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The recently concluded elections in Tehran (June 14) have indeed thrown up quite a few surprises. First and foremost is the unexpectedly high voter turn-out, which belied the earlier speculation that the urban and young voters, having been denied the excitement of a polemical debate between a 'pillar of the establishment' Hashemi Rafsanjani and the leader of the 'deviant current' Esfandiyar Rahim Mashaei had lapsed into utter apathy.
Once the two main contenders were disqualified, it was expected that the elections would go as per the script of the Supreme Leader, and his handpicked man, Saeed Jalili, would sail through the façade of an election. The fact that he came in a distant third to the emphatic first round victory of Hassan Rouhani was the next biggest surprise. Most analysts, who still continued to focus some attention on this 'selection' of a President had assessed that the polls would go into a run-off, as none of the contenders were strong enough to muster over 50% of votes in the first round. It was further expected that the contest would essentially be between the Secretary General of the Supreme National Security Council, Saeed Jalili and the Mayor of Tehran, Mohamed BaqerQalibaf, the latter being more popular than Jalili. In this scenario, Hassan Rouhani was not considered a serious threat to either of them.
Another surprise was that the ballots were actually counted for more than 24 hours, before declaration of results. This clearly confirmed that the outcome of Presidential elections in 2009, declared within five hours of closure of polling time, was in fact a rigged result. Ahmedinejad, it can now safely be asserted, had stolen the victory from his rival Mir Hussain Moussavi, for it is practically impossible to count 43 million votes in five hours. And this time, the ballots were close to 50 million.
How does one explain so many surprises? The most plausible explanation is that the Supreme Leader had two top priorities. One was to ensure a high voter turn-out so as to affirm people's faith not only in the 'democratic exercise' but more importantly in the 'Velayat-e-faqih' (the rule of clerics), that this system controlled by clerics was actually giving them a choice to elect their leaders. The second priority was to avoid a divisive and confrontational campaign, particularly at a time of intense economic hardship.This could have thrown up some basic questions on the way the country is governed and the destitution to which an oil rich country is being driven to. Both Rafsanjani and Mashaei are insiders and know too much of the inner workings of the system and any accusations flying out in the media could have been destructive to the delicate fabric held together by an unelected and unaccountable group of clerics. It was all the more important to show to the West that the legitimacy of their rule was intact and the people, despite the increasingly harsh regime of sanctions, were solidly behind the regime. The ultimate goal of sanctions, i.e., to change the regime, had failed and the West should now come to terms in dealing with this regime and upon the Ayatollah's terms. Now that he has achieved both the desired outcomes, it mattered little as to who would be the President. But surely, it would have been convenient to have a more pliable Saeed Jalili than a Rouhani who is clearly aligned to the Opposition camp.
Now, how did Rouhani achieve this remarkable feat, that too coming so far from behind and in such a short time? Rafsanjani had been disqualified just a week before the elections and his decision not to appeal to the Supreme Leader to annul the decision of the Guardian Council was regarded as curtains for the 'reformists' campaign. Prior to this, the 'reformist' former President Mohamed Khatami had already refused to contest, stating that the elections were unlikely to be fair. Although Rafsanjani's foray in to the electoral battle had clearly stirred the imagination of the 'reformists' camp, the excitement was short-lived. Once he quit, Hassan Rouhani and Mohammed Reza Aref were seen as the last two hopes of the dying flame of reform. Though, in the closing days of campaign, Aref stepped down in favour of Rouhani, Iranian analysts still dismissed the possibility of the latter putting up a strong fight to the regime's favourites. They argued that all those who would have voted for Khatami or Rafsanjani would not automatically switch their votes to a hardly popular Hassan Rouhani.
The fact that Rouhani actually secured more than all the other contenders put together is a remarkable tribute to the followers of Khatami and Rafsanjani and their organisational ability to rally around such massive show of strength. This clearly showed that the 'reformists' have built up a huge constituency since the last election and they can turn this on to very effective use at a short notice. They have certainly foiled the plans of the conservative clergy, or the 'principalists' -as the followers of the 'principles of the revolution of 1979' are called. Well, the followers of reformists have done their job. But will Rouhani be able to stand up to the Supreme Leader, the Revolutionary Guards and the hard-line lobby in the Majlis and deliver to his followers the changes that they hope to see. Certainly he is not a tall leader like Khatami or Rafsanjani, who with their past experience as Presidents, have known all the nooks and corners of power in Tehran and have built up solid constituencies among the youth and the 'bazaar', respectively. Rouhani had no constituency of his own, but now seems to have suddenly acquired one. And much is expected of him. He is no doubt a refreshing change from his predecessor, who with his boorish style of functioning had thoroughly embarrassed the sophisticated social and political elite in Tehran. Rouhani, besides being a close ally of Rafsanjani and Khatami, comes with the added advantage of being a close friend of Larijanis, the two brothers who head the other two centres of power -- the Judiciary and the Legislature. This should change the relation of the new head of Executive with the other two organs, which have been on confrontational terms during most of Ahmedinejad's tenure. That should also be a matter of relief to the Supreme Leader who spent most of his time mediating in the tussles between heads of the three organs. Particularly vicious were the fights between Ahmedinejad and Ali Larijani, the Chairman of the Majlis. Hassan Rouhani's good equation with Ali Larijani will not only ensure a smoother functioning of the two organs but also expedite an urgent response to an utterly mismanaged economy.
Rouhani's approach to the all-important nuclear issue, if the past is any guide, would also be different. The present Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had put Dr. Hassan Rouhani in charge of negotiations with the IAEA and the EU in October 2003. As a pragmatist, he decided to cooperate with the IAEA and began the negotiations to sign the Additional Protocol, required by the IAEA, so as to avoid Iran's dossier being referred to the UNSC by the then DG, IAEA, El-Baradei. He also sought to exploit the dissatisfaction of France and Germany with the American invasion of Iraq, that year. On Oct 23rd 2003, Rouhani reached an agreement with the EU-3 ministers and Iran announced that it would voluntarily suspend uranium enrichment and sign the NPT's Additional Protocol on international inspection. But the signing of the Additional Protocol became a major bone of contention between the hardliners and the pragmatists, with the former branding it as treason and the latter calling for its urgent ratification by the Majlis, to prevent referral of the Iran case to UNSC and the imposition of sanctions. And ten years later, it appears that he was eminently right at the time and the hardliners have neither acquired a nuclear weapon nor have they avoided sanctions, which are getting harsher by the year.
Do these categories of 'reformists/moderates' and 'hardliners' make any sense in a system controlled by religious clerics? Is it a matter of mere nuances or is there a fundamental difference in their world view? Firstly, it must be stated that the reformists do not promise to abolish the rule of unelected clerics and put a liberal democracy in its place. This was not promised even by Mir Hussain Moussavi, the darling of the youth, thousands of who took to the streets in June 2009 and faced the bullets and batons of the Baseej. And 'Hassan Fereydun' (who took the name Rouhani to emphasise his religiosity or spirituality) has certainly no intention to challenge the rule of clerics. Yet, he is a moderate, a reformer and this came out clearly in one of his campaign speeches, when he said "it is good to keep the centrifuges running, but it is equally important to keep the people's lives running." That's what differentiates a moderate from a hardliner in today's Iran. Will Hassan Rouhani be allowed to give primacy to the people's lives over the nuclear programme? Time and the Clerics will tell.
By Special Arrangement with : Observer Research Foundation (www.orfonline.org)