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21.07.2011

POLITICAL PROCESSES IN IRAN: IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE

   

Sevak Sarukhanyan

Though the speculations about possible revolution in Iran stirred up after the 2009 presidential elections and Arab revolutions, over the recent 6 years really revolutionary changes has taken place in the domestic political and public life in the Islamic Republic of Iran. After the election of M. Ahmadinejad the Iranian political and governmental elite has undergone serious transformations.

The government of M.Ahmadinejad, formed in 2005, was the first most temporal government in the post-revolutionary history of Iran. Though the members of the government were guided by the Islamic ideological conceptions, most of them, before coming to the government had only administrative career and only some individuals represented purely religious circles.

The 2008 parliamentary elections also transformed the parliament: it has become more temporal. Just like in case with the first and the second governments of Ahmadinejad, in case with the parliament too all the members of this political body founded their political activity on the idea of Islam and Islamic republic but from the biographical point of view the majority of the members of the parliament has no connection with the religious activity and religious structures.

This is important fact which is conditioned by significant role and structural peculiarities of the governing system of Iran.

This system is rather based on interweaving of religious and state bodies in one common shell where state policy (domestic, foreign, social, economic, state security and etc.) is rather formed through the complementarity and discussion than on governing the country by the spiritual leader. For quite a long time when the leading posts in the Iranian government and parliament were occupied by spiritual figures this shell almost perfectly proved conformity of the state policy with all the wings of the political/religious circles. The peculiarity of the period prior to Ahmadinejad or the period of secularization of the state system was that the religious figure controlled the whole governing system and all the contradictions, which aroused during the decision making, were settled within those religious circles though the negotiations and concessions. The negotiations, from the ideological point of view, mainly passed between equals: the member of the parliament, minister and the representative of the Expediency Discernment Council had the same religious rank and social status.

This rather interesting and partially democratic model of governing allowed Islamic Republic to avoid internal political crises and intra-elite contradictions. This system of complimentarity and smoothing of contradictions underwent revolutionary changes after the election of M. Ahmadinejad, which resulted in the secularization of the government and parliament and created a chasm between religious circles and government. This chasm was based on two fundamental principles:

1. Ideological – though the current temporal government has never questioned the appropriateness and efficiency of the system of governing and has adhered the system of values of the Islamic revolution, from the ideological point of view it cannot be the same like the religious circles, which possess the highest leverages of authority. The contradictions between the government and spiritual circles emerged back in 2005, but while M. Ahmadinejad enjoyed Ali Khamenei’s absolute confidence and support they cropped up in isolated cases. And after the first criticism in the address of president by Khomenei those contradictions simply reached their climax and overloaded the whole agenda of the Iranian public policy.

For the recent 3-4 months Iranian spiritual circles has criticized the entire policy of the president and government from the ideological grounds: the attempt to settle relations with Saudi Arabia, lack of support of the Shiites in Bahrain, privatization of the state property, annihilation of subsidy assistance, planning of the budget. It would be wrong to believe that this criticism is simply of timeserving nature – it is really based on ideological grounds.

2. Status – Formation of secular government emerged serious issues connected with the status in the governing system of the Islamic Republic. As we have already mentioned religious figures, despite the posts they took in the system of government, from the point of view status very often were equal and negotiations and contradictions between them while taking political and economic decisions as a rule were settled by mutual concessions. After the formation of the secular government this situation changed: despite the post and position they take, temporal figures in the Islamic Republic have much lower status than the religious figures and the negotiations with the later have always been for the government and president the negotiations between superior and subordinate but never between the equals. The current government in Iran, especially after Ali Khamenei gave up on a policy of the support of the government, is in some sense like a working group working on a contractual basis and which has to work in accord with the demands presented by the Iranian leadership in the face of spiritual authorities.

Putting aside the status factor it should be mentioned that the policy adopted by M. Akhmadinejad over the recent years was directed to change the status of government and for this purpose rather serious administrative reforms have been carried out in the country. They were mainly oriented on shifting the financial and planning functions of the ministries to the president administration, in a consequence of which the positions of the president and his team strengthened, the number of the financial and economic and administrative leverages they possessed has increased. The processes in Iran were directed to the formation of a model of “deep state” similar to the Turkish one, when despite the functioning legal formats there is a structure or group in the country possessing super-constitutional leverages and try to avoid the necessity to coordinate taking of important decisions with the highest state bodies (in case with Iran – religious authorities). In some sense the policy of M. Ahmadinejad was directed to the formation of the Turkish “secular Islam” model in Iran where Islam is preserved as a cornerstone of the state policy but the state governing is carried out by the temporal powers.

But unlike Turkey where is no spiritual Islamic hierarchy, taking into consideration the peculiarities of the Sunnite Islam, and religion is not institutionalized, Shiite ministry in Iran with its religious institutions is super strong; after 1979 it was also state forming and the policy of M. Ahmadinejad, from this point of view has been doomed. In Iran religious Islamic authorities can never be substituted by tempral Islamic authorities and the change of the state system can occur only by means of classical revolution.

Though the current political crisis in Iran came to prove how strong and organized the religious authorities in Iran are, the prospect of contradictions between temporal and religious authorities in Iran will preserve. The internal changes in Iran are obvious, the society has become even more active and the demands for the reforms have stirred up. Unlike 1997 when M. Khatami who was the adherent of the reforms but who did not carried them out was elected president, today Iranian society does not see in the religious figures people who can carry out those reforms in Iran.

While speaking about changes we do not only mean liberalization: the conservative stratum of the Iranian society, most of which voted for conservative but temporal M. Ahmadinejad, is also in need of changes. Today it can be stated that there is no such person among the Iranian religious figures who can win the 2013 elections under reformist or conservative slogans. The reformists will go for the elections headed by temporal M. Moussavi and conservatives, most probably, just like in 2005, will also choose a temporal candidate. Whether that will be radical conservative, the speaker of the Majlis Larijani or moderate conservative, the mayor of Tehran Ghalibaf, who drives to work on his own motorcycle, is the subsidiary matter.

So, in connection with the future president, the contradictions between temporal and spiritual authorities may repeat after 2013, and this sharply increases the possibilities of new political crises and implementation of classical anti-system revolution in Iran.


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