Is Iran at the crossroads?

3 July 2009, 17:00 PM

Barrister Harun ur Rashid

Photo: AFP

IRAN's image and role have been politically and diplomatically much weakened globally and in the region over the imbroglio of the result of the June 12 Presidential election. The regime's use of violence on the protesters as shown in TV footage across the world has further eroded the positive image of the government in the international community. On 23rd June, US President Barack Obama has strongly condemned the "unjust actions" of Iran in clamping down on election protests. He said he respected Iran's sovereignty and it was "patently false" of Iran to say the West was fomenting the unrest. UN chief Ban Ki-moon had called on Iran to respect the "will of its people" after the disputed presidential poll but Tehran accused him of "meddling". Moral Voice Weakened Iran has been a moral voice in the region seeking fairness and justice for oppressed people, including for the Palestinians, but its role has been seriously jeopardized by its own conduct over its people after the election. Who has been the ultimate winner? It is Israel which can now say, "we told you so about Iran." The question is was it necessary for the Iranian government to go through all the drama of violence and protests when it boasts it is the most democratic country in the Middle East? Split among top leaders The Guardian Council declared on 23rd June that no new election would take place, although it was reported one day earlier that the number of votes recorded in fifty cities exceeded the number of eligible voters by three million. The Council justified that such irregularities did not constitute "major fraud" and refused to nullify the election results. What constitutes "major" is a debatable issue and a contested term. Fraud is fraud and whether it is major or minor does not matter. The decision of the Council has been no surprise after the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei on 19th June pronounced the vote fair in a major sermon on Friday prayers. Some say it was too early for the Supreme Leader to approve definitively the outcome of the presidential election. Mousavi's response to the Supreme Leader was just as blunt as possible. He has challenged the Supreme Leader's authority, like the demonstrators who support him. He said that the Islamic Republic needed comprehensive reform and the people needed freedom of expression. This is possibly the first time that the decision of the Supreme Leader has been challenged by some political leaders and their supporters. Accordingly the authority of the Supreme Leader has been weakened. Free and fair elections include many elements. And there's a strong suspicion among critics that the government machine was behind the current President Ahmadinejad. There's much discussion among people over whether the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij militia, and government employees like teachers, has been "encouraged" to vote for Ahmadinejad. There are two distinct groups that have emerged in Iran: one that contests the election result and the other that wants to justify the election as fair. Behind the two groups are powerful people of Iranian politics. On one hand is the President Ahmeadinejad, supported by the Supreme leader and his allies, and on the other Mir Hussein Mousavi, the defeated candidate who was Prime Minister of Iran for eight years during Iran-Iraq war and his supporters. The split between the two sides is widening day by day. A statement of the Association of Combatant Clergy calling for the result to be annulled has been a surprise move. The third group is reportedly headed by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the right-hand man to the father of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini. His absence from public view, coupled with temporary detention of his daughter and other family members, is intriguing because he has been an outspoken critic of President Ahmadinejad and supporter of Mousavi. Rafsanjani who leads two powerful state institutions - head of the Expediency Council - is supposed to arbitrate disputes between the elected parliament and unelected Guardian Council. He is also elected to lead the Assembly of Experts and this body has the power to oversee the supreme leader and replace another when he dies. Some political observers say that it is very interesting that Rafsanjani, the ultimate insider, finds himself aligned with the reformist movement. Although he was a diehard conservative, steadily and with the passage of time he has evolved to have more pragmatic views. He supports greater opening to the West, privatizing parts of the economy and granting more powers to the elected institutions. It is not clear what leverage or role Rafsanjani has to broker a compromise between the two groups. Clash of ideas erupted It is a clash of ideas that underlies the problem in Iran. It is not new and has been going on for twenty years. Most of the Iranian population is literate and young people do not remember Shah or his oppressive rule. The people of Iran have access to the internet and they know how poorly their country has performed compared with its neighbour, Turkey. Some critics to the Iranian regime say that the country has wasted a huge opportunity to bridge the gap between the regime and an increasingly sophisticated population seeking greater freedom of action and dress code. Whatever happens next in Iran, observers say there will be no return to status quo. There are already signs that the opposition has entered a new phase. Instead of mass rallies they have focused on civil disobedience, including strikes among merchants (bazaris), labourers, and key arteries of the Iranian economy (like the petroleum industry and oil ministry). It is likely that there will also be more trouble on the streets on the third, seventh and the 40th day after the deaths of the demonstrators according to the Muslim Shi'ite tradition of remembering the dead. What makes this crisis unprecedented is the scale of the dissent on the streets and the fact that it is in parallel with a fracture in the ruling elite. For the last thirty years, Iran's top leaders have disagreed with each other many times, but they have never taken their quarrels openly to the people like this. Political observers believe the conflict is certainly far from being resolved. * The author is former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.