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Iran and democracy

Jun 26, 2009 Editorial

The cries of “rigging” by the opposition in Iran after their Presidential elections on June 12th have resonated with Guyanese who experienced the phenomenon in spades between 1968 and 1985.
The western media, in general, has focused on alleged violations of democracy by the elements of the state against opposition protestors and it is hard not to sympathise with the latter group – especially after viewing videos circulating on the internet of a young woman shot in cold blood by security forces.
The state of democracy in Iran, however, is a bit more complex than we have come to accept as “normal” in the west, and a bit of background might be useful to decipher the information that is being thrown at us at a fast and furious pace.
We can do worse than begin with President Obama’s recent speech in Egypt where he remarked that the history between the US and Iran had been “tumultuous”. More specifically he conceded, “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.” He was referring to the ouster of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeghin in 1953 and the installation by the US of the Shah, who ruled Iran despotically with the help of a brutal secret police.
The Shah was removed in 1979 by a popular revolution led by the charismatic cleric, Ayatollah Khomeni. As Lenin had remarked, revolutions take place not when a majority is in favour of revolution, but when a majority finds it impossible to go on with the existing state of affairs. The US had been intimately involved with the “existing state of affairs” as was proven by the revolutionaries who painstakingly pieced together shredded documents from the captured US embassy in Teheran.
The country held a national referendum that introduced a novel constitution which combined a theocratic rulership and a democratic presidency. Ayotollah Khomeni was declared the supreme leader of the country who made most important decisions in all spheres of activity. Very crucially, the incumbent appoints the clerics on the Guardian Council which in turn, selects those who can seek to run for governmental positions – and confirms the latter elections. The Supreme Leader is technically appointed by a body of clerics – the Assembly of Experts – but since the incumbent Khameni was personally selected (for life) by Khomeni before his death in 1989, it is difficult to consider him being ousted soon.
In addition to the clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader, the Guardian Council has an equal number of members nominated by the Judiciary and approved by parliament. Recently, after representations of fraud by opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the Guardian Council ordered a limited recount of some votes. The President is elected every four years for a maximum two terms – but most crucially, the candidates must be approved by the Guardian Council. The present contretemps, therefore, is playing out between members of an elite, who can all claim impeccable revolutionary and Islamic credentials. Iranian democracy, as far as it goes, has to do with voting for leaders who have already been “approved”. They would uniformly want not to be seen as aligned with the US.
The President is supposed to be responsible for social and economic policies, but the general thrust and broad parameters of the programmes are established by the Supreme Leader.  While technically second in authority to that Leader, the President can be overruled at any time by the Guardian Council. Unlike its backing of President Ahmadinejad, the Council had thwarted reforms proposed by his predecessor Mohamed Khatami, who not coincidentally, is heavily supportive of the present opposition leader Moussavi.
Another key institution is the 200,000-member Revolutionary Guard formed to “protect” the revolution and supported by the millions of paramilitary members of the Basij or morality police. The latter unit has been very visible in keeping down protests in what is evidently an important development in Iran’s unique “democracy”.

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