The victory of Hassan Rouhani in Iran’s Jun. 14 election marked a significant shift in Iranian politics, occasioned by the forceful return of the two most important political factions of the Islamic Republic – traditional conservatives and reformists.

Hassan Rouhani. Credit: Mojtaba Salimi/cc by 3.0

These two factions had been sidelined in the past decade. In fact, many had assumed that they had permanently lost their significance, giving way to either a more radical version of conservatism or the personal dictatorship of Leader Ali Khamenei.

But the alliance that was created in support of Rouhani’s candidacy by three key figures of the Islamic Republic – former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, as well as former speaker of the Parliament and presidential candidate Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri – set the stage for the return of both traditional conservatism and reformism to Iranian politics.

These two factions were effectively the founding pillars of the Islamic Republic. In the 1980s, they were identified as the right and left wings of the Islamic Republic because of their disagreements over the economic direction of the country.

But, by the late 1990s, they became known as the principlist and reformist wings due to their political differences over whether the republican or Islamic sides of the Islamic Republic should be given greater emphasis.

In the 1980s, prime minister Mir Hossein Mussavi, now under house arrest, was considered a leftist, focusing on economic justice and state control of the economy, while then-president Khamenei was deemed close to the Islamic Republic’s right wing which defended the importance of private property and the private sector.

Even the membership of the Guardian Council – which, along with the vetting of candidates for the executive and legislative branches, is tasked with assessing legislation for their constitutionality, as well as their Islamic content – included individuals from both factions.

Control of Iran’s Parliament shifted from one faction to another and from one election to another over the years. President Rafsanjani (1989-97), who has long tried to straddle both wings as a self-identified centrist and moderate, had to deal with both leftist- and rightist-controlled parliaments. Similarly, reformist President Khatami (1997-2005) had to negotiate with both reformist and principlist-controlled parliaments.

But this political arrangement began to fall apart with the 2004 parliamentary election and then the 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president. He came to power with Principlist support and immediately began the process of purging the leftist/ reformist wing of the Islamic Republic.

Initially, the purge created a temporary alliance between Ahmadinejad and traditional conservatives who were happy to see their ideological opponents pushed out of the political process.

But positioning himself as a younger-generation populist, Ahmadinejad soon began to turn against the other political pillar of the Islamic Republic: traditional conservatism. While traditional conservatives maintained their presence in the judiciary and the parliament, Khamenei’s support permitted Ahmadinejad to effectively prevent any kind of legal challenge to his imperial governing style in the executive branch.

After the 2009 contested election in which Ahmadinejad was re-elected, it was Khamenei’s continued backing that led to parliament’s approval of his cabinet ministers, the prevention of various efforts to impeach him, and halting the many judicial cases against Ahmadinejad’s illegal conduct, including his repeated refusal to implement legislation passed by the Parliament.

It was within this context that Iran’s traditional conservatives began to realise that they could meet the same fate as the reformists if they did not step up and help revive some of the old political pillars of the Islamic Republic.

Instead of competing against their old their old nemeses, the reformists, they forged an alliance behind the candidacy of Rouhani, who, while belonging to the Islamic Republic’s right wing, successfully wooed the reformist vote through his criticism of the increasingly securitised political environment of Iran and the purge of key reformist politicians in the past decade.

To understand the extent of the change this alliance represented in Iran’s recent history, suffice to say that the two main candidates who ran against each other in 1997 – reformist Khatami and conservative Nateq Nouri – joined hands to rally their supporters behind Rouhani’s candidacy.

The intent of the alliance was to forestall the encroaching dictatorship of the office of the Leader and prevent the radicals with little respect for the electoral process from consolidating their control of that office.

In many ways, the formation of this alliance was an unprecedented act in the history of modern Iran and, according to many observers inside the country, reflective of the “maturity” of the political players.

In the words of reformist journalist Abbas Abdi, writing for Etemaad Daily, “This election was deeper than other elections in Iran in terms of its political meaning, and at this time we can be hopeful that it will be the beginning of a new trend in the Iranian society.”

