WASHINGTON (IslamOnline) - The Reformists in Iran have won the battle for votes with the conservatives. Now they have to fight to live up to the expectations of their voters and deliver on their campaign promises.
The Iranian voters have placed an overwhelming trust in the agenda of the Reformists, who secured 170 of the 290 seats in the Majlis in the first round of the elections. In the second election round to be held in April, 65 seats will be contested. Judging from the present trend, the Reformists may end up with around 70 percent of the Majlis seats. Their rivals, the Conservatives, managed to get 45 seats, or 16 percent of the total. In the outgoing Majlis, they held a comfortable majority.
The strength of the anti-conservative vote was so strong that the top runner of the conservative camp, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, barely managed to win a Tehran seat. Despite having some apparent support from the Reformist Second of Khordad Front (prominent Reformist Ghulam Hossein Karbaschi campaigned for him), the two-time president and two-time Majlis speaker received the lowest votes of the 30 candidates declared successful from Tehran.
His conservative links also caused the defeat of his daughter, Faezeh Rafsanjani, contesting on the pro-Reform Executives of Construction party's ticket. Faezeh had been at the forefront of the women's rights movement and was considered a strong candidate.
The mood of the people has changed even in such conservative bastions of support as the holy city of Qom and other places of theological learning. The conservatives lost all the three Qom seats to technocrats or university professors.
With an election turnout of 83 percent of eligible voters, the results are consistent with the demographic profile of the country. Sixty percent of the 58 million voters are under 20 years of age and have no firsthand experience with the Islamic Revolution; thus they lack emotional ties with the Revolution of 1979 and desire a more liberal society. In this they are unified with the greater women's vote bank, which wants greater representation in high public offices besides more personal freedom. And they all want jobs.
The very demographic advantage in the elections is also a liability. Some 30 million young people are about to enter the job market, which is suffering from an unemployment rate of about 30 percent. It should be noted that Iran is going through a population bulge, which is partly the result of the end of the war with Iraq; something on the line of the "baby boom" experienced by the Western countries after the Second World War. That boom has put more students in Iranian educational institutions, the breeding grounds for the Reform movement.
These are the two main constituencies of the Reformists, the ones that first ensured Ayatollah Mohammad Khatemi's election to the presidency in 1997 and now have given his Reform movement such a resounding success in the sixth Majlis elections.
Now the catch: The expectations of the youth and women have to be fulfilled. No easy task.
The Reformists have to fight on two fronts: Economic and political. Both are interlinked and have the capacity to undo the Reformist election victory.
Fifty-three percent of the Iranian population lives below the poverty line. Labor unrest is increasing, as workers in many state-owned enterprises have not been paid in months. Investments are insignificant. With 80 percent of exports comprising oil, low (until recently) international oil prices have further reduced national income.
The economy could be revived with international trade, but that is hampered due to U.S. sanctions. The economy could also benefit greatly from the release of $12 billion dollars worth of assets frozen by the United States after the revolution. Therefore, the reformists believe that a rapprochement with Washington would help turn the economy around.
The groundwork for rapprochement is in advanced stages. The Boston-based weekly newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, reported on 25 February that the Supreme Council for National Security, Iran's highest security body, secretly voted a few weeks ago to restore relationships with the United States. President Khatemi and Foreign Minister Karroubi have both been issuing conciliatory statements.
Addressing the Foreign Ministry on Friday, Khatemi said that Iran's foreign policy would "continue to pursue detente as a fundamental principle."
He elaborated this by saying, "Our policy is to eventually reduce the number of our enemies and the scale of hostilities against our country, and to increase the number of our friends and allies - whilst abiding by our principles, especially our sense of Islamic and Iranian honor."
Till now, the main obstacle to better relations was the United States, and not Iran. Khatemi appeared to be speaking in the context of U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's offer Thursday to hold direct talks with Iran about Iranian policies that concern the United States. Washington accuses Iran of supporting terrorism, opposing the Middle East peace process and stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.
However, relations with the "Great Satan" are a highly controversial issue and Reformists will not easily have their way. Ali Reza Nouri, tipped to be the next speaker of the Majlis, has called for a national referendum to decide whether to open a dialogue with the United States.
Rafsanjani, chairman of the Expediency Council, raised the barrier to reestablishing ties. He told a Friday prayers congregation, "The United States …must return to us what is rightfully ours and prove their goodwill if they want to have a dialogue with Tehran.'' This sets the return of the $12 billion Iranian assets as a pre-condition for a dialogue with the United States. The hard-line approach right after their election defeat demonstrates the will of the Conservatives to reassert themselves and to oppose Reform's acquisition of real power.
The real power is still held by the Conservatives. Reform's majority in the parliament does not mean that it can make laws according to its will.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, constitutionally the highest religious, political and military authority in Iran, still holds the power to block bills passed by the Majlis. He cannot however, dissolve the Majlis.
Moreover, the conservative-dominated Council of Guardians vets all bills to ensure they are compatible with the constitution and Islamic values. The council has 12 members, six appointed by the supreme leader and the other six nominated by the head of the judiciary and approved by parliament.
And the various cleric-controlled key institutions still exercise a supervisory role over the government. The parliament-backed government in Iran is thus constitutionally subservient to the conservative clerics. The Majlis is only one of the power centers and does not exercise full authority over its actions. It is not even the sole institution to make laws. Taking power from the clerics and asserting themselves will be a formidable task for the Reformists.
If the Conservatives feel that they are about to lose power, they might create a constitutional crisis by blocking Majlis legislative bills and any moves to reform the body politic of Iran.
There are fears that some hard-line Conservatives may even try violent means to do so. In election speeches, a number of Conservative clerics used violent language against the Reformists, encouraging their supporters to act violently against those who tried to deviate from the Islamic Revolution's ideals. A few weeks ago, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards warned that pro-Western elements were trying to seize the Iranian parliament by "a quiet coup d'etat."
However, it is not in the interests of either the Conservatives or the Reformists to have a confrontation that may throw Iran into civil war and open the possibility of the intervention of a third force, the hitherto neutral Iranian armed forces.
If both the camps are agreed on not bringing the political situation to that pass then they will have to live with each other through compromises and concessions. This could also mean that the over-committed Reform will not be able to live up to the expectations of its supporters.
