By the time this column appears the second round of Iran’s presidential election will already be over and the results known.
But was the exercise, dismissed by much of the Western media as a sham and by the regime’s opponents as irrelevant worthy of any attention at all?
I think it was. Here is why.
The election was not a sham if we compare like with like.
This was an election in the same ideological establishment with the aim of allowing the various factions within the regime to sort out their power struggle through poling stations rather than bloody purges and mass executions as has often been the case in similar systems.
It is as if Stalin and Mao Zedong, rather than executing their rivals within the regime, were to eliminate them from positions of power through a simulacrum of elections.
At the same time, the election was not irrelevant because it offers a fairly reliable picture of the balance of forces within the regime.
One reason for the evident lack of public interest was the perception that the candidates, referred to as “The Seven Dwarfs”, seemed to offer no real choice in the first round. In the second round, however, there is a real choice, albeit within the limits of the ruling establishment.
We now know that divisions within the Khomeinist establishment go beyond issues of exercising power and concern two conflicting visions of the country’s future.
It would be foolish to claim that Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad, the two candidates in the second round, are interchangeable. This would be like saying that Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping were the same because both belonged to the Chinese Communist Party.
The chief difference between the two is that with Ahamdinezhad you get what you see while with Rafsanjani you can never be sure. You cannot imagine Ahamdinezhad as something other than he appears to be. In a sense this is a contest between the chameleon and the mongoose.
A natural shape-shifter, Rafsanjani is a man for all seasons: He can be hard-liner, soft-liner, or no-liner according to circumstances. Ahamdinezhad, however, is a radical Khomeinist who means what he says even if that is impolite or impolitic.
Rafsanjani says he may, one day, nuke Israel out of existence, but does not really mean it. Ahmadinezhad has never spoken of the destruction of Israel but gives every indication of dreaming about it every night. Rafsanjani boasts that Iran is at war with the United States and would end up humbling the “Great Satan”, but is already putting feelers to Washington through British intermediaries. Ahmadinezhad seldom talks of the United States and even denies that there is a crisis in relations. But it is almost certain that he believes that the Khomeinist regime can lead an Islamist uprising to drive the United States out of the Middle East.
Rafsanjani says men and women are equal but does not believe it. Ahmadinezhad says they are unequal and believes what he says. Rafsanjani promises democracy but is remembered for eight years of despotism when he was last president. Ahmadinezhad, however, states publicly that there can be no democracy in Islam and that the “pure Islamic rule” he promises to establish would bear no relationship to the globally adopted Western pluralist model.
To Ahamdinezhad power is a means to the idealistic goals of the Khomeinist revolution. To Rafsanjani power is an end in itself.
There are other differences between the two.
Rafsanjani is reputedly the richest man in Iran, and the 46th fortune of the world, while Ahmadinezhad is still paying mortgage on his modest home. During his two terms as president Rafsanjani showed that he regarded corruption as the lubricant of an oppressive system. Ahmadinezhad, on the other hand, has purged the notoriously corrupt gang leaders from the Tehran Municipality, which he heads as mayor, and promises to clean the stables throughout the government. One of his specific pledges is to disband the 30 or so, often fictitious, companies, set up by powerful mullas to siphon off a good part of Iran’s oil revenues.
Rafsanjani is many things in one. He is a businessman, a mulla, and a politician. Ahamdinezhad, however, has been a professional revolutionary all his adult life. Gun in hand, he has fought Kurdish and Turcoman separatists in person. Rafsanjani, on the other hand, has never taken personal risks. When he wanted Kurdish dissident leaders eliminated in 1992 he just sent a hit squad to Berlin to do the job.
Ahamdinezhad fought in the eight-year war against Saddam Hussein in person while Rafsanjani was 1000 km away in Tehran making speeches.
There is also a generational difference between the two.
Ahmadinezhad, 22 years younger than Rafsanjani, is a child of the revolution, having spent his formative years under the Khomeinist regime. Rafsanjani, however, was a successful contractor and pistachio merchant during the Shah’s regime.
Not only are the two candidates poles apart in terms of their personalities. They also represent different social strata.
Rafsanjani represents big business, the various foundations that dominate the economy, the top echelons of the civil service, much of it deeply corrupt, and the networks of influential mullas engaged in business and politics. Ahmadinezhad represents the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Baseej Mustadhafeen (Mobilization of the Dispossessed), largely recruited from among the poorest peasants. He also reflects the interests of small shopkeepers, low-ranking civil servants, and the poorer mullas.
These class differences are reflected in the rival economic policies of the two.
Rafsanjani promises a Chinese model, that is to say a capitalist system with an authoritarian political regime. For the past days Rafsanjani’s main theme has been prosperity for all, which means an opportunity to make money for those who happen to be in the right place at the right time. Ahamdinezhad, on the other hand, promises a North Korean model aimed at economic self-sufficiency, minimum dependence on foreign trade, and the mobilization of national energies for fostering the revolutionary spirit rather than making money.
Rafsanjani wants to take Iran into the World Trader Organization as quickly as the US allows. Ahmadinezhad, on the other hand, wants to avoid WTO like a pest.
The US and other major powers might wish Rafsanjani to win because, as a rich businessman with dollar assets that could be frozen in foreign banks, he would not dream of provoking a revolutionary confrontation with anybody. Ahamdinezhad, however, may try to build walls around Iran in the hope of preparing it for a spectacular comeback.
All in all Ahmadinezhad offered a more logical construct while Rafsanjani’s platform was designed around the concept of politics as the art of the possible.
As already noted, by the time this column appears the result of the run-off may well be known. My guess is that, if the “Supreme Guide” does not intervene to fix the result, Rafsanjani will win.
Many of those who didn’t vote in the first round may hold their noses and vote for Rafsanjani if only to avoid the prospect of Ahmadinezhad who takes Khomeini’s adolescent diatribes seriously. But if Ahamdinezhad is declared the winner we shall know that the “Supreme Guide” has decided to abandon all pretence of reform and compromise with the outside world in order to put the Islamic Republic on a war path.