A historian of contemporary Iran who did not want to be identified went further. He told IPS that in Iran’s recent history there were many moments when political players could have paved the way for further change and democratisation had they been able to co-operate with each other and form alliances. However, their inability to do so led to the eventual purge of all of them and the re-establishment of personal dictatorship.

The most noted example in recent memory was the collapse of the democratic coalition built by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq with the help of cleric Ayatollah Abolqassem Kashani in the early 1950s. Ultimately Mossadeq’s fall from power was assured through a CIA-sponsored military coup that brought the Shah back to power. But the coup was made easy because the coalition built by Mossadeq had by then fallen apart.

According to this historian, “the principlist-reformist alliance is such an important event that it can be said to have catapulted Iran into a new stage of its history.”

This historian also notes that at no time in Iran’s modern history has there been such “an urge in both society, as well as government circles for unity and cooperation, in the face of external threats,” including both the U.S.-led economic sanctions and threats of war by Israel and the United States.

Iran's Jun. 14 elections garnered voter participation rates close to 73 percent. Credit: Mohammad Ali Shabani

By Farideh Farhi
HONOLULU, Hawaii, Jun 15 2013 (IPS)

Iran’s Jun. 14 presidential election results, announced the day after voting was held, were nothing less than a political earthquake.

The Centrist Hassan Rowhani’s win was ruled out when Iran’s vetting body, the Guardian Council, qualified him as one of the eight candidates on May 21.

Furthermore, a first-round win by anyone in a crowded competition was not foreseen by any pre-election polling.

Up to a couple of weeks ago, conventional wisdom held that only a conservative candidate anointed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could win. Few expected the election of a self-identified independent and moderate who was not well-known outside of Tehran, and few expected participation rates of close to 73 percent.

The expected range was around 60 to 65 percent, in favour of conservative candidates, who benefit from a stable base that always votes.

But the move a few days before the election by reformists and centrists – guided by two former presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani – to join forces and align behind the centrist Rowhani proved successful. It promises significant changes in the management and top layers of Iran’s various ministries and provincial offices.

Rowhani has also promised a shift towards a more conciliatory foreign policy and less securitised domestic political environment.

The centrist-reformist alliance formed when, in a calculated action earlier this week, the reformist candidate Mohammadreza Aref withdrew his candidacy in favour of Rowhani. But the strong support for Rowhani underwriting his first-round win came from an unexpected surge in voter turnout.

Much of the electorate, disappointed by Iran’s contested 2009 election and the crackdown that followed, was skeptical of the electoral process and whether their votes would really be counted, and they also questioned whether any elected official could change the country’s direction.

Although low voter turnout was the expectation, with the centrist-reformist alliance, the mood of the country changed, with serious debate beginning about whether or not to vote. As more people became convinced, Rowhani’s chances increased. Hope overcame skepticism and cynicism.

The case for voting centred on the argument that the most important democratic institution of the Islamic Republic – the electoral process – should not be abandoned out of fear that it would be manipulated by non-elective institutions and that abandoning the field was tantamount to premature surrender.

Reformist newspaper editorials also articulated the fear that a continuation of Iran’s current policies may lead the country into war and instability.

Syria, in particular, played an important role as the Iranian public watched peaceful protests for change there turn into a violent civil war.

The hope that the Iranian electoral system could still be used to register a desire for change was a significant motivation for voters.

Beyond the choice of Iran’s president, the conduct of this election should be considered an affirmation of a key institution of the Islamic Republic that was tainted when the 2009 results were questioned by a large part of the voting public.

The election was conducted peacefully and without any serious complaints regarding its process.

Unlike the previous election, when results were announced hurriedly on the night of the election, the Interior Ministry, which is in charge of conducting the election, with over 60,000 voting stations throughout the country, chose to take its time to reveal the complete results.

Other key individual winners of this election, beyond Rowhani, are undoubtedly former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami who proved they can lead and convince their supporters to vote for their preferred candidate.

Khatami in particular had to rally reformers behind a centrist candidate who, until this election, had said little about many reformist concerns, including the incarceration of their key leaders, Mir Hossein Mussavi, his spouse Zahra Rahnavard and Mehdi Karrubi.

