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IRAN: Ahmadinejad’s Predicament and Iran’s Political Crisis
Analysis by Farideh Farhi*
HONOLULU, Hawaii, Aug 10 (IPS) - With the confirmation of his re-election by Ayatollah Khamenei and his oath of
office taken, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will begin his second term facing much
steeper challenges than any of Iran’s previous second-term presidents.
In fact, despite the proclaimed support of 24 million Iranians, his government
is by far the weakest post-revolutionary government. Ironically, it is this
weakened position that tempts him to be a force of constant agitation and
confrontation.
Challenges facing Ahmadinejad include open hostility from a large section of
the Iranian elite which Ayatollah Khamenei characterised in Ahmadinejad’s
confirmation speech as "angry and wounded"; highly charged criticisms of his
appointments and policies from within the conservative ranks; continued civil
disobedience; a public mood that has turned from mostly inattentive and
apolitical to concerned and angry; general unhappiness among the clergy
about the harsh crackdown; and a much more hostile international
environment.
All this is on top of serious economic woes that he was unable to address
during his first term - as he had promised to do in his 2005 campaign.
Prior to the June election, Ahmadinejad had indeed attempted to implement a
value-added tax on the sale of goods and introduce legislation to overhaul
Iran’s over-bloated subsidy system - replacing it with more targeted cash
subsidies to the poorer strata of society. These measures plus gradual price
increases in utilities and fuel prices were meant to lower the government’s
fiscal burden.
But, merchants resisted the implementation of the value-added-tax. His so-
called Economic Transformation Plan was also roundly rejected prior to the
campaign season as the conservative-controlled Majles - worried about the
legislation’s inflationary impact and its unreliable or exaggerated data -
chose to delay the discussion till the post-election period.
The political crisis that has ensued has effectively pushed economic concerns
to the side, and brought to the forefront once again a whole set of political
civil rights issues emphasised during former President Mohammad Khatami’s
reformist era.
Ahmadinejad could pursue his economic agenda while at the same time
attempting to reduce political tensions generated by the election and its
aftermath. This would entail a coordinated effort with other centres of power
- including the office of the Leader and the Judiciary - to address some of the
serious breaches of citizens’ rights that have occurred, finding those
responsible for them, and putting in place mechanisms that would ensure
against their repetition.
But Ahmadinejad’s personality - and the paranoid outlook of the security-
oriented circles that surround him - make it unlikely that he will choose that
route for fear that any sign of weakness will only worsen his predicament.
The decision to put on trial past officials en masse under conditions that
lacked the slightest trappings of due process is already an indication against
such a conciliatory approach.
In foreign policy, Ahmadinejad’s approach to Iran’s unprecedented
turbulences is likely to deem the best defence a strong offense.
In reaction to his polarising approach, efforts to influence, control or dislodge
him will come from all corners of Iran’s political spectrum - making his
already erratic managerial style even more haphazard and shifting, adding to
his difficult position.
Foremost among his woes is popular protest combined with unprecedented
cracks at the top of Iran’s political apparatus that show no sign of subsiding.
For the first time in the history of the Islamic Republic, a president is faced
with a combination of popular mobilisation and a squeeze from the top.
Squeeze at the top has always been a predicament of the office of Iran’s
president, caught between non-elective institutions - robustly equipped with
their own independent and often shadowy security and economic appendages
- and a rancorous elected Parliament, whose only assertion of power in the
Iranian political system can come in the form of confronting or harassing the
president on domestic issues.
But the persistent social mobilisation from below is bound to make the
squeeze at the top even more difficult to manage because of the intensity of
pressures coming from challengers, critics, and even avid supporters.
Ahmadinejad’s supporters are already calling for more heads to roll over
election events, demanding that some of the most celebrated figures of the
Islamic Republic - including Mir Hossein Mussavi, and former presidents
Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani - be put on trial for their
collusion with external powers to stage a Velvet Revolution against the
Islamic Republic.
Ahmadinejad’s challengers - riding on popular sentiments that have gone
beyond indignation over election fraud and turned into an even more visceral
outrage over the harsh crackdown in the streets, torture and deaths in
prisons for which no one is willing to take responsibility - have already turned
their movement into one pursuing an end to the arbitrary rule of Iran’s many
shadowy instruments of repression.
The strategy of this Green Movement, according to Mussavi, will be inspired
by a "slogan that in its expansiveness includes the largest number of Iranians
both inside and outside of Iran." There is persistent emphasis on the political
and civil guarantees in the Islamic Constitution that "have remained
vanquished" and the insistence that those engaged in the crackdown "are the
ones that are breaking the structure" of the Islamic Republic.
This constitutionalist approach is deemed the most effective in creating
further cleavages between the government and its conservative critics.
Ahmadinejad has never been very popular even among conservatives, but
recent events have created further worries among them about his ability to
manage the tide of protests and letting them subside.
To be sure, similar worries exist regarding Ayatollah Khamenei - whose
wholehearted support of Ahmadinejad has effectively transformed him, in the
public mind, as the real source of the harsh crackdown. However, as the chief
executive officer of the country, Ahmadinejad is the one who ultimately has
to face the brunt of criticisms regarding the way popular protests are
confronted, prisoners treated, and civil rights undermined.
In any case, he is a much easier target to attack without being accused of
questioning the foundation of the Islamic Republic.
In trying to find a Modus Vivendi to placate popular anger against his
presidency, Ahmadinejad’s first task will have to be the selection of a team
that can reach an agreement about how to deal with the situation. And this
may not be an easy task, as one of his weaknesses as a leader has always
been his inability to work well with people outside of a very close circle of
friends.
In his first term he had to spend almost nine months trying to get approval
for key ministers in his cabinet. And by the end of his first term, close to half
of his cabinet had been either sacked or had chosen to resign. He also
changed the heads of key institutions such as the Central Bank of Iran (CBI)
several times, and at the end managed even to antagonise the most hard-line
of his ministers at the Intelligence and Culture and Islamic Guidance
ministries.
This is why two major conservative organisations - Followers of Imam and
Leadership Line and Society of Islamic Engineers - have already issued
unprecedentedly harsh letters warning Ahmadinejad against obstinacy, not
listening to anyone, and having delusions about the extent and depth of the
support he has been given. Instead they called upon him to avoid
"confronting the clergy," and to rely on the views of "Majles and Leadership"
in choosing his cabinet.
Ahmadinejad’s options are limited. He can acknowledge his weakened
presidency, over-see a cabinet whose individual members will contest his
policies, and head an administration that is conflicted from within. Or he can
try to try to act resolutely by picking fights with almost every political force in
the country - in which case his behaviour will be the source of heartache for
everyone who for ideological reasons or for fear of reformist resurgence
ended up supporting him in the election.
*Farideh Farhi is an Independent Scholar and Affiliate of the Graduate Faculty
of Political Science at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa.
(END/2009)
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