Predicting Iranian politics is usually a fool’s game. After all, few
observers have accurately forecast the dramatic twists and turns of
contemporary Iranian history – neither the 1979 upheaval that
transformed a pro-American monarchy into a truculent anti-Western
theocracy, nor the rebirth of the revolution’s leftist radicals as
moderate reformers fifteen years later, nor the subsequent rise of a new
generation of hard-liners, as epitomized by President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. And even fewer outside Iran predicted the response to
Iran’s last experience with the ballot box, in 2009, when the dubious
declaration of Ahmadinejad’s overwhelming reelection prompted the first
sustained protests and opposition movement since the revolution itself.
And yet, as Iranians go to the polls to elect the ninth parliament since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the immediate outcome
is clear even before the polling places have closed. Announced turnout
levels will prove respectable, probably 60 percent, although whether
participation rates are rigged or real is impossible to ascertain,
without independent monitors or even a well-functioning print or social
media. Irrespective of the election results, Tehran will trumpet the
vote as a resounding affirmation of its continuing popular mandate and
as “another slap in the face,” to borrow supreme leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei’s charming rhetoric, to the United States and the other Western
governments that have imposed severe sanctions on Iran.
Beyond the official rhetoric, the elections will not alter basic
dynamics of Iran’s domestic politics, in particular the deepening
estrangement among a political elite dominated by a narrow but
discordant array of hardliners, or the fundamental schism between its
leadership and its disproportionately young population. Nor will it have
any direct impact on decision-making over the most vital issues of
Iranian domestic or foreign policy today – specifically, the regime’s
nuclear ambitions, the crushing economic burdens faced by its population
thanks to increasingly severe sanctions, and the possibility that
tensions may escalate into direct military conflict between Iran and
Israel or the United States.
To state the obvious, the Islamic Republic is not a democratic state,
where voting serves as a mechanism for influencing policy outcomes and
where patterns of political participation and outcomes offer insight
into public preferences. In Iran, particularly after the charade of the
2009 results and the turmoil on the streets and in the halls of power
that followed in its wake, elections inevitably serve a more constrained
function in facilitating the shadow-boxing among the elite and offering
a mere veneer of popular consent.
However, this deeply cynical interpretation of Iran’s system and the
likely results of the parliamentary elections should not imply that the
vote is of little interest or value. In fact, quite the opposite is
true. The elections matter profoundly, not for the headlines that
dominate the current news cycle but for the long-term future of the
country. The perpetuation of the electoral process even under the shadow
of heavy-handed government manipulation and repression is a testament
to the abiding legacy of Iran’s historical struggle for representative
institutions and an investment in its democratic future.
For well over a century, the Majlis has played an outsized role in
Iran’s ever-changing political narrative. Its establishment in 1906
enshrined the basic tenets of democracy, albeit mainly in principle and
only episodically in practice: that government should be based on
written laws and that it should be responsible to its citizenry through
representative institutions. The retention of the parliament after the
1979 Revolution reflected the suspicion of centralized authority among
the motley coalition that unseated the monarchy. Rebranded as the
Islamic Majlis, the Iranian parliament has served as the focal point for
elite intrigue as well as popular aspirations for accountability
throughout the past three decades.
The election process in Iran has never been fully free or fair, and the
conditions today are more hostile than at perhaps any moment in the
post-revolutionary period toward an open competition among a wide array
of interests and ideologies. Still, the parliament remains a potent
force, and despite the meticulous culling of any prospective candidates
who might dissent from the ruling system, it has never functioned as a
Potemkin body. Throughout the history of the Islamic Republic, its
members have routinely challenged Iran’s power brokers and their
preferred policies. Even the charismatic founder of the revolutionary
state, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, contended with constant recurrent
defiance of his mandates from successive unruly parliaments. Today, the
Majlis remains the only bulwark against the wholesale consolidation of
power under the aegis of Khomeini’s successor as Supreme Leader,
Ayatollah Khamenei.
Moreover, even within the confines of official restrictions, past
parliamentary ballots have served as critical junctures, helping to
catalyze the development of new political forces within Iran’s fractious
elite. In 1992, former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s attempt to
eliminate leftist MPs who favored a state-dominated economy
inadvertently gave rise to powerful movement for political and social
reform in Iran. Eight years later, the parliamentary campaign in
February 2000 represented the reformist apex and incited a fierce
program of reprisals by conservatives. Four years later, in large part
due to this conservative onslaught, parliamentary elections signaled the
fading relevance of reform and the ascendance of a new generation of
hard-liners. And throughout this time, the parliament remained the focal
point of day-to-day politics in Iran with battles over budgets,
oversight, and authority between each of the bodies and the office of
the presidency.
This latest round of elections is unlikely to generate a political tidal
wave in Iran. The results of the latest ballot may only be of limited
immediate value to the legions of analysts and journalists outside Iran
who hope to divine their implications for the nuclear politics and the
ever-present struggle for predominance among Iran’s leadership factions
and the views of a population that is feeling the fierce sudden impact
of the financial sanctions imposed on the regime. Still, as the first
opportunity to articulate their political views since the 2009 turmoil,
today’s ballot is a vital milestone.
For many Iranians, the very act of voting
remains a precious reminder of their long-held sense of political
entitlement and their struggle since the 19th century to exert some form
of accountability over their leadership. And for that small segment of
the political elite that is permitted to participate in the process, the
act of campaigning and the responsibilities of representation have a
way of creating an investment in political competition, the notion of
checks and balances, and the primacy of representative institutions. In
this sense, although the immediate outcome of the parliamentary
elections is not seriously in question, the long-term implications for
Iran’s constantly evolving politics remain to be seen.
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