Khatami’s task was made easier when Rowhani also began criticising the securitised environment of the past few years and the arrests of journalists, civil society activists and even former government officials.

Meanwhile, Hashemi Rafsanjani, whose own candidacy was rejected by the Guardian Council, saw his call for moderation and political reconciliation confirmed by Rowhani’s win.

He rightly sensed that despite the country’s huge economic problems, caused by bad management and the ferocious U.S.-led sanctions regime imposed on Iran, voters understood the importance of political change in bringing about economic recovery.

Conservatives, on the other hand, proved rather inept at understanding the mood of the country, failing in their attempt to unify behind one candidate and stealing votes from each other instead.

The biggest losers were the hardline conservatives, whose candidate Saeed Jalili ran on a platform that mostly emphasised resistance against Western powers and a reinvigoration of conservative Islamic values.

Although he was initially believed to be favoured, due to the presumed support he had from Khamenei, he ended up placing third, with only 11.4 percent of the vote, behind the more moderate conservative mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.

The hardliners loss did not, however, result from a purge. Other candidates besides Rowhani received approximately 49 percent of the vote overall, and so while this election did not signal the hardliners’ disappearance, it did showcase the diversity and differentiation of the Iranian public.

Rowhani, as a centrist candidate in alliance with the reformists, will still be a president who will need to negotiate with the conservative-controlled parliament, Guardian Council and other key institutions such as the Judiciary, various security organisations and the office of Ali Khamenei, which also continues to be controlled by conservatives.

Rowhani’s mandate gives him a strong position but not one that is outside the political frames of the Islamic Republic. He will have to negotiate between the demands of many of his supporters who will be pushing for faster change and those who want to maintain the status quo.

For a country wracked by eight years of polarised and erratic politics, Rowhani’s slogan of moderation and prudence sets the right tone, even as his promises constitute a tall order.

Whether he will be able to decrease political tensions, help release political prisoners, reverse the economic downturn and ease the sanctions regime through negotiations with the United States remains to be seen.

But Iran’s voters just showed they still believe the presidential office matters and they expect the president to play a vital role in guiding the country in a different direction.

Photo: The campaign headquarters of presidential hopeful Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf in the Iranian city of Neishabour. Credit: Djavad Salehi-Isfahani/IPS

By Djavad Salehi-Isfahani
TEHRAN, Iran, Jun 12 2013 (IPS)

Talking to ordinary people in Neishabour and Tehran about Iran’s Jun. 14 presidential election, economic issues seem foremost on their minds. But whom they will vote for is based more on vague promises to pull the economy out of its deep crisis than on well-defined economic programs.Significant differences on economic philosophy divide a confused public about how to end economic stagnation and high inflation.

In the last three decades of the Islamic Republic’s history, Iranians have experienced both market-based economic growth and populist redistribution.

This election cycle would have been a good time to debate which of these two economic development strategies should be used in moving forward.

However, the decision by the Guardian Council to eliminate two important candidates, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, from the list of those eligible to run has sharply limited the value of this election as a space for vibrant public debate about the issues that are of greatest daily concern to most Iranians.

These two politicians could have represented the contrasting economic strategies and turned the election into a referendum on the past eight years of populist economics practised by the Ahmadinejad administration.

Mr. Rafsanjani, the former two-time president, is well known for his preference for market-based economic growth as a solution to poverty and equity issues.

Early on in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s tenure, Mr. Rafsanjani rejected Mr. Ahmadinejad’s populist policy of cash distribution as “fostering beggars”.

His elimination from this election has deprived voters of a critical assessment of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s populist program that has inflicted serious damage on Iran’s economy.

A further blow to a meaningful debate on populism came from the elimination of Mr. Mashaei, who was Mr. Ahmadinejad’s close associate and in-law.

It would have been highly interesting, if not very informative, to watch him debate Mr. Rafsanajani on such important issues as the record of the government’s three ambitious populist programs – low-interest loans to small and medium producers, low-cost housing and cash transfers.

