Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, August/September 1997, pgs. 10-13

The Iranian Election: Five Views

Khatami's Election May Be a Turning Point

by Richard H. Curtiss

Was the Islamic Republic of Iran's seventh and most competitive election May 23 a "return of light" to Iran, as one Pakistani Iran specialist wrote, or merely an opportunity for Iran's voters to "choose between bad or worse," as an exiled member of the former Shah's government put it? And did "an unprecedented 88 percent" of voters participate, as Iran's government announced, or was this an "astronomical lie" concealing a turnout of only 16 percent of eligible voters, as claimed by Massoud Rajavi, president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran? And, finally, is Mohammad Khatami, the come-from-behind winner of nearly two-thirds of the votes cast, a "left-centrist" harbinger of "spiritual renewal and social justice," as one admirer has written, or merely a "low-ranking cleric" who "for 10 years" played "a key role in censoring and disseminating false propaganda," and advocated "exporting terrorism and fundamentalism," as Rajavi claimed after the election?

Such contrasting assessments reflect the closed nature of Iran, where there are no resident Western journalists and the "Iran experts" and media personnel who are allowed to visit know that if they report too critically they will lose their access. The differences also reflect two visions of how political change eventually will come to Iran. The view of many Western specialists and of an increasing number of Iranians living abroad is that the change must come from within the regime, as relative "moderates" like outgoing President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his newly elected successor, Khatami, gradually increase their power at the expense of harder-line conservatives like his defeated rival, Speaker of the Parliament Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri and Iran's Vali-e Faqih (Supreme Guide) Ali Khamenei.

The other expectation, held by members of Iranian opposition groups living abroad like those quoted above, is that peaceful evolution of the regime is impossible. They believe that change will begin, as it did in 1979, with a popular revolt within Iran, at which point opposition groups like the heavily armed People's Mojahedin, based in neighboring Iraq, and the well-funded supporters of the late Shah's son, who lives in the United States, will throw their weight behind the rebels in attempts not only to overthrow the clerical government but also to replace it.

The surprise of the May 23 election was not the clearly expressed desire for easing such oppressive restrictions as the ban on association by unrelated men and women and the strictly enforced dress code for women. Nor was it in the apparent discontent among Iranians with economic favoritism and corruption and the inability of the mullahs of the clerical regime to expand the economy even though the burden of the 1980-to-1988 war with Iraq has ended. All of these had been noted by recent visitors to Iran, although they were not widely reported in the Western press.

The surprise was the apparent honesty of the vote count, which reflected such a clear desire for moderation. However, critics argue that allowing the public to let off steam in this manner buys the regime some more time to try to get its economic house in order, with internal opposition assuaged and Western media criticism stilled.

Nevertheless, initial indications were that the Iranian government intended to control the results tightly, and manipulate them if necessary. Of 288 persons, including 9 women, who sought to run for president, only four were approved to run by the government's conservative clerical Council of Guardians. Of these, all were officials of the clerical regime.

In addition to Khatami and Nateq-Nouri, both 54-year-olds who had studied Islamic theology at Qum and who bear the title hojatolislam, one grade below ayatollah, the other candidates were former intelligence minister Mohammed Rayshari and Reza Zavarei, deputy head of the judiciary and the only non-cleric in the race.

More ominous was the government's refusal to allow supporters of any of the candidates to function as poll watchers, guarding against irregularities in the voting and counting. Further, candidate access to the media was restricted, with Nateq-Nouri getting most of the coverage. Khatami actually was barred by a local governor from campaigning at all in Meshad, a major Iranian city. However, with the groundswell of support for Khatami becoming obvious in the final days of the campaign, Supreme Guide Khamenei publicly declared his neutrality two days before the vote, and urged election workers to guard against fraud.

"There were many people who thought that the election was fixed, no matter how they voted," commented Iranian journalist Ahmed Boorjani to a Washington Post correspondent after the results were announced. "But in the last two weeks people realized they were going to have their say. It contradicts the idea that all political ideas in Iran are predetermined. Political activity is still alive."

