TEHRAN, 16 January 2004 — Iranian reformists and hard-liners appeared to have backed down on Thursday in the political row over a ban on thousands of liberal parliamentary candidates, but hard-liners continue to hold the strongest cards.
The Guardian Council, ordered by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Wednesday to review the election bans, may choose to split or decapitate the reform movement by selectively re-admitting some liberals into the Feb. 20 vote. And by obliging reformists to accept a compromise hammered out at the top levels of Iran’s clerical hierarchy, hard-liners can further discredit their rivals in the eyes of an Iranian public already frustrated by the unrealized pledges of reform.
“The hard-liners still hold all the cards,” said one political analyst who declined to be named. “They could decide to approve all but the top dozen or so high-profile reformists or they could do the opposite and try to split reformists by only approving a few dozen well-known figures and MPs, leaving the rest out in the cold.” Government sources told Reuters on Thursday that top reformists, including 16 Cabinet members and 27 state governors, would soon withdraw their threat to resign over the crisis. Unrealized resignation threats by reformists have become commonplace during the bitter struggle between reformists and hard-liners in recent years, and few Iranians now take them seriously.
Conservatives already control the main levers of power. From positions appointed by Khamenei they run the courts, armed forces, broadcast media and Guardian Council, which has the power to reject bills its deems un-Islamic or unconstitutional, as well as veto election candidates. But reformists have run the government since President Mohammad Khatami’s shock 1997 election win and took control of Parliament in 2000 elections.
Determined to at least reduce the influence of reformists in the next Parliament, the Guardian Council appears to have decided not to repeat the tactics of 2000, when only eight percent of candidates were weeded out before the vote. “They were under a lot of pressure not to make the same mistake twice,” said political analyst Hossein Rassam.
While the Guardian Council may have overplayed its hand by eliminating nearly half of the 8,200 aspiring candidates this time around, it gave itself more room to maneuver in the inevitable appeals and negotiations process that has followed. “The hard-liners don’t really need to compromise, but this will be their tactic,” said analyst Saeed Leylaz. “Reformists will have to give in because they don’t have public support.” Tired of seeing reformist proposals such as improved rights for women or press freedoms rejected by the Guardian Council and student protesters and journalists jailed by the judiciary, many ordinary Iranians have lost faith in Khatami’s ability to overcome conservative resistance
The public have shown no sign of rallying to the reformists’ cause during this week’s political standoff and are likely to be further disillusioned by the compromise that seems to have followed. “This political infighting just turns people off. And when Khatami and the reformists announce they have accepted the Guardian Council’s revised lists, even with misgivings, it will look to most people like a stitch-up,” the first analyst said. MPs expect the Guardian Council to hold firm on barring leading reformists such as deputy Parliament speakers Mohammad Reza Khatami, brother of the president, and Behzad Nabavi. “I believe a large number of disqualified candidates will be approved but there is a strong politically motivated desire to bar influential candidates,” MP Khatami said on Thursday. That could deprive reformists of some of their leading lights in the next Parliament but would probably be more acceptable to the reform movement than having too few candidates overall to assemble a credible list.
Analysts said it was too soon to tell how this week’s fracas will influence the results of the February vote. With political disenchantment running high, particularly among the two-thirds of Iranians under age 30, most expect turnout to be far lower than the 67 percent who voted in 2000. “A lower turnout should favor conservatives but if the reformists can keep their unity and put forward enough candidates they should retain their majority, albeit a smaller one,” another analyst said.
