Elections Reflect Iranian Democracy
// The price of the question
Contrary to initial impressions, the Iranian elections are more than symbolic. Those who think that there is no democracy in Iran know the country poorly. The democracy there is Islamic, but it is democracy. It is not the Anglo-Saxon system that allows Americans to hand power back and forth between two parties, or the British among three parties, generation after generation. Nor is it the Israeli and European coalition model with its eternal government crises that the public takes no mind of. And it is not the Turkish electoral system, with as many parties as you please, and the army there to make sure the state remains what Kemal Ataturk willed to them. Finally, it is not the Arab system, where the head of the country is most important, whether he be king, president or leader of the revolution.
The Iranian electoral system is a living organism, riddled with intrigue. The ruling religious establishment has very strong influence, but pressure from above is not the only deciding factor in it. The Islamic Republic is a hierocracy in which power is held in the hands of the clergy. But the clergy is divided. The Rahbar, Iranian religious leader, can provisionally be considered analogous to the Soviet secretary general, but the system in Iran is quite different in its fundamentals.
In the election period, the behind-the-scenes infighting comes to the fore. Of 7500 candidates, 2000 of them were excluded for dubious loyalty. Iranian liberals were left without leaders. The opposition was able to run candidates in only a third (!) of the electoral districts, after initially disdaining provincial centers to attempt to make a breakthrough in Tehran.
The fact that the conservatives, liberals and “moderates” cannot find unity even within their own ranks is only half of the particularity of the Iranian elections. Another problem is that a great number of candidates belong to a variety of parties simultaneously and often run as members of parties that they are ideologically not aligned with. It would be as if one candidate represented the Union of Right Forces, LDPR and Communist Party in Russian elections. On March 14, liberals, centrists and conservatives faced off in Iran. The first were represented by People's Trust, the Coalition of Reformers and People's Coalition for Reform. The centrists had Moderation and Development. The conservatives had the People's Independent Conservative Front, United Conservative Front and the Universal Coalition of Conservatives. It would be an error to imagine that the Iranian voters in the provinces could keep it all straight. But the show must go on. Democracy is the god of the modern world and elections are his prophet. Even in Iran.
Evgeny Satanovsky, president of the Middle East Institute
All the Article in Russian as of Mar. 14, 2008
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