Iran Politicians Racing For Elections While Protesters Want Regime Change
Amid protests and economic crisis, top conservatives in Tehran are maneuvering to present themselves as viable alternatives for the presidency and the parliament.
Amid protests and economic crisis, top conservatives in Tehran are maneuvering to present themselves as viable alternatives for the presidency and the parliament.
A commentary in the January 7 edition of the reformist daily Etemad said that leading conservative politicians in the government are distancing themselves from the Raisi administration. Other politicians outside the government have broken their silence as the weakness of a government dominated by hardliners is being revealed.
Etemad wrote on Saturday that the neo-conservative Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and ultraconservative presidential adviser Saeed Jalili have been lately trying to define new roles for themselves in the next decade.
While some politicians may be planning for the next decade, reformist columnist Abbas Abdi told Eghtesad Online on January 5 that the continuation of the current situation in Iran for another two years is inconceivable unending antigovernment protests and Tehran's international isolation.
In the meantime, former proreform presidential candidate Mohsen Mehralizadeh has harshly criticized the Raisi administration for failing to stand by its promises and reiterated that Raisi is not an educated man and that he made promises because he is not familiar with political and economic concepts.
The Iranian media have interpreted all these developments as well as recent moves by former Majles Speaker Ali Larijani and remarks by former President Hassan Rouhani against the Raisi administration as attempts to prepare for next year's parliamentary and the 2025 presidential elections.
However, according to Etemad, Jalili's populist rhetoric against the 2015 nuclear agreement and a new deal with the West mark his dreams of establishing an even more hardliner administration. Etemad wrote that Jalili's denial of the looming threat of an international consensus against the Islamic Republic is part of his campaign for ultraconservative populist utopia.
The daily added that Ghalibaf on the other hand has a dream of repeating former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's "reconstruction government". During the past weeks Ghalibaf has been talking about a new development-oriented governance, but his occasional support for suppression of protesters contradicts his agenda. Nonetheless, since the protests started in mid-September, Ghalibaf has been repeating his keywords of "neo-conservatism" and "new governance" in a bid to create his political brand ahead of the next elections in Iran.
Ghalibaf also went to Qom and met with Iran's top clerics who in his support criticized Raisi's economic policies.
Ghalibaf has been often complaining about the refusal of many conservatives to support him in the past presidential elections although all the polls showed he was in a better position than the main conservative contestant particularly in 2013 and 2017.
At the same time, while Iran's reformists seem to have little hope for a political comeback, moderate conservatives such as Rouhani and Larijani find themselves in a better position to compete with the ruling ultraconservatives and are making some moves.
Standing in the middle, Mehralizadeh, who has never been accepted by the public as a reformist or by the government as a conservative, has come up with a new tactic. He says a political party, The Nation's Path Party, has written to him and asked to stand as a candidate in the next election. As a response, Mehralizadeh has once again challenged Raisi's academic and political credentials and pointed out that the most important threat against the Islamic Republic is "the fire of anger and revenge" resulting from violent treatment of the protests and advised the government to "speak softly to the nation."
While all these figures are talking about the continuation of the Islamic Republic, protesters in Iran do not seem to settle for anything other than a regime change and executions that shook Iran Saturday, do not seem to change this.
Following an ambivalent speech by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei earlier this week, stopping short of clearly setting out a policy regarding the enforcement of hijab, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (Qalibaf) criticized the police over their harsh treatment of women with loose hijab.
Describing hijab as the inevitable duty for all Muslim women, at the same time Khamenei had emphasized that no Iranian woman should be labeled as non-religious or anti-revolutionary if she fails to fully honor the Islamic dress code.
During a TV program that aired January 5, Ghalibaf said "What right do we have to say that we don't let a woman ride the subway when she is not wearing hijab properly?"
Describing the issue as polarizing, he said that both extremes of no Islamic dress code and harassing women for hijab “benefit the enemies.”
Signaling a sign of retreat, Ahmad Alamolhoda, a senior firebrand cleric who is President Ebrahim Raisi's father-in-law, said earlier in the week that people cannot be forced to adopt the culture of wearing hijab. It is certain that police measures will not do job because it is not possible to teach people what is right just by harsh and negative actions, he said, noting that it is not possible to make hijab a culture with threats and arrests, there should be a clear and comprehensive plan for that.
Last year in March, the staunch hardliner had urged people to reproach women with poorly-fitting hijab to stop “debauchery.” “If a woman in the street removes her headscarf, she must face the complaints of the people to see that she has no place…In such a case, you can be sure that she will wear even two scarves."