With none of the candidates in a position to criticize the government, there was little difference in the rhetoric they could use. Nevertheless Khatami, a cleric who had been forced out in 1992 after 10 years as minister of culture, and who had continued directing Iran's library system, was seen as a proponent of more book and periodical publishing, film-making and library expansion and also as favoring more openness to outside influences that are not in conflict with Islam. He had succeeded in overturning a ban on live performances of music, and his cautious but persistent use of certain key words in his campaign speeches encouraged the view that he would tolerate pluralism in intellectual life.

Although there were regional influences that affected the actual vote, depending upon which candidate was favored by local governors and mayors, a report by Bizhan Torabi of DPA, the German Press Agency, drew a number of conclusions from the published voting results.

"It is possible to speak of two crypto parties one led by departing two-term President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the other by former Prime Minister Mohammad-Reza Maddawi-Kani and 'Supreme Guide' Ali Khamenei," Torabi wrote. "Mr. Rafsanjani's stand-in was Mr. Khatami, while Mr. Nateq-Nouri performed that task for the other faction.

"The two factions control different parts of the government as well as different segments of the revolutionary establishment. Wherever the Rafsanjani faction was strong, Mr. Khatami won. And Mr. Nateq-Nouri got more votes where the Mahdawi-Kani faction had the upper hand."

Khatami did best in cities with populations of 100,000 or more, and where major universities and industries are located. Nateq-Nouri did better in rural areas, but Torabi saw this largely as a protest against Rafsanjani policies that favor urban over agricultural development.

The conservative and influential bazaaris, small shopkeepers, favored Nateq-Nouri, while those affiliated with big business and state-owned banks and corporations supported Khatami. Khatami also drew heavy support from members of the urban middle class, although they may have seen him primarily as the lesser of two evils.

Women and younger voters overwhelmingly favored Khatami, while men split about evenly between Khatami and Nateq-Nouri, who drew a higher percentage of his support from older voters. Religious minorities, including Jews, Zoroastrians and Christians, voted for Khatami, as did Sunni Muslims, who are the vast majority in the Muslim world as a whole. but a small minority in Iran which includes the Kurds.

If which Iranians supported Khatami, and why, are clear, what is not clear is how much power he will be granted by Khamenei, Rafsanjani (who moves from the presidency to chairmanship of a newly expanded "Expediency Council" in August), and the country's other power centers.

In the U.S. there was a visible quickening of interest, stimulated by the as-yet-unspoken realization that the Clinton administration's policy of "dual containment" of both Iran and Iraq has failed. Whether there will be any change in U.S.-Iran relations, however, is unclear. It will depend partly upon whether the Iranian government continues to stalk and assassinate its domestic opponents abroad, a policy over which Khatami may have no control.

Given dominance of the Madeleine Albright State Department by strongly pro-Israel political appointees, U.S.-Iranian relations may in fact be held hostage to a change in the Islamic Republic's strong opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The collapse of that peace process should, in fact, end this primary impediment to improved U.S.-Iran relations. But those same pro-Israel American policymakers seem stubbornly committed to pretending that the process still continues.

The European Union countries and Japan, competing for Iranian markets and more dependent upon Iranian oil than is the United States, are more likely to seize upon Khatami's election to refurbish Europe's so-called "critical dialogue" with Iran, which up to now has been little more than an exchange of commercial goods.

Perhaps Khatami now will turn that dialogue into an exchange of ideas as well. Khatami's triumph may also turn out to be a first uncertain step toward truly representative multi-party elections in the future. The son of a popular deceased Muslim cleric from the southwestern city of Yazd, he is well-connected. His brother is married to a granddaughter of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Khatami's personal accomplishments include M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in philosophy and education, and a command of English, German and Arabic. A friend who visited him to urge him to run in the election reported he was engaged at the time in translating into Farsi French traveler Alexis De Toqueville's brilliant observations on the United States, written some 150 years ago and, in the opinion of many, still uniquely valuable in understanding Americans today.

Khatami's public remarks just before his victory also provide grounds for optimism. "Our backwardness is not due to natural resources or culture we have both," he told a crowd on May 21. "Iranians are smart and creative, they are known for confidence and bravery. The problem is due to the lack of a correct, independent government. People do not have the opportunity to grow. Growth as a country needs sympathy, cooperation, and presence in the social scene. It does not mean we should not allow different views."

