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Many Plan To Boycott June Elections In Iran

Angelique van Engelen - 5/23/2005

Rolling the names of Iran's current leaders over your tongue is a pleasurable exercise. But Khameini, Khatami, Rafsanjani don't only have names that fit the requirements of rhymes of various kinds at once, their politics have shown various amounts of relaxation per leader too. Yet it will be hard to break the mould shaped by the official Guardian Council that is orchestrating the upcoming June Presidential elections. Even if a moderate or a reformist becomes the new Iranian leader, he'll have to reckon with an assembly dominated by hardliners, a fact largely the result of pre selection by this Council, the country's supreme ruling authority.

Iran will hold Presidential elections June 17th and one fact that's pretty much established is that the country's political landscape is in desperate need of change that the ruling mullahs simply don't allow. The pyramid-shaped power structure in place ensures the continuation of hardliners' grip on the Iranian society regardless of who's going to be the figurehead at the top.

Judging the run up in the campaigns so far, the elections' outcome is likely going to amount to yet another impenetrable affair. Much to the despair both of the international world, which is increasingly on edge about the country's nuclear status, and the Iranian populace itself. Shortly before the Guardian Council's April deadline for submitting Presidential candidate names, as many as 1,010 people had put themselves forward. The Guardian Council, a 12-strong all male body made up of mostly hardline clerics and lawyers, reviews all bills passed by Parliament and vets all candidates in domestic elections. It pretty much also decides on everything else in Iranian politics.

Of the persons presenting themselves as candidates for the upcoming Iranian elections, 89 were women who, being 'second class citizens', were all duly banned without further investigation; 30 were teenagers; five elderly people of over 80 years of age as well as 126 other unemployed persons. Most of these candidates likely submitted their candidacy out of protest at the way things are going. A total of ten people were deemed eligible and they are likely to have been picked from different categories, including the clergy, which produced 22 candidates, physicians which also produced 22 candidates and scholars, of which 34 candidates presented themselves to the Council.

Hundreds of other candidates did not make the grade for the simple reason that they were too liberal for the Council's liking. The Council defends its woman unfriendly stance by reverting to the country's constitution, saying it stipulates the Presidential candidate must be elected from among political "rijal" -- an Arabic word that means literally "men", but which is clearly simply a term indicating a political personality regardless of gender. A childishness that is beyond the scope of standard Western comprehension, but which dictates the fate of millions of Iranians nevertheless.

The policymakers did not have this in mind likely when they entitled the election as 'fate making' day in a national televised appeal to come and vote. Which naturally brings to bear the issue that Iran's most pressed for in an international context; it's nuclear program. This topic hardly features in the elections, but the outcome and the way this Presidential election is going to be conducted could potentially influence the way the international world and the US in specific are going to judge Iran, should it be referred to the UN Security Council for continuing developing its nuclear fuel cycle by uranium enrichment.

Domestic issues are far more important to the policymakers. During last year's legislative elections, turnout was at historic lows as the Council's policies were seen by many to be unfair as well as an invalorous effort at rigging the vote. It remains to be seen just how the turnout will be at these Presidential elections, which end the Presidential tenure of the progressive Mohammad Khatami, who has ruled the country for two successive eras and can't stay on for a third term because the constitution does not allow this.

Nevertheless, should a repetition of the 1999 drama take place, in which Parliamentary election results evidencing an overwhelming popularity of reformists were effectively canceled by the conservatives, the country's leaders' action won't stand it in any good stead at a time they can afford it less than six years ago, from both a domestic and an international point of view. Whether this notion is understood within Iranian political circles, is questionable. If the anomaly between Iranian politics and the people it governs is anything to judge the quality of the leaders by, chances are that it's far from likely.

One of the ten Guardian Council approved candidates, the hardline policeman Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a self styled 'Reza Khan' (the old Monarch) but then of the Hizbollah type, so much as admits that he's not even got a manifesto; "I do not intend to present any program for running in the elections. In my view enough programs exist in the country … And I haven't particularly thought about the future government … God willing, after victory, I will give that a good thinking", the candidate was quoted as saying by the local press. Which is seen by the voters as a sign that things are pretty bad.

The electorate and the leading clergy have for the past years become alienated, to say the least. Any differences between leaders and their voters are most poignant in times of elections, yet the young population which is suffering from high frustration levels not least due to high unemployment, will likely have more than strong feelings in favor of forces that are opposed to all too conservative decisions. But there's no way for them to vent this at the elections.