The hardliner cleric's apparent retreat from his harsh position seemed to come after Khamenei sounded a bit more lenient about those who are not observing hijab according to the ideals of the regime.
It was forcible enforcement of hijab in the streets that triggered popular protests in September -- the boldest challenge the Islamic Republic has ever faced.
The Islamic Republic faces a dilemma: Allowing people to wear whatever they desire in public means the utmost failure of the regime's ideology, while enforcing hijab with strict punitive measures can only lead to further resentment in society. Now, the three branches of the Islamic Republic’s government are mulling over new methods to enforce hijab.
Reformist Shargh Daily said Thursday that new measures include banning those who unveil from leaving the country, imposing fines, denying employment, and community service as well as restrictions on using public services.
Apparently, these are parts of the measures that the parliament is considering for hijab enforcement.
On January 1, Fars news agency, affiliated with the hardliners and the IRGC, cited an unnamed police source as saying that a new phase of a plan to enforce hijab has started across the country. The news agency also confirmed reports that many people had received warnings via SMS about removing hijab in their cars.
Defending the decision, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi told Rouydad24 website Friday that “Observance of hijab is a legal issue and one of our religious values. Most of our women also observe this issue.”
A lawmaker said in December that the regime is making some decisions about hijab rules, explaining that the methods for enforcing hijab may change. He added “it is possible that women who do not observe hijab would be informed via SMS, asking them to respect the law. After notifying them, we enter the warning stage... and last, the bank account of the person who unveiled may be blocked."
A senior ayatollah separately agreed with Hashemi that clerics have lost influence and the government has been doing a lousy job both in foreign policy and in domestic affairs.
Hashemi expressed regret in an interview with Jomhuouri Eslami newspaper, which was also carried by many other Iranian news outlets, that one of the country's current problems is that there are no charismatic leaders.
Hashemi, a former chairman of the Tehran City Council, said in the interview that people’s financial situation is "more than critical" as inflation and unemployment have reached an explosive level. He added that in such a situation tackling economic problems should have been the government's first priority.
Hashemi reminded that his father's "reconstruction government" (1989-1997) recognized poverty as Iran's biggest enemy and prioritized economic progress over the ideological campaigns against the United States and Israel and attached high significance to people's food, housing, health and education.
He further pointed out that with the concentration of power in the hands of Iran’s conservatives and the elimination of ‘moderates’ and ‘reformists’ from the political scene in the 2020 parliamentary election and 2021 presidential election, Iran is entangled in political deadlock. Conservatives control not only the parliament and the cabinet, but also the state media, the armed forces, the Guardian Council, and all other political institutions.
"In such a monopolized situation, the conservatives cannot even blame others for the problems they have created for the country.” They can no longer blame others and “ there is no way out of the situation as no alternative approach has been left," Hashemi said, adding that "In such a situation neither progress is possible, nor a U-turn is acceptable for the 'revolutionaries' in Iran."
Hashemi also pointed out that an unprecedented consensus has been formed in the international community against the Islamic Republic because of mistakes by the ultraconservative government in foreign policy. When foreigners talk about intervention in Iran, we see no serious opposition to that in Western public opinion. He said that no UN resolution has been ever issued about Iraq, Libya and Syria like the resolution that called for a fact-finding committee to probe into the violation of human rights in the Islamic Republic.
The UN Human Rights Council voted November 24 to launch an independent investigation into Iran's deadly repression of protests, that has killed around 500 civilians.
He quoted Iranian academics as saying that the Islamic Republic is suffering from a bipolar political situation and a state of near collapse in which neither politicians nor clerics have any influence or control over the society.
At the same time, Ayatollah Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, a former Attorney General, said Wednesday that top clerics have lost their status as a point of reference for the Iranian society. Tabrizi also harshly criticized the government's economic and foreign policies.
He said: "I wish at least there were a group of economists in the government who did nothing other than sort out the economic issues, but it is not clear who in Iran is responsible for solving the country's economic problems."
Speaking on foreign policy, Tabrizi talked about an issue for which solely Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is responsible. He said: "Trusting the Russians brings losses to us. Russians betray Iran and take advantage of us. They pretend to be Iran's friend, but they keep blackmailing Tehran." Tabrizi pointed out: "We need to correct our foreign policy, otherwise, the Russians will plunder our resources and at the end serve other countries' interests."