Victory for a religious hardliner in Iran

Jun 27th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

In Iran’s presidential election, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hardline religious conservative, has beaten Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic ex-president who had painted himself as a cautious reformer. Whether Mr Ahmadinejad won by fair means or foul, Iran looks like turning its back on reform—and perhaps on the outside world

WAS it a backlash by Iran’s devoutly Muslim poor against a corrupt elite? Or was it a massive fraud perpetrated on the people by the hardline clerics? Perhaps it was a bit of both. Whatever the case, the margin of victory for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the second round of Iran’s presidential election, on Friday June 24th, was striking. Mr Ahmadinejad, the mayor of the capital, Tehran, and a hardline religious conservative, garnered around 62% of the vote, despite having gone almost unnoticed in the field of seven candidates who had contested the first round of voting, a week earlier.

It was a crushing defeat for Mr Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a powerful former president (1989-97) and former speaker of the Iranian parliament—who had seemed the favourite from the moment he decided to run. Mr Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative who had restyled himself as a cautious reformer, had been expected to face an out-and-out moderniser in the run-off. Thus it had looked possible, whatever the outcome, that Iran’s modest economic and social reforms of recent years would continue if not accelerate, and that its relations with the West—America, especially—might improve. Immediately after the first round, in which Mr Ahmadinejad came second and thus won a place in the run-off, it looked possible that reformists’ votes would transfer to Mr Rafsanjani and guarantee his victory.

So what happened? At the end of the first round, one of the defeated reformists, Mehdi Karrubi, complained that the vote had been fixed. There were indeed some suspicious circumstances: for example, in South Khorasan province, home to many disgruntled Sunni Muslims, the official turnout was an improbable 95%; yet Mr Ahmadinejad, the candidate most associated with the assertive Shia Islamism of Iran’s clerical regime, won more than a third of the votes there. And while Friday’s second-round vote was still going on, Mr Rafsanjani’s aides were complaining of “massive irregularities”, accusing the Basij religious militia—in which Mr Ahmadinejad used to be an instructor—of intimidating voters to support their man.

However, whatever the extent of any vote-rigging, it seems unlikely that it was the only reason why Mr Rafsanjani did so badly. Conservative-minded Iranians, especially the devoutly Muslim poor, seem to have warmed to the austere Mr Ahmadinejad because of his modest lifestyle, his personal honesty and his reassuringly insular vision.

Mr Ahmadinejad presented himself as a committed follower of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and of the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; and he pledged to put the interests of the poor at the top of his priorities, including fighting corruption. In this he seems successfully to have tapped popular resentment at the country’s elite, widely held to be enriching itself corruptly. The wheeler-dealing and allegedly highly wealthy Mr Rafsanjani is seen as the very embodiment of that elite. Whereas Mr Rafsanjani argued for improved relations with America and increased foreign investment in Iran, Mr Ahmadinejad insisted there was no need for any rapprochement with the “Great Satan”, as official Iranian demonology labels the superpower. On Sunday, America's defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, responded by dismissing the Iranian vote as a “mock election” and calling Mr Ahmadinejad “no friend of democracy”.

Mr Rafsanjani and other reform-minded candidates courted—unsuccessfully, it would seem—Iran’s sizeable youth vote, by promising to continue the limited social liberalisation seen under the outgoing president, Muhammad Khatami. Young Iranians have begun to enjoy greater freedom in such things as how they dress and how they mix with the opposite sex. This now looks likely to go into reverse under Mr Ahmadinejad.

Mr Khatami’s attempts at advancing liberalisation were constantly overruled by Ayatollah Khamenei and the Council of Guardians, a hardline group of clerics and Islamic jurists. In the last parliamentary elections, in early 2004, these unelected theocrats barred many reformists from standing, with the result that conservatives regained control of the parliament. Now, with a religious hardliner in the presidency, the conservatives’ grip on all levels of power seems unshakeable.

Thus the prospects look bleak for any sort of breakthrough in the issue that most interests the outside world—Iran’s apparent attempts to learn the techniques for making nuclear bombs, under the cover of a civilian nuclear-power programme. Given the sensitivity of the issue, during the election campaign not even the most reformist candidates dared to call for Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions and co-operate with the International Atomic Energy Agency. Mr Ahmadinejad is least likely of all to press the clergy and its allies in the military to do so. In his first news conference, on Sunday, the president-elect insisted that Iran needed nuclear technology to generate electricity, though he said that talks with Germany, Britain and France would continue.

The North Korean option

Though poor and jobless Iranians have been drawn to Mr Ahmadinejad by his pledges to combat poverty, he seems the last person to bring about the opening-up of Iran’s sickly, state-controlled economy that is needed. Unemployment is officially at 11%, though the true figure may be almost twice as high. Inflation is 14%, with the prices of some basic necessities soaring. For an idea of where statist Iran has gone wrong, just look at liberalising Turkey, its big rival to the north-west, which has greatly overtaken Iran in national income per head since the Islamic Revolution. Freeing Iranians’ entrepreneurial spirit and making it easier for foreign firms to invest in the country’s colossal oil reserves would do more to improve the lot of its citizens than building nuclear bombs.

Though the election outcome would suggest that voters are not so concerned about winning greater personal freedoms, some Iranians, especially exiles, will remain convinced that beneath the surface there is an unstoppable popular desire for liberty—and they dream of a Ukrainian-style revolution to free their country from the mullahs’ grip. In recent years there have been sporadic protest movements, led by student groups, but these have been swiftly and ruthlessly put down. If evidence of widespread voting fraud in the presidential elections were now to emerge, then such protests might revive. But they would face determined and powerful opposition. More pessimistic Iranians fear a drift towards becoming the next North Korea—a regime that brandishes nuclear weapons at the outside world while its people slide into penury. The chances of this seem to have grown with Mr Ahmadinejad’s victory and the clerics’ reassertion of complete control over all levels of power.

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