Growing Consensus in the Moslem World on the Role Model for the Region

http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=16645

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=33233&NewsKind=Current Affairs

http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/16018

 

Maybe, maybe not. There are problems with Western style democracies as well. Personally, I believe there are improvement that can be introduced in both models. Certainly, I see Iran's system as a work in progress, with that work far from complete. Yet, whatever its decifiencies, Iran is -- as one commentator put it -- "light years ahead" of most of the Arab states that US hypocritically applauds for moving toward "democracy"!

Regardless, as I suggest in the title, and as evident to anyone who follows the opinion makers in the region, many (even among secular voices in the region) are beginning to look to Iran as their role model. That is an ironic result emerging from what the US campaign in the Middle East intended!

 

I disagree, not because the system is not one I would reform and modify. But because despite its problems, and definite potential for abuse, I believe the choices in this election were quite diverse. Besides, there are some factors that make what might appear to be a totally arbitrary power somewhat constrained. Hence, the notion that a 'select few' are "pre-approved" is somewhat misleading. Why? Let me explain.

First, because everyone (and I mean everyone, no limitation of any nature) can register to be a candidate. That immediately puts the spot light on the Guardians Council to make sure it does not disqualify candidates that have a large popular base, as opposed to when the "vetting" is done secretly or quietly behind the scenes. Here, the "vetting" is done in the open.

The system is more susceptible to abuse than what you have elsewhere in one way, but it is less susceptible in another way because it is done openly. In the US, to be a realistic candidate, you need to get "pre-approved" by some part big whigs and lobbyists or you won't be raising any money, won't be having your message heard, and your candidacy won't be able to go anywhere. But that pre-vetting procedure is less open, and hence, less democratic in many ways.

Second, and relatedly, if a candidate is truly popular, and he is not approved, that would affect turnout. Although there is room for abuse, and there has been abuse in the past, ultimately so long as the regime measures its legitimacy based on turnout and seeks high turnout, it will always want to make sure there are real choices. Especially from the main factions and parties in Iran, excluding those who don't want to work within the system.

Ultimately, what makes Iran's elections so much more "democratic" than in Iraq is that they are so much more vigorously contested, with the voters being totally wooed by the candidates. In Iraq, you basically had lists of candidates who names, except for a few on top, were all rather unknown to the electorate. The voters chose base on the top names, and there was no serious vigorous debate. In Iran you have these candidates hit at each other as hard as they do in Western countries.

In the process, the voters know what positions are represented by these candidates. Especially as each of them get the same time slot to run free ads on television broadcasts, while their supporters do the other things that are done in American campaigns, with different newspapers endorcing different candidates openly.

No. I don't think a person with less than 50% of the vote should become president. A president should be able to claim a mandate from a majority. Hence, if none of the candidates earn 50% in the first round, the two highest vote getters stand for the final round.

 

I guess there are two ways to approach the issues we discuss on bigsoccer. One is to suffer from this illusion that propaganda on bigsoccer somehow affects public policy decisions or political attitudes in our world. The other is to take the opportunity to try to learn about these issues for ourselves.

None of the despots ruling the region are interested in emulating Iran's model. Indeed, the Iranian revolution was seen as a threat to all of them.

Iran's system has flaws, but ultimately this election offered a wide range of choices for the public, representing a range of viewpoints, that dwarf differences that are debated in American politics between your candidates. From economic, to social, to cultural, to political issues, a lot more is at stake in Iranian elections than in American ones.

That is why despite such a coordinated tactic to dampen turnout, ultimately Iran's elections brought 60% of eligible voters to the voting booths. That is also why Iran's elections, despite the rhetoric, are covered by hundreds of Western reports, by reporters from all over the Islamic world, and from practically all four corners of the globe. And that is why, the accusations notwithstanding, once Iranian voters chose their president, the world had to take note of that choice. Sham elections do not elicit any such interest, the same way no one much covered Iran's parliamentary elections under the Shah, or the elections in Egypt and others.