On the other hand, the election's assuaging of popular pressure for a relaxation of social and economic controls may turn out to be only a diversion. Many Iranians blame U.S. intervention on behalf of the then- young Shah in 1953 for thwarting the growth of Iranian democracy the first time, and Ayatollah Khomeini's complete takeover of the government that followed the 1979 popular uprising against the Shah for thwarting it the second time.

After so many years of bitter disappointments, probably most Iranians now hope to end up with a constitutional government and free, multi-party elections. Their continuing disputes are largely over how best to get there.

Iranian Moderate's Victory Portends Change

By Bruce Laingen

Most Americans, reading of the surprising presidential election results in Iran ("Moderate Leader Is Elected in Iran by a Wide Margin," New York Times front page, May 25) are probably saying something like: "So what else is new? We've learned from bitter experience what moderate means in Iran; Mohammed Khatami is still a cleric, equally involved with the anti-U.S. slogans of the leadership, only third in rank when he assumes office."

But that would be to ignore what this election suggests about the sentiment for change in that society and Mr. Khatami's own record. His 3-to-1 count is no small mandate; his votes came heavily from the elements of Iran's populace clearly seeking change women and youth. They will expect results. That will not come overnight; Mr. Khatami does not assume office until August. And he knows from the experience of his previous removal from office as minister of culture that he will need to proceed cautiously. But he cannot ignore for long what clearly is popular sentiment that more flexibility is needed in the revolution's social/cultural strictures.

What matters for Americans is his foreign policy, where the final voice remains that of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. But here too Mr. Khatami's campaign rhetoric was relatively restrained. The U.S. needs to respond accordingly. An electoral mandate of these dimensions bears careful watching, giving Mr. Khatami the opportunity to suggest openness in his views on a dialogue with America. Neither the emotional legacy of the hostage crisis nor American concerns over the Iran regime's policies should cloud an appreciation that our respective interests dictate the need for that dialogue.

Bruce Laingen is president of the American Academy of Diplomacy and was a hostage of the Iranian regime from 1979 to 1981. (This assessment also appeared in The New York Times of June 10, 1997.)

Iranians Had Only a Choice Between Bad And Worse

By Dr. Khosrow Akmal

Iranians have exploited the opportunity to choose between bad or worse, to strike a blow against the Islamic Republic, and show their rejection of the clerical regime's repressive policies by rejecting Khamenei's hand-picked candidate, Nateq-Nouri. Iranians used the occasion to show their strong disapproval of the leaders of the regime and their policies that have repressed Iranian youth and women and caused poverty, unemployment and misery in Iran.

Mohammad Khatami's upset victory over Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri in the Islamic Republic's presidential election is especially significant since he was supported by the clerical regime's leader Ali Khamenei.

During the campaign, Khatami made many promises to gain the support of Iranian youth, women and others who object to the regime's oppressive behavior. Khatami pledged to increase social freedom, respect civil liberties, and solve the problems of rampant inflation and high unemployment. Khamenei's supporters have attacked Khatami for embracing "anti-revolutionary ideas."

Regardless of whether Khatami fulfills his promises to the Iranian people, the resounding rejection of the regime's policies by Iranians has irrevocably changed the situation inIran. Khatami must either confront the regime's repressive leaders and organs in order to carry out his promises, or ignore the promises and continue the bankrupt policies of the regime. Either way, Iranians have opened a new chapter in the campaign to achieve democracy and rule of law.

Dr. Khasrow Akmal, a former chief of protocol in the Shah's court, is secretary-general of the Constitutionalist Movement of Iran, P.O. Box 39068, Washington, DC 20001.

Iran's Election Reveals the Regime's Weakness

By Sarvnaz Chitsaz

The election of Ayatollah Mohammad Khatami as the Iranian regime's new president has once again raised the hopes of those Iran pundits who never abandoned their search for "moderate" elements in the regime. But a quick look at the nature of the Iranian election and the so-called moderate it brought to power reveals this search as wishful thinking.