Politicians that want to cater to the immediate needs of the population hardly dare to put forward their views. The fact that politicians are forced to compromise in order play the game right is becoming a thorn in the side of more and more people. The political moderates have to ride a fine line, not upsetting the conservatives to the point that they're barred from the arena and also not giving in to conservative mania too much, because they will be punished in the polls.

The Iranian electorate is likely to show signs of fatigue but can also be relied upon to display a kind of pragmatism that can turn against its favored policymakers even if no alternative is to be found. In past elections their voting patterns showed clearly that they thought the moderates manifestos were too watered down and deemed them unable to deliver on their promises of change.

Time will tell whether there's any more to this than pure despondency, something the incumbent rulers might fear. They carefully monitor turnout figures in the polls as an indicator of just how valid voters deem their rule. The Iran Press Service reports that a recent 'confidential survey' produced by the Intelligence Ministry showed that less than half of the interviewees said they would go to the polls. That's not surprising. There's a credible dissident movement proposing boycotting voting in the polls, which is more than evidencing the disgruntledness of voters. Its signals that people's patience is running out. Over 500 politicians and intellectuals recently gave their voice to the abstinence camp in a public statement. They said that since the 17 June election cannot be free and fair, they will abstain from voting.

It mirrors the exasperation in the wider society. In last year's legislative elections, some 2,000 potential candidates were turned down from standing by the Council, which was a drastic move to barring all reformers from the assembly. This was the reason for the low election turnout. Possible alternatives are cited by one Iranian writer for Revolutionaryflowerpotsociety.com: "[...] The Iranian people can take matters into their own hands once again, as they have done historically, and this time maintain it in their hands!" The most well organized proponents of democracy are college students, who in recent years have proven to be avid Khatami supporters and Mullah haters. They number around 1 million and are grouped into a few national unions, which have a strong history of revolution dissent, even though their leaning has changed in recent years.

Another activist, quoted by the Iran Press Service, indicates the Iranians are running out of patience: "[This time] people are expecting something to happen; something like in Ukraine and are encouraged in this feeling by the silence of leading opponents and dissidents of the regime, thinking that they know about things that they ignore."

Mystery is an established feature in Iran's politics. The Tuesday, 10 May decision by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to run in the elections, for instance, is hardly explained in terms that are immediately acceptable. Rather than being presented with transparent openness, the Iranians will have to do with speculation to understand the Rafsanjani decision, even if they have witnessed him in action on a daily basis. The decision by Rafsanjani, who says he's re running to fend for his country in the international world, has led to more political figures inside and outside called for a boycott of the race. A boycott is the Iranian way of saying no, since real opposition isn't allowed.

Should Rafsanjani - a bridge builder between hardliners and progressives- be able to return to a Presidential position after the polls, he's knows from experience what the ugliness is that gets dished out by hardliners. The popular Khatami was blocked on every occasion that he tried to promote democratization and greater openness, seeking to restore the balance between Islamic and civil democratic rule that had been the original stated aim of the 1979 revolution. He also set out to normalize Iran's relations with the West and curb rogue-state behavior. Tipped hardline candidates to the liking of ayatollah Ali Khameini -the most powerful man in Iranian politics- include the former commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaei, the top police commander Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and the mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as well as the former head of state radio and television Ali Larijani.

Despite the complaints by the Iranian population that elections are not free when the candidates are preselected by the ruling guard, there is a slight increase in the number of parties participating in the election from two to four this time around. In contrast to the May 1997 elections, when two wings where fighting, the race is now mostly between four parties: the Principalists and the so-called Coalition (of former Generals) on the far right; Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani in the centre; Iran's largest leftist reform party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front led by Mr. Mostafa Mo'in, the former Higher Education Minister, a close Khatami ally with Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Karroubi, the Speaker of the last Majles and, lastly, the Freedom Movement of Iran, a banned party led by Ebrahim Yazdi, a political dissident and former foreign minister.

Whoever wins the elections to become the next President, the second most powerful, yet hardly enviable, position in Iranian politics, is likely to shape the course of action in Iran's nuclear program, which the US says is getting frightfully close to or has already completed the creation of weapons of mass destruction. "The true tragedy is that the fate of the Iranian people is just as likely to be dictated by internationalist fascists and bullies such as Bush and Blair as by the local dictators we face at home", writes the dissident at revolutionaryflowerpotsociety.com. He might have a point saying that the real choices the Iranian electorate faces are those to do with whether and when the U.S or other countries will decide to militarily attack the country. The biggest irony is perhaps that the issue is largely absent from all the campaigns.