassments. Meanwhile, Iran was slapped with two rounds of United Nations sanctions over refusing to halt uranium enrichment, with a threat of more to come.13 As his factional opponents intensied their criticism, Ahmadinejad adopted a more authoritarian a itude, pursuing more populist measures and treating his critics with disdain.14 When Khamenei refrained from prompting
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the president to seek cross-factional solidarity, the pragmatist and reformist leaders found it necessary to unite not only to defeat Ahmadinejad in the election, but to try to restore some balance between the religious and temporal dimensions of the Islamic system. Rafsanjani, Montazeri, Khatami and a host of like-minded clerics threw their weight behind the reformist challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi. Under pressure from reformist colleagues, Khatami had earlier declared his own candidacy, but on the condition that if Mousavi decided to run he would pull out in order not to split the reformists votes. The reformists expected to win the election, if not in the rst round (which required a majority of the vote), then denitely in the second, run-o stage. This expectation was based largely on the extent of popular discontent with the conservatives rule, especially in the major towns and cities, and the growing demand from Iranian youth for political and social freedoms, be er quality of life, more jobs and more extensive interaction with the outside world. Against this backdrop, Mousavis election rallies drew huge crowds, with many young and middle-class voters. But the election results announced by the government shockingly confounded their expectations. Mousavi had not exactly been a liberal Islamist. He had been a committed follower of Khomeini and supporter of his Islamic system. During his tenure as prime minister for ve years under Khomeini during the war with Iraq, he had gained a reputation as a hardline Islamist manager. In recent years, he had led a quiet life, only to thrust himself (albeit reluctantly) on the political stage once again because, as he put it, of his growing concern for the Islamic regime and for the future of Iran under Ahmadinejad. Mousavis challenge was in many ways spontaneous, with no coherent organisational backing; it aimed not at changing the regime, but rather reforming it in an

The Roots of Irans Election Crisis |

Islamist direction that would strengthen its popular legitimacy and enable Iran to assume a more palatable place in world politics. Had he succeeded, he would certainly have been more nuanced than Ahmadinejad in the conduct of Irans aairs, but he would not necessarily have been able to deliver any more than Khatami had managed during his presidency. The conservatives would still have controlled most state power, with the ability to frustrate his agenda and keep him in line on major issues, most importantly Irans
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nuclear programme and support for various enemies of the status quo, particularly in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.
* * *

Whatever the truth about the June

election, Khameneis management

of the post-election situation has been poor. His immediate declaration of support for Ahmadinejads re-election as a blessing from God without waiting for the customary announcement of the election results by the Guardian Council, his uncompromising position towards the opposition, and his punitive handling of the mass protests by Mousavi supporters, have shown him to be no less an autocrat than the Shah. He has displayed a disposition to apply the coercive capacity of the state to silence people who have, like him and supporters, sought refuge in Islam to justify their position. Both sides have used the mo o Allahu Akbar (God is great): the government and its supporters to give religious cover to their suppression of the opposition; the la er to highlight their displeasure with the government. Iran is now highly polarised between those who want a conservative Islamist order and those who envision a liberal Islamist system. The split is not only at the level of the populace, but also among the ruling clerical elite. Mousavi and Khatami have sharply rebuked Ahmadinejads election as illegitimate;15 and Rafsanjani has berated the government for failing to recognise that large numbers of Iranians still doubted [the election] results, calling for the release of all those who have been jailed for protesting the outcome.16 These criticisms amount to a direct challenge to Khameneis authority, and signify that, now more than ever, there is a deep incongruity

 | Amin Saikal

between the sovereignty of God and sovereignty of people in the Iranian Islamic system, and thus between state and society. This is not to say that the regime is in imminent danger of collapse. It continues to enjoy the support of the coercive apparatus of the state, especially the Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij militia,17 whose commanders are appointed by the supreme leader and which are overwhelmingly manned by regime supporters. It also has millions of devotees among the urban poor
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and traditional rural population. It can thus do whatever is necessary to contain the opposition, even if this means eliminating many more than the dozens who have already been killed, and imprisoning many more than the large number who have already been incarcerated. The government has been quick to blame foreign powers (especially Britain and America) for instigating and fuelling the public protests, and to paint opposition leaders as agents of such powers (although Khamenei has lately backed away from this assertion). It has made extensive use of the Basij and Revolutionary Guard to suppress further public agitation and has put on trial a hundred leading opposition gures, including Mohammad Ali Abtahi (former reformist vice-president under Khatami), for failing to display reverence to the supreme leader and for pu ing earthly interests above that of the divinity. Karroubi has alleged that some protesters have been tortured, raped and even killed while in custody. It is also widely reported that false confessions were forcibly extracted from some detainees, most importantly Abtahi. Irans largest pro-reform group, the Association of Combatant Clerics, has condemned the trials of Abtahi and others as a ridiculous show ... aimed at demoralising political activists who are against election results and diverting public opinion from crimes commi ed against detainees.19 A group of former members of the Majlis has also denounced the crackdown and trials. According to various opposition websites, this unnamed group also sent a le er to Rafsanjani (in a direct rebuke to Khamenei) demanding that the Assembly of Experts launch a legal probe on the basis of Article of the Constitution into the behaviour of the supreme leader to see if he has