In a country where no genuine opposition is tolerated, the term "election" does not mean much. All the candidates had to be approved by the Council of Guardians, an elite clique of fundamentalist clerics. Every candidate approved had impeccable credentials, having served in high posts in the Iranian regime. The hapless Iranian voter was reduced to choosing between a fanatical fundamentalist, a really fanatical fundamentalist and a really, really fanatical fundamentalist.

Under the theocratic dictatorship ruling Iran, an election essentially determines how the spoils of power will be divided among the ruling mullahs.

Khatami's pose as a middle-of-the-roader contrasts sharply with his previous views. In a round-table discussion reported by Ressalat newspaper on July 7, 1991, Khatami made a strong case for a more decisive policy of exporting the revolution: "Where do we look in drawing up our strategy? To expanding and extending the revolution, or to preserving the country? We must definitely focus on extension and expansion..."

In his first press conference on May 27, Khatami showed that despite the ballyhoo raised by some Western media, he does not intend nor is he capable of deviating from the main framework of the clerical legacy. Losing no opportunity to praise Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the regime's supreme leader, Khatami repeatedly affirmed that he is first and foremost obedient to his orders. Khatami reiterated that the clerics will continue to oppose the peace process in the Middle East.

Moreover, despite all its hoopla about drawing the public to the ballot boxes, the claim of an 88 percent voter turnout does not jibe with the reports of internal observers. According to an assessment by the Command Headquarters of the Resistance within Iran, based on the monitoring of 2,500 voting stations in Tehran and 100 cities, only 6.5 million (16 percent of Iran's eligible voters) took part in the elections nationwide. One leaked document shows that in the city of Shemiranat, where there are only 179,000 eligible voters, 213,000 people were announced to have participated.

Besides its routine practices of threats and enticements to compel people to vote, the regime also reduced the number of voting stations in Tehran by one-third to artificially produce crowds it could show to journalists.

The real story of Iran's election is what it reveals about the regime's weakness and isolation. Its internal balance has significantly shifted against Khamenei. The clerical theocracy, now a three-headed beast, has been drastically weakened by the election.

It is thus no accident that Khatami's victory comes at the same time that the Iranian resistance movement is enjoying a surge in popularity. For Khatami's election is the direct result of a weakening regime's inability to counter the threat of a popular alternative.

Maryam Rajavi has come to symbolize the antithesis to the mullahs' fundamentalism since the National Council of Resistance's parliament in exile elected her in 1993 as president for the transitional period. Last June, she set off alarm bells in Tehran when she was welcomed by 25,000 Iranians in London, the largest gathering of Iranians abroad to date.

A poll taken by Resistance activists in 92 cities in Iran revealed she would receive 65 to 70 percent of the vote in a free, fair election.

That support is also reflected in the steadily increasing stream of young recruits to the Resistance's armed wing, the National Liberation Army of Iran, on the Iran-Iraq border. This younger generation of Iranians, who have known only the rule of fundamentalists, is in direct contact with the Resistance and is rebelling against the regime.

For this new generation of Iranians, the mullahs' elections signify only the bankruptcy of the regime. Despite the pretense that Khatami enjoys the support of the youth of Iran, it is to Rajavi that they look for change.

Iranians Voted for a Pluralistic Society

By Suroosh Irfani

If Ayatollah Khomeini described Iran's revolution as an explosion of light, for millions of Iranians Syed Mohammed Khatami's landslide victory in the May 23 presidential election reflects a return of that light. With over 20 million people voting for Khatami in an election that witnessed an unprecedented 88 percent turnout, the election symbolized a reaffirmation of hope in a revolution that remains one of the most remarkable events in history. Equally remarkable was the nature of the contest that pitted the state against the civil society, with the establishment-backed speaker of the parliament Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri symbolizing the state, and the independent Khatami reflecting the civil society.

The massive turnout in the May election was in fact an historic mandate for the civil liberties, distributive justice and democracy that formed Khatami's agenda during the run-up to the elections. In this sense, Khatami's victory reflects more than the endorsement of "reconstruction and development, spiritual renewal, and social justice" that formed the program of outgoing President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's government for the past eight years.

