02/06/2004: 
Breaking News
Conservatives Expected To Win Iranian Elections
or, And Iran, Iran So Far Away
from Control Risks Group [subscription required]
Following intervention by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on 4 February, the Guardian Council on 5 February reviewed its disqualification of parliamentary election candidates.
Khamenei's intervention is not expected to end the crisis. It appears almost certain that the elections will proceed as scheduled on 20 February without the participation of the main reformist factions. Conservative candidates are therefore very likely to form a majority in the new parliament. Paradoxically, this may pave the way for further economic liberalisation and limited political reforms, as there are likely to be fewer legislative deadlocks than in the past four years. Most conservative politicians are moderate pragmatists rather than hardline ideologues; however, a small clique of traditional hardliners will continue to control the most powerful political institutions.
The wave of political reformism that arose in 1997, represented by President Mohammed Khatami's administration and the dominant factions in parliament, has lost momentum and appears to be in terminal decline. Nevertheless, the underlying popular support for fundamental reforms will persist, exacerbated by demographic and economic trends. In the immediate future, popular reaction to the conservatives' undemocratic seizure of parliament is likely to be limited, with only minor protests that pose no broader security threat. However, if the expected moderate conservative parliament (and subsequently Khatami's successor as president) fails to meet this popular demand, the threat of popular unrest will grow in coming years.
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CONSERVATIVES TO WIN CONTROL OF PARLIAMENT IN 20 FEBRUARY ELECTIONSFollowing intervention by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on 4 February, the Guardian Council on 5 February reviewed its disqualification of parliamentary election candidates.
Khamenei's intervention is not expected to end the crisis. It appears almost certain that the elections will proceed as scheduled on 20 February without the participation of the main reformist factions. Conservative candidates are therefore very likely to form a majority in the new parliament. Paradoxically, this may pave the way for further economic liberalisation and limited political reforms, as there are likely to be fewer legislative deadlocks than in the past four years. Most conservative politicians are moderate pragmatists rather than hardline ideologues; however, a small clique of traditional hardliners will continue to control the most powerful political institutions.
The wave of political reformism that arose in 1997, represented by President Mohammed Khatami's administration and the dominant factions in parliament, has lost momentum and appears to be in terminal decline. Nevertheless, the underlying popular support for fundamental reforms will persist, exacerbated by demographic and economic trends. In the immediate future, popular reaction to the conservatives' undemocratic seizure of parliament is likely to be limited, with only minor protests that pose no broader security threat. However, if the expected moderate conservative parliament (and subsequently Khatami's successor as president) fails to meet this popular demand, the threat of popular unrest will grow in coming years.
The crisis began in early January when the Guardian Council banned about 3,600 out of a total of 8,200 prospective parliamentary candidates, including about 80 incumbent parliamentary deputies. The Council subsequently reinstated about 1,000 candidates in an appeals process, but most prominent reformist candidates remain excluded. More than 60 parliamentary deputies staged a month-long sit-in protest in parliament, and more than 110 deputies submitted their resignations on 1 February, though Khamenei has refused to recognise these resignations.
Khatami's government had threatened to refuse to organise the elections on schedule, but Khamenei intervened on 4 February and ordered the elections to proceed. It briefly appeared that Khamenei might impose a compromise solution, involving the reinstatement of another 600 candidates. The Guardian Council began a review of these names on 5 February, but has so far reinstated only 51 candidates and clearly does not intend to extend this substantially.
The main reformist faction, the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) maintains that it will boycott the election, and other reformist factions are also unlikely to participate. This may ensure a low voter turnout, but this would further benefit conservative candidates, whose supporters will participate in voting. The conservative strategy for excluding the reformists from the political process is therefore likely to succeed, and a similar strategy is likely for presidential elections that are scheduled to take place in mid-2005.
This would undermine the regime's popular legitimacy, but it would not necessarily weaken its political power, though in the longer term popular aspirations for reform will persist. The return of conservative factions to government would not substantially change the operating environment for foreign investors. The pragmatist conservatives are favourably inclined towards foreign investment, and also to improved bilateral relations with the US (though the US is unlikely to reciprocate). However, the suppression of the reformist movement may lead to an increase in external pressures on Iran, possibly by EU governments, as well as by the US.
