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On the Recent Elections in Iran
Val Moghadam
Iranian elections can be full of surprises - or can
they? Was the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
unpredictable or part of a pattern?
Mohammad Khatami's landslide victories in 1997 and
2001 were won on a reformist campaign, and his
presidency -- along with a majority reformist
parliament -- raised expectations of social
transformation and political change. But when the
Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the
Council of Guardians blocked reform, the movement lost
its momentum and citizens became disillusioned or
angry. Municipal elections brought in a conservative
majority, as did the February 2004 parliamentary
elections. In the run-up to the recent presidential
elections, the reformists' choice had been Mostafa
Moin, but he did not receive enough votes in the first
round. After that, everyone was sure that former
president and "pragmatic conservative" Hashemi
Rafsanjani would win. Indeed, many reformists decided
to back Rafsanjani, leading to spirited debates among
liberals and reformists in Iran and in the diaspora as
to whether this was the correct tactic or not. But
instead of a victory on the part of the rich and
well-connected Rafsanjani with a daughter widely known
as a feminist (former parliamentarian Faezeh Hashemi),
it was Ahmadinejad who won in the run-off.
Voter turn-out was lower than in the past, and many
citizens boycotted the elections altogether.
Boycotting elections is one way that Iranian citizens
show their lack of confidence in the system - and the
Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi announced that she too was
joining the boycott. Perhaps close to 40% of eligible
voters did not cast their ballots in the recent
elections. The feeling for many is that as long as the
Council of Guardians remains on the scene to vet
candidates, the whole process is compromised, and
"Islamic democracy" Iranian-style is either a
pipe-dream or a highly managed form of democracy. In
the run-off, the choice between Rafsanjani and
Ahmadinejad seemed for many to be far too limited
(rather like the choice between a Republican and a
Democrat in the United States). And so many citizens
who desperately want reform of the system did not
vote. Those who did, voted for Ahmadinejad because he
put the spotlight on something that both Rafsanjani
and reformists have neglected: the country's
socio-economic problems, including high unemployment
and an absurdly inflated housing market.
This underscores the main deficit in the reform
movement: in classic liberal fashion, the emphasis has
been placed on civil and political liberties while
socio-economic conditions and rights have been
marginalized. As important as it is to argue for
removal of social restrictions on dress and
recreation, these issues may be most pertinent to the
well-off in northern Tehran rather than to those who
struggle to find jobs and housing. Issues of social
justice were never very important to the reform
movement, and now they have been hijacked by
Ahmadinejad.
In the past, women and youth were Khatami's main
constituents and indeed the major social base of the
reform movement. They are now the main losers. Iran’s
feminist movement may have recognized this threat when
its leaders organized an historic demonstration
outside the gates of Tehran University on 13 June.
They were protesting the disqualification of women
candidates from the election, but their fundamental
grievance is with a constitution that limits their
role to that of mothers -- and not as workers or
political actors -- and rules out their
self-determination. Ahmadinejad may not be the monster
that some of the (largely U.S.) press makes him out to
be, but he is a religious conservative and a moralist.
Whether he can overturn the cultural liberalization of
the Khatami era is unclear, but certainly he will not
expand it. Whether he can succeed in addressing the
country’s socio-economic problems is also doubtful,
given that he is located squarely within the political
establishment, if not its economic elite.
Marxists understand class conflict well (and some of
the liberal reformists would have done well to draw on
the insights of their past Marxism), but even so,
cross-class alliances are possible and desirable, as
well as very much part of Iran's collective action
repertoire. If Iran's reform movement is to be
revived, it needs to develop a platform that includes
a holistic agenda for social transformation - one that
will resonate with middle-class, working-class, rich
and low-income women and men alike. This means that
along with our insistence that mandatory hejab be
rescinded and family law reformed, that young people
be allowed to listen to music and dance, that all
political prisoners be released and civil liberties
established - we need to establish the concept of the
socio-economic rights of citizens, and insist that the
redistribution of the country's wealth, through an
economic policy based on social justice and human
rights, should be the priority of any government.
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Val Moghadam is a former professor of sociology and
director of women’s studies at Illinois State
University who currently works in Paris.
(From Portside)
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