Khatami's election is a mandate for a pluralistic and more open Muslim society. In this sense, the election that pitted the left-centrist Khatami against conservative hard-liner Nateq-Nouri was a cultural contest between a "pluralistic" and inclusive Islamic vision on the one hand and a "hegemonic" exclusive vision on the other.

It also was a contest that infused an intellectual content into the campaign on a scale perhaps unprecedented in Muslim history. Terms such as "civil society," and "culture of coercion vs. culture of tolerance" gained currency as Khatami called for a "pluralistic society open to diversity and difference as the sole guarantor of social cohesion and advancement."

He backed his campaign for freedom of thought and public debate by noting that precedents for this went back to the Islamic tradition of ijtihad, independent intellectual exertion on matters of faith. "Once a society begins to foster a culture of tolerance, critical thinking and open debate, the culture of coercion and domination will disappear," declared Khatami during an April speech at the University of Sanandaj in the mainly Sunni Kurdistan province.

That Khatami's "crusade" for a civil society was not a tactical agenda but was rooted in an epistemic shift in Iran's literary culture is borne out by Khatami's track record. As minister of culture and Islamic guidance in Rafsanjani's government, his policies became the harbinger of cultural development in post-revolutionary Iran. For example, between 1981 and 1991, the number of book titles published annually soared from 3,500 to 8,600, periodicals from 100 to 501, public libraries from 415 to 550, and the number of people using them from 4 million to 14 million.

The film industry matured and acquired a new character. More films were made locally and screened in international festivals in 1990 and 1991 than during any single year prior to the 1979 revolution. Likewise, Persian music, banished after the revolution, experienced a creative resurgence unmatched in its 60 years of recorded history.

The cultural scene was enriched further with the emergence of new writers, as well as a phenomenal growth in publication, sales and readership of contemporary fiction. Such cultural effervescence reflected a broadening of intellectual discourse marked by reclamation of the Persian-Islamic past and a cultural osmosis with the Western heritage. The latter was reflected in radio and television programs where works of such Western literary icons as Goethe and Gunter Grass were discussed extensively, Shakespeare was called "as great a literary figure as the Persian mystic poet Hafez," and the Italian playwright Pirandello was bracketed with Tolstoy and Sadi, the 13th century Sufi Muslim.

Other examples of cultural osmosis ranged from an experimental fusion of Persian and Western music, as well as a serial shown during the spring of 1991 on national television. The TV series revolved around the homecoming of an Iranian student from France and the circumstances surrounding his traditional family's acceptance of his European wife. Appropriately titled "Mehman"(the Guest), this light-hearted serial ends to everyone's satisfaction after the Mehman starts a new life in Iran.

Clearly, under Khatami's cultural policies, Iran presented an ideal case study of the intellectual transition to modernity of a Muslim society. However, if in the Western experience modernity was accompanied by an erosion of religious faith, modernity in Iran was mediated by religion as a spiritual force and a self-transforming technique. Of this, Khatami himself is an example. The son of the Imam Jumma of Yazd, Khatami has a fulll command of English, German and Arabic; Master's and Ph.D. degrees; and has attained the level of a Hujat-ul-Islam in the clerical hierarchy.

However, the cognitive changes that his policies had helped bring about in Iran were unacceptable to the conservatives. Before long, conservative pressure forced Khatami to resign, while economic pressure led to the removal of government subsidies, thereby adversely affecting the publications boom. Furthermore, shock troopers of the extremist Ansar Hezbollah pressure group began increasing their attacks on cinemas, bookshops and women, while a campaign against intellectuals forced several editors and writers into exile.

The question now is whether or not Khatami, as president in post-Rafsanjani Iran, will be able to press ahead with his policies for a more open and tolerant society. After all, much of the establishment that so bitterly opposed him during the elections remains under the control of conservatives. Much will, therefore, depend on how these entrenched interests respond to Khatami's mandate for change, including the 190 members of the 270-member parliament who vigorously campaigned for Nateq Nuri. If, as president of the country, Khatami is able even partly to meet the national groundswell for change witnessed on May 23, Tehran may yet emerge as the "Geneva of the East" as Muhammad Iqbal, the "Poet of the East," envisioned some 70 years ago.