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Iran: all change at the top

From Angus McDowall in Tehran

July 7th, 2005 -- According to conventional political wisdom, Mahmud Ahmadinejad’s electoral victory represents the triumph of conservative power and values over moderates and reformists. The conservatives can look on the 17 million votes he won as a powerful popular mandate and can relax in the knowledge they now have a stranglehold on power that no single faction has enjoyed since the revolution.

But a closer examination suggests that the former Tehran mayor’s large majority was based on a combination of populist economics and the electoral appeal of a perceived political outsider. And while Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears the outright winner in this competition, he will be aware of a conflict emerging between the clerical traditionalists, who largely supported Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and younger, more militaristic conservatives. If this was a victory for the right, it was not necessarily a victory for the “mullahs”.

And while conflicting interpretations can be made of what Iran’s electorate really wants and how powerful the establishment will really be, the man at the centre of it all also presents a conundrum. Ahmadinejad is a largely unknown quantity. His tenure as mayor of Tehran and governor-general of Ardebil province present some clues. And his early comments in the aftermath of victory also suggest possible ways he will operate. But as clouds of rumour hang over the past of the president elect, it is becoming increasingly difficult to look into his future.

Understanding the vote

A straight analysis of the polling figures shows that Ahmadinejad picked up nearly 12 million more votes after the first round, while Rafsanjani won only another 4 million. If we suppose that the former president took most of the 3 million votes cast by supporters of Mostafa Moin, the main reformist candidate, it becomes obvious that he won few more votes from the 5 million supporters of the more moderate reformist, Mehdi Karrubi.

In effect, Ahmadinejad won millions of votes from people who had either voted reformist in the first round or had supported President Mohammed Khatami in previous elections. This appears paradoxical — the ultimate candidate of the far right winning support from an electorate that twice gave the reformists huge popular mandates. Does it suggest a huge shift in the political feeling of the country? Not necessarily. It is more likely that we need to reassess the reasons why Khatami was so popular.

It is probably fair to say that Karrubi’s support — mainly rural — was hooked by his promise to pay a monthly stipend of $55 to every adult in the country. These were Iran’s rural poor voting with their wallets. When it came to a straight fight between the candidate of privilege and that of the poor, they chose the latter. As did the huge constituency of urban poor. In part, this is a reflection on style — Ahmadinejad’s simple campaign and portrayal of himself as a genuine man of the people unbound by the expensive habits of the political elite struck a resonant chord.

It is also — as with Karrubi — a simple economic equation. The poor look at Ahmadinejad’s promises of greater distribution of wealth, improved social justice, strong continued subsidies, more public sector employment and cheaper food, and they figure they will be better off under him.

The candidacy of Rafsanjani perhaps proved fortunate for the Tehran mayor. The grand old man of Iranian politics, widely seen as the wealthiest and most influential individual in the country, helped galvanize the votes of those who felt left out of the political process. In this context, Ahmadinejad, seen by liberals as the choice of the Leader, was exalted by the working class as an anti-establishment outsider.

It was precisely that quality that helped the diminutive president elect win the support of so many former reformist voters. And it suggests that much of Khatami’s support came not because he promised social or political liberty — though these probably helped — but because he also came from outside the political and clerical elite. For this reason, voters eventually saw no contradiction between voting successively for two characters drawn from apparent opposite ends of the political spectrum.

“Today, all competition should turn into friendship,” said Ahmadinejad after the poll. “We are part of a big family that should go hand-in-hand to build our proud Iran.”

New phase in the revolution

The election can also be seen as the emergence of a new phase in the revolution, a moment when power appeared to switch from one class to another. Conventional wisdom holds that the true power in the Islamic Republic was won in the late 1980s by the traditional middle class — bazaar merchants and mullahs. This was followed in the mid-to-late 1990s by the emergence of technocrats and reformists who championed the modern educated middle class.

But the victory of Ahmadinejad points to a new development — the political arrival of the working class as a distinct and self-aware constituency: economically leftist, religious and socially conservative. These voters, while not necessarily opposed to reformist views on social and political freedom, seem more enthused by promises to address the wealth gap, crime and corruption at the top. One Tehran analyst calls it “the bread revolution”.

Their emergence as a force with their own new leadership is a direct result of the political conflict between traditionalist conservatives and reformists. In order to mobilize electoral support, conservatives turned to the working class, elevating a new generation of conservatives who share greater ties from the war than the revolution, who are not tainted with past failure or corruption and can appeal more directly to the electorate.

But the successes these new conservatives enjoyed after the municipal elections in 2003 made them hungry for greater power. Proclaiming devotion to the Leader, they have sought to ally themselves with the leading right-wing figures in the regime, cutting out the old conservative establishment which they seek to replace. This realization among traditionalist conservatives led them to switch their support to Rafsanjani, even though he now called himself a reformist.

In a sense, the election was not the culmination of this struggle, but marked its true beginning. The battle lines have now been drawn, with clerics, bazaar traders, reformists and technocrats on one side and the new populist right on the other. For reformists, the conflict is largely ideological, but for traditionalists and technocrats, it is about who holds — and benefits from — power.

And it is now that this struggle will begin. The victorious populists will seek (have indeed promised) to purge the ministries of corruption. They can also be expected to try and purge them of technocrat supporters of Rafsanjani, who they fear could act as a fifth column. Their rate of success in installing their own supporters in positions of administrative power will go a long way towards defining the social and economic direction of Iran.

Rafsanjani himself will fear that if the populists win too comprehensively, he could face new threats to his own power. His position as chair of the Expediency Council could be called into question. His relatives could be replaced on the important bodies they now head or influence. And the smear campaign directed against him during the election suggests that his enemies may try to push for him to be put on trial for corruption in order to undo him altogether.

Rafsanjani, Khamenei and the Usulgaran

It now appears that the Leader is likely to try and prevent that. He has publicly asked his old rival to remain in office, perhaps worried about upsetting the factional balance at the top of the system that has generally helped the Islamic Republic develop pragmatic solutions in the face of crisis. Having excluded both the liberal left and the traditionalists from the decision-making processes of state, there is a theoretical danger that these two groups could now try to form a new opposition outside the system.

The top positions are now almost entirely controlled by the Usulgaran, the fundamentalists of the new right. The heads of the Guardians Council, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the speaker of parliament and the president are all counted among the Usulgaran, while the traditionalist heads of the Judiciary and Assembly of Experts are unlikely to contest the new regime.

These people may outwardly proclaim their devotion to the Leader, but it is unclear if Khamenei holds the whip hand over them or vice versa. With so little factional divergence at the top of the ranks, the leader is more beholden to one group than ever before. And with the overt political conflict between reformists and conservatives replaced by a new unseen one in conservative ranks, failures of government will all be attributed directly to the top.

The position of Ahmadinejad will be crucial here. On the one hand, he is bound by the wishes of his core supporters in the new right, who will seek to carry an ideological battle into government. On the other he will be constrained by the knowledge that the greater part of his support is in favour only of a new economic revolution and could be alienated by new social strictures.

It is too early to tell. The formation of a cabinet over the course of July will bring us some pointers. But even then, it will probably take at least a year to fully understand what role the new president will bring to Iran’s new political reality.


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