The government has been quick to blame foreign powers

The Roots of Irans Election Crisis |

become incapable of fullling his constitutional duties. The government denied the rape allegations, but admi ed that abuses have taken place. In return, one of the close allies of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts and leader of the Friday prayer in Tehran, has called for the prosecution of Karroubi for slandering the Islamic system.20 Serious dierences have also emerged within the ruling conservative
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core since the election. The supreme leader and several powerful elements around him have apparently decided that the time is now ripe to make watertight their hold on the system as a whole. Having supported Ahmadinejad in the election dispute, they now want to ensure he remains subordinate to their political wishes and worldview. This development has made the president uncomfortable. Shortly after the election he hinted at some changes in his approach. He promised to set up a more inclusive cabinet that could especially cater for the demands of youth and provide for be er quality of life for all. He appointed one of his relatively young and moderate allies, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaie, as vice-president. Khamenei and his core conservative supporters viewed this as contrary to their interests. Khamenei seized on a remark Mashaie had made in about Irans interest in friendly relations with all countries, including Israel, to insist that Ahmadinejad should rescind Mashaies appointment. The president initially resisted but, under enormous pressure, eventually relented. He made clear, however, that he was acting for constitutional reasons, rather than out of deference to the supreme leader. Moreover, eight days before he was sworn in for his new term on August he sacked two ministers believed to be close to the supreme leader.21 The regimes a empts to paper over internal dissent and suppress wider public unrest are only a temporary and supercial solution. The mass post- election protests have broken the clerics solidarity and the regimes myth of invincibility. The dam has burst; no amount of force and censorship will prevent the opposition from engaging in non-violent, disruptive activities and from combining modern digital communications and Iranian traditional practices to show their discontent. They have already caused trac jams, organised collective calls of Allahu Akbar from rooftops at night,

 | Amin Saikal

staged protests whenever opportune and propagated their message widely. The Iranian people have historically shown a air for such activities and for mass strikes, which contributed enormously to bringing down the Shah.22 The regimes present course will only destabilise it further from within and create pressure from without. Regardless of whether conservatives or reformers are in control, Khomeinis concept of a supreme leader as the embodiment of Gods sovereignty presiding over an elected government
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simply cannot work over the long run. The obvious remedy would be constitutional change to create a single-tier system of governance under a single elected leader. This will not, however, happen any time soon. Those in charge have too much vested in the current system to allow them to readily work towards structural reform, although there are signs that the leadership may change its ways to some extent in the interest of self-preservation. Ahmadinejad has hinted at this, but the question is how far the supreme leader is willing to go. In the meantime, the world may have li le choice but to sit back and watch, as uncomfortable as that may be.

Acknowledgements I wish to acknowledge the nancial assistance of an Australian Research Council Discovery grant in the preparation of this article. Notes
1

For Khomeinis thoughts on Islamic government, see Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeyni, Islamic Government (Springeld, VA: National Technological Information Service, ); Imam Khomeini, Islam and Revolution: Writings and Declarations, trans. and annotated by Hamid Algar (London: KPI, ), ch. . See Ervand Abrahmian, Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, ), pp. .

For details, see Amin Saikal, Islam and the West: Conict or Cooperation? (London: Palgrave, ), pp. . For a detailed discussion, see Mohammad Khatami, Islam, Dialogue and Civil Society (Canberra: Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Australian National University, ). Amin Saikal, The Rise and Fall of the Shah: Iran from Autocracy to Religious Rule (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, ), pp. xxvii xxviii; Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran:

The Roots of Irans Election Crisis |

Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (New York: Times Books, ), ch. . 6 For a detailed discussion of Rafsanjanis presidency, see Anoushiravan Ehteshami, After Khoemeini: The Iranian Second Republic (London: Routledge, ). 7 S.A. Arjomand, The Rise and Fall of President Khatami and the Reform Movement in Iran, Constellations, vol. , no. , , pp. . 8 For details, see Nikki R. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, ), ch. . 9 Christopher de Bellaigue, New Man in Iran, New York Review of Books, August , pp. . 10 For an evaluation of Ahmadinejads rst presidency, see Michael Axworthy, Iran Empire of the Mind: A History from Zoroaster to the Present Day (London: Penguin, ), ch. . 11 For a discussion of Ayatollah Ali Khameneis ultimate power and authority, see Karim Sajadpour, Reading Khamenei: The World View of Irans Most Powerful Leader (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, ). 12 Robert F. Worth, Economy Dominates Irans Presidential Race, New York Times, June . 13 On the nuclear issue and relations with the US and Israel, Ahmadinejad has very much echoed Khameneis views. Karim Sajadpour, Understanding Ayatollah Khamanei: The Leaders Thoughts on Israel, the

14

15

16 17

18

19

20 21 22

U.S., and the Nuclear Program, in Jerrold D. Green, Frederic Wehrey and Charles Wolf, Jr, Understanding Iran (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, ), pp. ; Shahram Chubin, Decision- making for National Security: The Nuclear Case, in Green et al., Understanding Iran, pp. . For assessments of Ahmadinejads rst presidency, see Ali Ansari, Iran Under Ahmadinejad, Adelphi Paper (Abingdon: Routledge for the IISS, ); Hamid Dabashi, Iran: A People Interrupted (New York: New Press, ), ch. . Michael Slackman and Nazil Fathi, Leading Clerics Defy Ayatollah on Disputed Iran Election, New York Times, July . BBC News, July . On Irans defence establishment and the expanding role of the Revolutionary Guard, see Anoushiravan Ehteshami, Irans Defence Establishment, in Green et al., Understanding Iran, pp. . Some Iran Detainees Tortured to Death: Karoubi, Reuters, August ; Robert F. Worth and Nazila Fathi, Iran Broadcasts Confessions by Opposition Figures on Trial, New York Times, August . Chibli Mallat, Prisoner of Opinion: Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Daily Star, August . BBC News, August . BBC News, August . See Saikal, The Rise and Fall of the Shah; Ali Ansari, Modern Iran Since : The Pahlavis and After (London: Longman, ).

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| Amin Saikal