In the United States, the president's powers on domestic affairs are quite limited. Most social and cultural issues are outside his purview; in those areas, a body of Supreme Court precedents in the name of the constitution define the contours of acceptable policies while what remains is handled at the local level. On economic issues, the American system first makes sure that the list of viable candidates is restricted to those who can get a sufficient wide endorcement from various lobbyists and party big whigs, making the economic differences between various candidates ultimately revolve around a few percentage points here or there on spending or the marginal tax rate. Even when you have a situation where a person wants to come and make substantial changes, as you had with FDR and the New Deal, it is not easy. FDR's plan were thwarted for many years by the Supreme Court until the court packing threat and the switch in votes on that court. On the other side of the spectrum, regardless of the mandate Reagan felt he had, the Reagan revolution in some ways is still being implemented as not much changes in domestic policy in the US between presidents.

Not necessarily for reasons that are all positive, notwithstanding the rehtoric, Iran's president has a far greater influence on domestic affairs in Iran than an American president. Neither can change the constitution on their own. And it is only by that measure, that Khatami's tenure was a failure. Otherwise, the president in Iran oversees the government (which unfortunately has control over a large part of Iran's economy), picks government ministers and others who fill the government beaucracies, even picks Iran's provincial governors, submits the nations budget and has the bully pupit of the presidency on his side. After 8 years of Khatami's presidency, the changes in Iran on all fronts -- social, political, cultural, economic -- are undeniable. Iran is simply not the same country that elected president Khatami in 1997.

In foreign policy, the US president is given far greater latitude to pursuse popular policy. I will leave aside some of systemic problems that skew the candidates who survive the pre vetting stages based on various special interest politics, but no doubt that as long as an American president can bring the public to his side, he has a lot more popular than Iran's president. The American president is the commander in chief, he is the leader of the nation's foreign policy, and has the power to even lead the US to hell if he so chooses. By contrast, while Iran's president has a lot of influence on Iran's foreign policy (Khatami's tenure itself is proof of this fact), ultimately his powers in this arena are clearly secondary to those of Khamenie. But even in foreign policy, the president and the "Supreme Leader" each have practical restrictions that require they cooperate or there is a paralysis in foreign policy of Iran. After all, the president is the one that controls the government, although not the armed forces, and who appoints the nation's ambassadors and even chairs the highest military and foreign policy body in the nation, namely the Supreme Defense Council. Without the president's support, even Khamenie cannot follow much of a foreign policy on his own.

Anyway, for better or worse, this is the first time Iran has elected a president who is not seen as someone who would be trying to challenge Khamenie directly. The two prior Iranian presidents, through the last 4 elections, basically were either Khamenie's competitors (Rafsanjani) or ran on a platform that basically was meant to reduce Khamenie's powers (Khatami). Indeed, the fact that for 16 years, Iran's president was not a real friend or crony of the "Supreme Leader" itself shows that the latter's powers have never been all that "supreme".

The one exception, the guy who won this election, was also not Khamenie's first choice either. He was Khamenie's 3rd choice! Khamenie's first choice was Larijani. When Larijani failed to register more than a few points in polls, he switched to Qalibaf who was more popular but whose focus on the middle class alienated the poorer support base of the regime among the basij and revolutionary guards. Ahmadinejad essentially became the choice that was forced on Khamenie by the anger of the poor and ideological supporters of the regime who felt that the regime's promises notwithstanding, they had long been neglected in the past 16 years since Rafsanjani and then Khatami became presidents. The fact that this group, on its own numbering no more than 10 million voters, was able to engineer a landslide victory for their candidate in the final round, is itself an intriguing issue that can be quite educational -- if it is ever studied dispassionately, instead of trying to make various propaganda points.

 

First, lets be clear that you were quoting an article I posted. Those were not my words. I explained, in rather detail, my views about both systems in my last post.

