Iran vote a sham or a signal?

The Globe & Mail:

Is democracy breaking out in Iran? After all the bustle of its recent presidential election campaign, it was tempting to think so. READ MORE

Campaigning among the eight candidates was vigorous and competitive. Billboards, banners, television spots and websites trumpeted promises to respect personal privacy, create jobs and improve relations with the United States. Instead of vowing "Death to America," candidates such as Mohsen Rezaei, a veteran leader of the Revolutionary Guard, promised "new thoughts, new government" -- a pitch aimed at Iran's young, who make up two-thirds of the population. Another candidate's campaign featured young women in lipstick and tight shirts rollerblading down the street to hand out bumper stickers. The candidate was Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a stalwart of the conservative clerical establishment.

The trouble is, none of it really mattered. The president of Iran does not run the country. Iranians learned that to their sorrow when they elected Mohammed Khatami by a landslide in 1997, only to see him beat his fists against a wall through two futile terms.

The real power lies with the unelected clerics who populate the revolutionary institutions of the Islamic state. The Guardian Council, dominated by Islamic hard-liners, has the power to veto legislation and disqualify candidates for office. In this election, more than 1,000 potential candidates -- including every woman who applied -- were ruled ineligible. Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the power to choose who sits on the Guardian Council, to control the military, to appoint judges and to overrule the president and parliament.

In most Middle Eastern autocracies, the regime holds sham elections for powerful offices. In Iran, notes Middle East scholar Patrick Clawson, the regime holds a real election for a powerless post.

But even if the winner's power is limited, the fact that all of the candidates tried so hard to distance themselves from the revolutionary past is a sign of changing times. Though only one of the eight came from the reformist campaign, and four were ultraconservatives, all of them played down their ties to the clerical regime and pandered to the popular thirst for change. Islam was barely mentioned. Even Mr. Rafsanjani, who presided over Iran's attempts to spread international terror in the 1980s and '90s, spoke out for the right to watch satellite TV, to drink in private and to dress more freely.

Mr. Rafsanjani will face Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a runoff. Mr. Ahmadinejad is the hardest of hard-liners, a former Revolutionary Guard with close ties to Ayatollah Khamenei's son, Mojtaba. He came out of nowhere to finish second in the first round. Amid mysterious doings that included a last-minute order to keep the polls open an additional four hours, he took a surprising 19.5 per cent of the vote.

Moderates and liberal-minded students are now rallying to Mr. Rafsanjani, judging him the lesser of evils. It's a sad comedown for the reform movement. A victory for Mr. Ahmadinejad on Friday would consolidate the power of the hard-liners, who would control not just the key revolutionary institutions such as the Guardian Council, but the parliament and presidency as well. The modest social reforms brought in by Mr. Khatami, such as the easing of controls on public dress and behaviour, could be rolled back.

But even if Mr. Ahmadinejad wins, he will have to trim his sails to the winds of change in Iran. Significantly, his aides were putting out the word this week that their man is not as reactionary as many believe. "It has been written that the Taliban are on their way," one of them told reporters yesterday. "These are lies." He said Mr. Ahmadinejad would respect civil liberties. Across town at a lively university rally, meanwhile, Mr. Rafsanjani was telling students that "we should put aside backwardness and extremism."

The Islamic fervour that fired the 1979 revolution has faded. Iranians now thirst for freedom, pragmatism and normality. Whatever the outcome of Friday's vote, Iran's leaders can't afford to ignore them.