Iran conservatives losing ground?

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA (BAHRAIN), JAN. 19. In no great political surprise, Iranian conservatives have struck at pro-reform groups in the country by rejecting the nominations of a large number of candidates proposed for the Parliamentary elections in February. But, as some pro-reform politicians have noted, the conservatives have in fact not been as vindictive as had been feared. However, it appears that pragmatism, rather than any newly-found generosity, led the conservative leadership to collectively stay its hand.

Last week, the conservative-dominated Council of Guardians, which is mandated to supervise Iranian elections, sent back a list of approved candidates to the Interior Ministry, which actually conducts the election. About 11 per cent of the 6000 plus candidates who had filed nominations for the 270-member Parliament were found ineligible to contest the elections. In rejecting these nominations, the general reason cited by the Council had been that those disqualified were found to be insufficiently committed to the Islamic establishment, Islamic values, and rule by the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

These reasons, however, will no longer be sufficient in these and the elections to come. Under amendments to Iranian election law, the Council of Guardians will now have to provide more specific reasons for its decisions. Many of those rejected by the Council are expected to appeal against the decision. But the current law does not detail just how the Council should deal with such appeals. Legally, then, the Council may get away with its decisions. Nevertheless, it has admitted that it could have made some mistakes, and has promised to review some of the decisions. This could well indicate that the Council has understood that the current political conditions in Iran have begun to impose their own set of limitations.

There is little reason to think that the trend of the last two elections, in which conservatives received less than 30 per cent of the vote - has been radically reversed. If this trend is replicated at the February polls, the reform groups aligned with the President, Mr. Mohammed Khatami, should thus get control of Parliament. With the executive and legislative bodies under his control, Mr. Khatami would be in a good position to carry out drastic reforms of the Iranian political system.

With the conservatives having much to lose, they have tried to implement several mechanisms to control the voting patterns themselves. In the last session of the outgoing Parliament, they tried to pass amendments to the electoral law, whereby Council- appointed officials would have an authoritative presence in the polling stations, coterminous with the officials of the Interior Ministry. However, this attempt proved unsuccessful, and associations of Iranian bureaucrats are said to have already declared their allegiance to Mr. Khatami and his associates.

The pro-reform groups have been well-aware that the Guardians would pose the biggest stumbling block to a successful campaign. They had prepared for this by filing a glut of nominations, thus challenging the Guardians to find proper excuses for rejecting the nominations presented. The dilemma that the Guardians have faced is that a great many candidates on the pro-reform panels have impeccable revolutionary credentials. All of these candidates were also vetted, and in most instances cleared, by the Interior Ministry itself. In rejecting candidates with revolutionary credentials, the Guardians were forced to answer the question as where they drew the line in defining their commitment to revolutionary principles. Quite naturally, the Guardians have found that they could not feasibly reject as many pro-reform candidates as they might have liked.

This setback to the conservatives, even if temporary, reveals the mass political shift that has occurred in Iran. The pro-reform mood has infected sections of the clerical establishment, including some former officers of the Revolutionary Guards. It is fast becoming increasingly difficult for the conservatives of the nation to reverse this trend.

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Section  : International
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