As for your question, since it relates to the viewpoint of that author (3rd article I posted in my first post), and not mine necessarily, I will quote his comments on the issue. (Again, for my own view, read my response to "Attacking Minded".)

Whatever the merits of that argument, the following observation by the author of that article is to me on point:

 

Who gets to be elected is not irrelevant in determining how democratic or not an election really is?

All system pre screen candidates. No where in the world are voters genuinely given millions of choices; the field is always vetted to a few candidates. In the US, the vetting is essentially undertaken first at the informal level, by those who decide who gets to receive financial donations. By party big whigs, lobbyists, etc. In Iraq, on the other hand, the vetting was done by 3 groups basically: by Ayatollah Sistani and those working under him in producing what some dubbed the "Iranian list"; by the group the US supported under Alawi, which became known in Iraq as the "American list", and by the two main Kurdish factions (PUK and KDP). You then had some minor lists as well representing other communities.

In Iran, the vetting system is different, but ironically, the end result is often seeing someone outside the "establishment" get elected. Khatami in 1997 and Ahmadinejad in 2005. They represent different constituencies and demand, but neither was the establishment choice.

In this regard, you should not underestimate how much Ahmadinejad's appeal among those who voted for him came from his simple life style. While Ahmadinjead is an educated university lecturer with a PhD, and while he was Tehran's mayor, throughout his life he had lived a very simple life and rejected the perks of office. As mayor, he did not move to the mayor's mansion; did not use the mayor's driver or car; he continued to live in his modest house in a working class neighborhood, and drove himself to work. That image, which he put in his campaign ads which ran in Iran's system of equal broadcasting time for all candidates on state television, was homed in for the voters and played a major role in his election. Indeed, it shielded him from many of the accusations against him by his opponents, with many voters believing that the accusations were meant to stop an "outsider" who wants to fight corruption from becoming president.

Whether the voters chose wisely or not remains to be seen. But they ultimately made the choice for themselves, not anyone else.

 

Well, I never said it was "more democratic". You quoted someone else for that proposition. And I provided that person's answer.

My own view: no system in a large society is really all that democratic, and there are elements in each that are less and more so. My answers to the rest of your questions will hopefully explain what I mean.

No. I am saying that when you have to filter candidates openly in broad daylight, and then you still have to make sure you do so in a way that does not alienate a large enough mass of the voters, the dynamics work in such a way that the folks you qualify are ones that can still attract interest among the voters. On the other hand, in societies where no one puts as much emphasis on turnout, you can offer the public bland choices and have low turnouts. And yet claim the system is democratic.

The British system is not the one I discussed, but rather the American one.

That said, Britain has a parliamentary democracy where ultimately the ruling party chooses the prime minister. An independent candidate, even if he or she wins a seat in parliament, and survives the skeptics who think voting for an independent is wasting your vote, nonetheless is not going to have much say in British policies.

Well, on that score, Iran is definitely more democratic In Iran, everyone of any ideology, any gender, any religion, everyone, over the age of 15, is allowed to vote. In other words, the difference is the voting age, which is lower in Iran. Additionally, the other difference is that more people vote in Iran than in Britain. Turout in Iran's national elections have never dipped below 50%, and have often been as high as 80%. The turnout in the last election was 60%. 30 million people voted from a total of 47 million over the age of 15.

I am agnostic. So I personally prefer that religion not play much of a role in actual policies, although I disagree with those who think you can have a "democracy" in Iran while endorcing separation religion and state. Not until a clear majority feel that way. Until then, you are imposing a minority view on the majoirty.

That said. Lets be clear. Precisely. The US does not care about whether a society is "religious" or not. It cares about the issues that affect its foreign policy interests, at least as they have been defined through its own political process. In the Middle East, that implicates how hostile a government is or isn't towards Israel? How committed is a government to reduce US influence in the region? How likely is a government to seek to unite the region (either through pan Arabism, or alternatively some pan Islamic theories) to create an independent power center that incidentally would control a lot of the world's energy supplies? Those are the real issues that guide US foreign policy in the region, not the propaganda, labels, or slogans.

