June 14: Iran's Next Presidential Election

The next presidential election in Iran will take place on June 14. Having already served two terms, Ahmadinejad is constitutionally barred from running again and Iran will definitely have someone else as president soon. The question is who will that person be?

Past presidential elections in Iran have been lively, heavily contested, have seen a heavy turn out, and they have often propelled new faces to office. That was certainly the case when Khatami was elected as Iran's president in 1997, after which reformists dominated Iranian elections for several years until 2003, when they started losing in municipal and subsequently parliamentary elections before losing the presidency also in 2005. The winner of that election, of course, was a new face, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who brought a lot of excitement and vitality to the ranks of the once demoralized and defeated Principalist camp at a time when US and international threats and pressures on Iran made reformist agendas on breaking the walls of mistrust with the west appear out of place. Ahmadinejad, of course, was reelected subsequently in a landslide, in elections which saw a record turnout. But what transpired in the aftermath of that election, when the losing side refused to acknowledge its loss and instead resorted to making unsubstantiated allegations regarding the election being stolen and pouring into the streets to overturn its results, has left a question as to whether Iran's next presidential election will be as open, colorful and exciting as past editions? It is not even clear whether the reformists will present any candidates or whether any of them would be approved by Iran's Guardians Council.

There are, to be sure, intense rivalries within the Principalist camp and many expect Iran's new president to emerge from the ranks of several new high profile candidates who are expected to announce their candidacy. There is even a new election law being enacted that seeks to impose new regulations starting with this election, although that law is strongly opposed by Iran's current president and has not yet been approved.

In any case, I opened this thread because there will be plenty to discuss about Iran's elections from now until when they are held. Here is hoping that the events in the aftermath of the last presidential election won't close door on the Iranian public being able to choose their president in the same open and vibrant atmosphere as existed in that one. The issues facing the electorate in Iran are no less significant, and their active and enthusiastic participation in the process is probably more important than ever before.

 

The power of the Guardians Council (not Security Council) to vet candidates, though not on the grounds you allude to, can suggest that there are democratic deficiencies in Iran's system of government. I agree with the gist of your comment to some extent. But you read a little too much and put a lot more emphasis on the issue than is appropriate.

First, the truth is that all systems vet candidates. Most of the vetting in the political systems you are used to is done by special interest groups and political parties, who essentially decide who is a serious enough candidate and who is not to be bothered with at all. Even a career politician and long serving congressman like Ron Paul, speaking a bit out of order, will have a hard time breaking into the list of candidates presented to the voters to choose from. From that process, in the US, you end up with two choices; the difference between these two choices almost always on the margins, with very little of substance distinguishing them. As a result, often many Americans don't even bother to vote despite the unbelievable sums spent to convince them to vote for one or the other candidate.

By contrast, when the vetting is done publicly and openly, with the organization doing the vetting recognizing that a high turnout is also an important factor to consider in terms of giving legitimacy to the election they are to oversee, you often ironically end up with livelier choices with a greater range of policy differences between the candidates than when the vetting is down behind closed door, in secret, by special interest groups. That is because while its possible in Iran's system to cross out candidates with ideas that don't have much public backing, to publicly cross out a candidate with a large constituency will cause a lot of tension and problems and threaten the voter participation rates that are cherished. Thus, it is informative that the voter participation rates in Iran (despite all the efforts to get voters to boycott the elections) are higher than in the US, with the Iranian electorate offered a more diverse range of choices than you get in the US from your special interest dominated system.

Second, while I personally endorse reforms with regard to Iran's system of vetting candidates, the truth is that it is very difficult to have a genuinely free and open election when there is a superpower intent on manipulating the political process in another country, using its varied resources for this purpose. Heck, even a two-bit, illegitimate, mini-state like Israel, having the intent and the license to interfere in the electoral system of a superpower like the US with long established political institutions and traditions, has been able to use organizations like AIPAC and the like to essentially hijack your political system, even if you refuse to acknowledge and recognize that fact. The US, the world's most powerful, richest, and most influential country, can easily manipulate the political processes in countries like Iran if it given the opportunity and opening for this purpose. That frankly leaves people like me in quite a quandary, neither anxious for my country to become yet another tool of American imperialism nor satisfied with the problems that are created when you cater you system in a way to make sure America's unwelcome hands are cut off from it.

