Global IssuesIran Prepares for Parliamentary Elections amid Uncertainty
Uncertainty and confusion, particularly among the highly factionalised conservatives that have dominated Iranian politics since 2005, appear to be the order of the day some seven months before next March's parliamentary elections.
Given the harsh repression that followed the contested June 2009 presidential elections, including the arrest and confinement of their top leaders, reformists are not expected to be contenders.
But intense competition among different wings of forces claiming absolute loyalty to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, has created a muddled political environment, making it difficult to speculate about the direction of the country after the term of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expires in 2013.
The March elections to the Majlis could be a bellwether. In the past, parliamentary elections held right before the president's second term is over have been significant in hinting the future direction the country under the next president.
Today, increasingly acrimonious competition among devoted supporters of the Islamic Republic, known as Principlists, has the country wondering about whether there are plans to continue the country's hard-line direction without Ahmadinejad or whether instead the more- moderate conservative elements within the Principlist camp will take the reins and steer the country in a more centrist direction.
Conflict with the Principlist camp is nothing new. Its wings include moderate or pragmatic conservatives with ties to former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; traditional conservatives most prominently represented by the bazaar- affiliated Islamic Coalition Party; and hardliners who have controlled the executive branch under Ahmadinejad.
With the reformists now marginalised, the divisions among the Principlist forces have moved to centre stage. Concerted attempts to unify them under the leadership of two Principlist icons — Ayatollah Mohammadreza Mahdavi Kani and Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi — have so far failed.
Kani, a stalwart conservative and the current chair of the Council of Experts, along with Yazdi, the former judiciary chief and current member of the Guardian Council, have convened a committee established to put together a united list of candidates for all Principlist tendencies throughout the country.
While the committee brings together representatives from major Principlist organisations, it also includes representatives from two prominent politicians — Parliament Speaker Larijani and Tehran Mayor Qalibaf - who are expected to seek the presidency in 2013.
The inclusion of their representatives, however, has become a major point of contention for hard-line Principlists who have recently created a new organisation called Jebheye Paydari, or Steadfast Front. This organisation consists mainly of former Ahmadinejad cabinet ministers and a number of hard-line parliamentary deputies who publicly distanced themselves from him after his chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, was accused by a number of well-known principlists, some very close to the supreme leader, of 'deviation' from the Islamic Revolution earlier this year.
Nonetheless, they essentially maintain Ahmadinejad's hard- line point of view in domestic and foreign policy. The Steadfast Front has issued demands, including the removal of the Larijani and Qalibaf representatives, as a condition for their joining the committee. The fact that none of the demands has been accepted has unleashed an acrimonious war of words.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service