Miles to go, promises to keep

Mr. Khatami and his supporters know that the patience of their people is running thin, writes KESAVA MENON.

SYED MOHAMMED Khatami was once asked, during an interview, as to who had the last word in his house - he or his wife. The reply was very prompt. ``I have the last word always and it is, `Yes Madam'''! It is remarks like these and the attitudes to life they reveal that endear the Iranian President to his people. In a country where men wearing clerical robes think the world owes them a living, that they are the fountainhead of all wisdom, and that the satisfaction of their ego is the most important goal in life, this 57-year- old cleric comes across as refreshingly different. His credentials as a member of the religious establishment are solid. He comes from a long line of respected religious scholars, his wife and daughters voluntarily wear the hejab and his younger brother is married to the grand-daughter of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. At the same time the purity of his high Farsi, his ready smile and his ability to regard himself lightly endears him to the masses. Mr. Khatami's role is central - and he is indispensable in more senses than one - if Iran is to evolve into a country where the people are more satisfied with their lot.

No one is clear, even after Mr. Khatami has spent one four-year term as President, about the specifics he stands for. But they do know that he is well-meaning, not interested in the self- aggrandisement that is characteristic of so many others in the clerical establishment and that he is basically a humane person. When Mr. Khatami's personal traits are super- imposed on what can clearly be perceived to be the most pressing needs of his countrymen it is possible to outline the measures that his people expect him to undertake during his next four years as President. Mr. Khatami won the June 8 presidential election by a landslide and should be sworn in for his second term in August provided of course the Council of Guardians, a conservative-dominated body that has power to authenticate elections, does not do something as foolhardy as over-turning the results announced by the Interior Ministry.

In his first campaign four years ago and after that, Mr. Khatami had spoken of the need to establish the `rule of law' and thereby strengthen civil society. In Iran, establishment of the rule of law could have meant many things since the clerics who support the status quo resorted to whatever means they liked to keep control. Over four years, Mr. Khatami had managed to reduce the potency of one of these means of control or to at least reduce the frequency with which it was used.

What Mr. Khatami has thus far not succeeded in doing is to ensure that the normal rules of democracy are followed. Although his supporters are in a majority in the Iranian Parliament after their victory in the February 2000 elections, it is the un- elected Guardians, who can also vet legislation, who ultimately decide what the law should be.

Political parties and a free press are, of course, necessary if the laws and public policy are to be formulated after a thorough- going debate. Mr. Khatami by himself cannot of course organise the parties and given Iran's current situation it was also perhaps not necessary to organise the various factions that broadly support a reform agenda into full-fledged political formations.

These factions do not agree on many of the specifics with some believing that emphasis should be on the economic front while others insist on the social and the political. In fact, the reform movement is more of a broad tendency rather than a detailed programme. If Mr. Khatami were to actively promote the formation of parties he would run the risk that the broad unity among his followers would dissolve as they agitated over their specific agendas. At the same time, the conservatives too are not a consolidated body that is universally and uniformly opposed to all reform. There are among them people who might not necessarily oppose some of the changes. Since they do not recognise the legitimacy of political formations the hard core among the conservatives have declined to set up a party of their own.

There is little chance that Mr. Khatami will be able to set up a single consolidated and disciplined party that will subsume the entirety of the reform tendencies. Such a disciplined formation would theoretically be better able to fight the conservatives but, given the reality of the Iranian situation, Mr. Khatami is probably better off if he leads an amorphous force against another amorphous force. The necessary versatility in the reform camp was brought out by the number of publications that sprang up during Mr. Khatami's first term. The closure of these publications was a major defeat for him and the expectation in Iran today is that the revival of a free press will be high on the list of Mr. Khatami's priorities.

For the press to be free, Mr. Khatami will have to curb a maverick Judiciary. These judges, mostly of a conservative bent, have interpreted the laws to promote their own retrograde views. A law has just been passed by Parliament (but not as yet by the Guardians) that provides a specific definition of political crimes and lays down the procedure for trial.The President and his supporters are apparently ready to pursue their reform agenda with more vigour and combativeness than they did in the past; they know that the patience of their people is running thin.

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