 

Iran has been holding contested elections every since the revolution. In the early years, due to Khomeni's popularity, whoever he favored won. However, in those years, you had even totally secular candidates vying for office. They just couldn't win given Khomeini's popularity.

Later on, through various international and domestic crisis, the circle of candidates that were being approved narrowed. You still had vigorous, contested, elections between various factions. But more and more groups were being left out. Khatami's election changed that a little, but the pendulum has been unstable. The last election had a diverse field of candidates. But the 2004 parliamentary elections did not. In those elections, the choices were from the following factions only:

1- Ideological conservatives
2- Neconservatives
3- Traditional conservatives
4- Pragmatists
5- Moderate clerical reformers.

That made turnout dip to barely 50% compared to 80% in the 2000 parliamentary elections which were quite open to a wide range of viewpoints. To be fair, some of thosse viewpoints are partly to blame for the restrictions that arose, since many of them appeared more interested in formenting "revolution" and "regime change" than "reforms". Nonetheless, the last election allowed the candidate of the "radical reformists" (i.e those who do want to change the system, albeit lawfully) to stand. Given that most of those who heeded the boycott call came from the faction who might have voted for Moin, the latter ultimately did very poorly and finished 5th in the first round.

 

I think they are different. Apples and oranges, each having more and less democratic features. So I don't have a clear yes and no answer to your question, although in general I would expect a country with a democratic tradition as long as that of Britain to have some advantages compared to Iran. However, sometimes such long traditions also stagnate the system into certain establishment norms.

In Iran, not everyone can have his name on the ballot. No.
You need to educate me on the British system. Can any British citizen have his name on the ballot? Or, like in the US, there are rules on whose name can appear on a ballot? I find it hard to believe that you have a system that can potentially allows thousands of names for each seat in parliament on the ballot!

If the means to filter are based either on party nomination, or on how many ballot signatures you can have, then those means have certain inherent biases. They basically favor those who can raise more money to have the organization to advertise themselves in order to then get the ballot requirements met. And, even then, as an independent candidate, they aren't going to be taken seriously.

You can start a political group in Iran, so long as your platform does not include advocating unlawful means to change the government, as long as you don't work for or with a foreign government to achieve your political objectives, and as long as you are not advocating violent change in government. As such there are many factions and parties and groups in Iran already. They participate in Iran's elections, albeit the focus is always on those who are opposed to the system as a whole.

For those opposed to the system, the restrictions are hard to overcome. Most system have various ways to marginalize such groups. And in most systems, if such groups seek violence or foreign intervention to change things, they will be dealt with. Unless they are not a real threat. (In Iran, they can become a real threat much more easily because Iran has a superpower enemy).

You can all sorts of systems, but the system itself has to find endorcement by a majority to be in any way democratic. Iran's system was voted in a referendum after the revolution. No one has ever questioned the validity of that referendum, with the main argument being that perhaps people have since changed their mind. The answer to that argument is that you can't stop a government and have a referendum on its system every time someone asks for it. At the very least, the person asking for a referendum should be able to show that his group or his person has the support of a majority. It becomes a chicken and egg question, but so far clearly none of the groups favoring changing the entire system have yet been shown an ability to rally a large enough mass of people on their side. Not even to convince a majority NOT to vote in Iran's elections, remembering that you always have a group of people who are simply too lazy or too apolitical to go stand in line to cast a vote.

 

Freedom House is chaired by James Woosley, author of World War IV, who claims Iran is the "capital of terror international".

There are academic scholars, without any political bent or bias, who write on Iran's system of government. I suggest those be consulted instead of what are more polemical or politicized accounts.

Ultimately, however, when it comes to what is the right form of government for Iran, the judge of that issue are the people in Iran. Not Freedom House.