Finally, while I am personally not religious, the majority of the Iranian population are pious and religious. Which means that the elements in Iranian society which, like myself, don't have proper representation in the political system are not the majority still. That doesn't mean I accept that is appropriate that folks who aren't religious be left largely unrepresented. I believe such folks are entitled to proportionate representation as well. But the democratic failings of Iran's system in this respect, nonetheless, accorded with the preferences of a majority in Iran. And to have denied the majority their preference in this regard would be a democratic deficiency as well. That said, my own view is that Iranian society is moving in the direction where the system will either learn to provide a legal framework for the participation (not domination) of non-religious folks in the political process, or it will find itself having more and more problems down the road.

 

The fact that organizations composed of members who have worked to undermine and even overthrow the Iranian government would paint it with a particular color, or rank it in a particular order, means nothing. While Iran's system requires reforms, the fact is that past Iranian elections have been meaningful, giving voters a significant say in who and how the affairs will be handled. That is simply not at all the case in many of these countries that are being compared to Iran.

That said, in light of the unfortunate events in the aftermath of the last presidential elections, we won't know the extent to which this election will replicate prior ones in its openness, liveliness, and ultimate unpredictability. And that is merely one of the many prices that have to be paid by Iran by the actions of those who are working so desperately to isolate, weaken, and unravel this country and the ancient civilization it represents.

 

I thought that was the index from another group, but realized you had posted the Democracy Index map from the so-called Economist Intelligence Unit. Regardless, as Iran is not within the family of nations following the western mold, and has an independent system and tradition behind it, the judgments by such groups are entirely worthless to me. There are far more knowledgeable academic experts who clearly have different views on this subject, although I do fear that these kind of ratings would regrettably find more merit as we proceed each year down the path where Iran's system needs to confront foreign efforts to unravel it and consequently clamps down further, costing us -- besides the immediate lost liberty -- its own negative dynamics, since Lord Acton's dictum that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is indeed a truism that need not be tested again and again.

P.S.

Let me put it more clearly: those who truly care about the rights of the Iranian people, would never suggest that the right path to achieving those rights for them is to put Iran's government in a corner on an issue that had wide public support within Iran and try to marginalize and demonize any politician who emerges with popular support from Iran's system -- a system which mixes elements of democratic governance, theocracy, and autocracy into a package that, depending on how it is molded, can either work more or less democratically or, alternatively, can be turned into a autocratic system.

 

Although the annoyingly misinformed commentary and spin about Iran's election had made me give up updating this thread, I like to look at what I had posted opening this thread and compare it to what happened in retrospect.

The answer: Dr. Rohani, a centrist who was backed by reformists and whose cabinet is composed primarily of folks who served under former president Khatami as well. Indeed, Dr. Rohani has tried as much as possible to make his government a continuation of the Khatami administration.

The answer: Yes. While the election campaign might not have started as exciting as some others in the past, the stakes were high and the choices clear enough for the voters to participate with great enthusiasm and in high numbers. Participation rates in Iran's elections are still ones that would be the envy of most western countries and the results from Iran's elections are still as unpredictable as ever.

The answer: Yes. The reformists did present a candidate who was approved by the Guardians Council. That candidate, Mr. Aref, was Mr. Khatami's former vice president. However, late in the campaign, to unify the reformist and centrist factions, he bowed out in favor of Dr. Rohani, who was then endorsed by both Mr. Khatami and Hashemi Rafsanjani.

As it turned out, the main principalist candidate, Mr. Jalili, failed to gain more than a disappointing 11% of the votes. Even Tehran's populist mayor, Mr. Ghalifbaf, who is more a pragmatist than a principalist, finished second in the race with no more than 16% of the votes, finishing behind Dr. Rohani by a large margin.

While Dr. Rohani was always one of the top 3 candidates, that he would be able to gain over 50% of the votes (he got 50.88%) and win the election in the first round was genuinely unexpected. I don't think Dr. Rohani himself would have predicted winning in the first round.