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An Iranian university exchange student protests election results outside Iran's embassy to Italy in Rome June 15, 2009. (Reuters Photo) |
After Ahmadinejad’s troubled presidency, the Iranian system proves its insistence on re-electing the hard-line former mayor of Tehran.
The results of the Iranian presidential elections have contradicted all the expectations; Ahmadinejad won 24 million votes (63 percent), Mirhossein Mousavi won 13 million votes (33 percent), Mehdi Karroubi won 300,000 votes only (less than 1 percent), and Mohsen Rezaei won 1.7 percent of votes.
Although Ahmadinejad’s landslide victory has come as a surprise for many observers, another shocking aspect of the election’s outcome was the number of votes Karroubi won. How can Mehdi Karroubi win 300,000 votes four years only after winning four million votes in Iran’s previous presidential election despite his successful campaign and the promises of support he has received from wide social groups?
These numbers have raised many questions and doubts about the transparency of the electoral process. Apart from the huge numbers of protestors in the streets of Tehran and the state of civil disobedience Iran is witnessing, how can 85 percent of voters choose an incumbent president? The turnout in the 1997 presidential election, which brought Khatami to power, was 79 percent. It is well known that a higher turnout means a desire for change. Also, it is important to know that a high turnout in Iranian elections usually brings the Reformists to power.
In 2004, Ahmadinejad won the elections in the second round because he failed to win the majority of votes in an election in which the turnout was 62 percent only.
The first tenure of the incumbent president was full of tension; his government pursued inconsistent economic policies; the parliament rejected his nominated oil and economy ministers several times; Ahamdinejad’s interior minister, Ali Kardan, was sacked for faking a law degree from Cambridge; an Iranian National Audit Office report revealed that the government did not return to the treasury more than a billion dollars of surplus oil revenues from the 2006-2007 budget; Ahmadinejad clashed several times with the scholars of Qom; Iran’s minorities, particularly Sunnis in Baluchistan, were oppressed; Ahmadinejad’s claim of seeing an aura of light surrounding him while giving his speech in the United Nations ignited much criticism among Iranian intellectuals, who argued that the ultra-orthodox president was trying to convince the masses that the occulted Imam supported him; and the status of Iranian women were in decline.
After all this, is it logical that the Iranian people go to the polls in millions to declare their unlimited support for Ahmadinejad?
Khamenei Meets Mousavi
| Throughout the past four years, Ahmadinejad has not been a good ally of Traditional Conservatives. |
Against the backdrop of the angry protests in the streets of Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei met with Mousavi and declared that he advised him to resort to legal methods to object to the election’s outcome and not to use violence. Also, the Basij, a volunteer-based paramilitary force that receive its orders from the Revolutionary Guards, announced their readiness to deal with any violation of the law by the supporters of Mousavi.
What happened has deepened the crisis of the Iranian system on the internal level. Even if the situation moved towards stability, and the unprecedented state of civil disobedience ended, how would the Iranian political scene would look like?
Another question that poses itself now is how Ahmadinejad has managed to acquire the absolute approval of the Supreme Leader despite his mistakes and his negligence towards the Traditional Conservatives.
Throughout the past four years, Ahmadinejad has not been a good ally of the Traditional Conservatives; he has deprived them of any ministerial positions, and has marginalized the role of the Islamic Revolution Devotees Society (Jamiyat-e Isargaran-e Inqilab-e Islami).
What saved Ahmadinejad’s allies from losing the last parliamentary elections for the Qalibaf-Larijani-Rezaei coalition was the hard-line president’s visit to Qom. However, soon after renewing his promises to the scholars of Qom, he wasted the second chance he had been given.
The supporters of the Conservatives were surprised by Larijani’s and Qalibaf’s abstention from running for president in the 2009 election; rather, many people urged them to register their candidacy, but they did not. Notably, there has been rumors going around about the intelligence apparatus threatening Qalibaf to release scandalous information about him.
It is possible that Ahmadinejad has struck preemptive blows to his competitors using the intelligence apparatus.
Muhammad Khatami, Iran’s former president, has abstained from running for president this time after visiting a number of governorates as a sign of his intention to take part in the presidential race. However, due to the advices of some of the Conservaties – who warned him of being assassinated by radical Reformists, Khatami withdrew his candidacy and Mousavi registered as a candidate.
Mousavi, who has been away from the political scene for 20 years, does not have any weakness points that the intelligence apparatus can use against him, and his wife, who was considered a weakness point by Ahmadinejad, turned out to be one of the reasons behind his popularity due to her brilliant performance during his campaigns.
Who Rules Iran?
| Ahmadinejad claims having a direct contact with the Occulted Imam. |
Yet, the question about who rules Iran still poses itself. Is the Supreme Leader the real kingmaker? Or does Ahmadinejad take the Leader unawares, giving him to chance to object to his actions?
Personally, I believe the second assumption is closer to reality, even if we are to admit that the Supreme Leader is in control. What proves this is the fact that Ahmadinejad’s actions have exceeded all what the Supreme Leader could possibly want.
For example, it is impossible that Khamenei desired to accuse Rafsanjani and his sons of corruption on TV, or that he wanted to talk about Iran’s need to get beyond Imam Khomeini’s thought and get into that of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi.
Also, Ahmadinejad has claimed having a direct contact with the Occulted Imam, a claim that the Supreme Leader has not made after 20 years of leading the Shiites of the world.
I think that Khamenei is unable to put a curb on Ahmadinejad’s actions anymore, and that he has no other option but supporting the incumbent president after the fall of the Traditional Conservatives leaderships, like Qalibaf, Larijani, and Welayaty.
Mousavi did not show enough obedience to Khamenei at the beginning of his campaign. He did not even visit him until people started asking why he had not gone to see the Supreme Leader.
Khamenei supports Ahmadinejad, but the latter is always ahead of the Supreme Leader in terms of actions, and he does not give him any chance of political maneuvering. In other words, the country’s most senior official did not have options other than backing Ahmadinejad.
Democracy in Iran
In case Ahmadinejad’s victory was approved, the concept of democracy in Iran would be endangered. Such a success would indicate the beginning of a new era in the history of the Islamic Republic, an era during which the political scene would be dominated by the Revolutionary Guards.
Since almost a year, the Iranian political arena has been stagnant because of the control of Ahmadinejad’s allies over all government institutions, and the dismissal of thousands of experienced managers and appointing retired Revolutionary Guards personnel instead of them.
Also, in parliament, in which the Traditional Conservatives and Ahmadinejad’s allies share power, the Traditional Conservatives used to attack Ahmadinejad harshly, sometimes with the help of the Reformist members.
Therefore, everyone has been waiting for the upcoming election, with the hope that it would change the status quo.
But it is expected that, in his second tenure, Ahmadinejad would retaliate against his contesters, particularly those who supported Mousavi, which will indicate the beginning of an era of political oppression. Notably, Ahmadinejad is well-known for dismissing ministers who argue with him.
A few hours after the Council of Guardians has declared its acceptance to recount the votes in the areas contested by the losing candidates, an important question poses itself: would not such a decision and the current situation lead to the demise of the credibility of the system?
Are we witnessing the early signs of the system’s collapse?
Historical experiences prove that governments’ oppressive measures fuel popular protest, and their quick retreat leads to revolution.
The Iranian system has chosen the difficult path: bringing Ahmadinejad to power again. Such a choice means either insisting on Ahmadinejad’s presidency, which will reveal what is behind the façade of democracy, or stopping supporting the incumbent president, which will lead to a wave of popular anger.
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