Shaul Bakhash's Blog
Part IV - Pivotal Election: The Issues
Shaul Bakhash
His position reflected the recent call by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (left) for “an economy of resistance” that preaches defiance of sanctions imposed by the outside world. In January, Khamenei endorsed a plan from the Expediency Council for self-sufficiency in defense, security, industry and agriculture.
Polls indicate that most Iranians believe the Islamic Republic has a right to enrich uranium for its nuclear energy program. But many Iranians also want to end the standoff with the international community that has devastated the economy and isolated Iran.
In different ways, former President Mohammad Khatami, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have separately appealed for free elections. In January, with the election season about to begin, Khamenei countered by warning that such talk only provides comfort to the “enemy” and weakens public faith in the electoral process. Iran’s elections, he claimed, are the freest in the world.
Friday prayer leaders in Tehran and other major cities in the country soon echoed his denunciation of free elections. Over 100 members of the Majles voted for a resolution on the same lines.
Although small, these moves are reminders that a wider debate is still taking place even as the regime tries to tighten its hold over political life and control the upcoming elections.
Read Part II - Pivotal Election: The Ahmadinejad Camp
Read Part III - Pivotal Election: The Reformists
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons and www.sajed.ir
Part III - Pivotal Election: The Reformists
Shaul Bakhash
As yet, the reformists have a fundamental problem—no viable candidate. Khatami will not run again, even though he technically could. Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi (left)—a former prime minister and former speaker of parliament—remain under house arrest for their leadership of the opposition Green Movement after the disputed 2009 election. Mohammad Reza Aref, Khatami’s former vice-president, has reportedly considered running. But the obstacles are formidable for reformists.
Read Part II - Pivotal Election: The Ahmadinejad Camp
Part II - Pivotal Election: The Ahmadinejad Camp
Shaul Bakhash
Over the past year, political speculation has centered primarily on Esfandiar Mashaie (left), Ahmadinejad’s principal aide, ideas-man and political adviser. He is widely considered to have formidable political skills; he is often credited with Rasputin-like influence over the president. The two men are also in-laws through the marriage of their children.
Conservatives have countered with a campaign to discredit the Ahmadinejad team as the “deviant current,” trying to push the president and his lieutenants outside the political and religious mainstream. Mashaie is a particular target of the conservatives’ ire.
Read Part I - Pivotal Election: The Conservatives.
Photo Credit: Russia's Presidential Press and Information Office (www.kremlin.ru)
Part I - Pivotal Election: The Conservatives
Shaul Bakhash
On foreign policy, there is no resolution in sight to the stand-off between Tehran and the P5+1—the five members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany—over Iran’s nuclear program. The ruling elite is riven by factions, and no leader seems to have a clear idea about how to extract Iran from its current predicaments. And the urban middle class, burned by what many consider rigged presidential elections in 2009, is increasingly uninterested in voting.
· Ali Larijani , Speaker of Parliament (left) and former secretary of the National Security Council (NSC),
No Elected President for Iran?
As Rafsanjani indicated, empowering the Majlis to select the president will inevitably be seen by the public and some politicians as an attack on popular sovereignty and the popular will. Khamenei’s unexpected move has opened a Pandora’s Box—and potentially many problems. But his initiative is only in the opening phase; numerous hurdles must be overcome before it becomes a political reality.
Read Shaul Bakhash's chapter on the Six Presidents in "The Iran Primer"
Shaul Bakhash is the Clarence Robinson Professor of History at George Mason University.
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