What this election should be about is how to achieve a key promise of the Islamic Revolution.

More than three decades ago, a vast majority of Iranians supported the revolution, expecting that it would divide Iran’s oil wealth more equitably.

Early on, Ayatollah Khomeini, the revolution’s leader, tried to limit these expectations by famously saying that “economics is for donkeys”.

But the failure by two previous administrations (Mr. Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, each serving for eight years as president) to reduce inequality has kept the issue of income and wealth distribution at the forefront in recent elections.

Mr. Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005 promising to take the “oil money to peoples’ dinner table”, which he tried to do.

The last two years for which we have survey data, 2010 and 2011, show falling poverty and inequality, but the economy is in shambles.

Prices rose by 40 percent last year according to official figures, and the same surveys show unemployment at about 15 percent overall and twice as high for youth.

It would have been valuable for the public to learn if Mr. Ahmadinejad’s redistribution policies are responsible for the current economic mess, or something else, like incompetence in execution or international sanctions.

What the candidates have said in the short time they have had to campaign is that they will do something different. What and how is not clear.

The four frontrunners, Saeed Jalili, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, Hassan Rowhani and Ali Akbar Velayati, have expressed their differences on how to deal with sanctions.

Sanctions loom large in voter minds, but few believe that whoever is elected will be able to influence Iran’s nuclear policy, which is being tightly directed by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

What seems to distinguish these candidates most clearly at this point is social rather than economic issues.

They all promise to reduce inflation, increase employment and run a less corrupt and more efficient administration. The differences exist in emphasis rather than specifics.

Mr. Jalili is the most conservative candidate in the race and closest to Mr. Ahmadinejad in economic philosophy but has also been careful to neither defend nor criticize the latter’s policies.

He has defended Iran’s stance in the nuclear negotiations with the P5+1 group (the United States, Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany), which he led in recent years, with the usual anti-Western rhetoric.

By saying the least of any candidate about the economy, he has clearly indicated that economic issues are not his top priority.

In the televised debates, Mr. Jalili made it clear that a more effective enforcement of cultural values was the right way to solve the country’s economic problems.

More specifically, he seemed to reject compromising with the West over Iran’s nuclear program in order to lessen the pain of Western sanctions on ordinary Iranians.

If Mr. Jalili is Mr. Ahmadinejad’s favorite candidate, Mr. Ahmadinejad has not said anything.

He has not made any public statement regarding the candidates so far, except to request time on national television to respond to their criticisms, which was denied.

Word on the street in Tehran is that Mr. Ahmadinejad secretly roots for Mr. Jalili because he believes a President Jalili would be the most likely to make him look good, not by defending his policies, but by taking the economy further into the deep end.

Mr. Rowhani, the only cleric in the race, is the most moderate candidate among the four frontrunners.

In the eyes of liberal voters, following this week’s departure of reformist candidate Mohammad-Reza Aref (after an explicit request from the popular former president, Mohammad Khatami), Mr. Rowhani has inherited the reformist mantle of Mr. Khatami as well as Mr. Rafsanjani’s pro-business legacy.

Mr. Rowhani energized Iran’s young voters after the second televised debate in which he criticised the heavy hand of security forces in social affairs.

He appears to have gained the same lift that former presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi achieved four years ago upon declaring he would end police enforcement of public chastity.

However, like Mr. Mousavi, Mr. Rowhani has not offered clear economic policies to address the youth’s more serious problems of unemployment and family formation.

A formidable challenge to Mr. Rowhani comes from Mr. Qalibaf, the current mayor of Tehran and a moderate conservative.

During a recent televised debate, they clashed over how the police should treat student protests, but they have not tried to distinguish themselves on how they would help university graduates get jobs.

If the election goes to a second round run-off between these two candidates, which now seems likely, there is a chance that voters will hear more about their approach to revive the economy.

But then the candidates may find it easier to appeal to voters’ emotions than to their pocketbooks.

*Djavad Salehi-Isfahani is a Professor of Economics at Virginia Tech and Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Read more of his IPS work here.