Improving Governance: Principled Conservatives’ Rhetorical Game
Improving Governance: Principled Conservatives’ Rhetorical Game. Is there a genuine will among the conservatives in power to respond to the people’s demands, or is everything they say or promise more about rhetoric than serious intent? Qalibaf had promised that if the situation calms down, we will move towards reform and new governance. However, he did not specify what he meant by this new governance.
He did not clarify whether this was just his personal opinion or if there was a similar will in other parts of the power structure. After his electoral defeat in 2013, he also brought up the idea of neo-conservatism, which later turned out to be more about claiming a share than transformation.
Before him, the head of the judiciary had also announced that they welcome dialogue with protesters. Alongside all this, the discussion of changing the presidential system to a parliamentary one, which has been murmured about in the conservative camp for some time, has been raised again by Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam, a member of the clergy community, and Elias Naderan, a member of parliament. This is an idea that, within the framework of current laws and political structure, does not lead to openness but rather to a more closed political space. Perhaps this is what they meant by new governance.
Such statements at the height of protests led to a series of discussions and analyses, some of which were taken as a positive sign and welcomed, while others hoped for an opening for change and reform. However, more than two months after the protests, signs and actions indicate that not only has there been no practical sign of change, but all of this seems to be more of a rhetorical and verbal exercise.
Experience and evidence, however, suggest that conservatives are going in circles and returning to their usual point, pursuing the same customary policies and methods.
Confrontation with Mandatory Hijab
The first sign of a desire for change should be seen in how the power structure deals with the issue of mandatory hijab. Tolerance in dealing with optional hijab, which is the underlying demand of the protesters, is believed by some evidence to show that the system has retreated from its stubborn stance on mandatory hijab or has concluded that the policy was wrong and needs to be revised.
Mohsen Hessam Mazaaheri, a researcher in the field of religion and politics, believes that although serious doubts about the mandatory hijab policy have emerged among the system’s supporters over the past two months, at the highest levels of governance, things are still the same as they were before these two months.
He writes that it is unrealistic to expect a forty-plus-year policy to change suddenly and in just two months. Naturally, we will witness resistance to returning to the previous state, and it is expected that this resistance will be pursued even more seriously in official and administrative spaces where there is more control.
He believes that now the ball is in the court of governance to gradually come to terms with the new situation. The imposition of reality and the mandatory hijab law might end up like laws such as the prohibition of video and satellite storage, laws that are not repealed but are not enforced because they are no longer enforceable.
Meanwhile, alongside this optimism, other whispers are being raised in the parliament. There is talk that instead of judicial coercive measures against those without hijab, other methods should be used to enforce hijab compliance, such as punitive actions like social deprivations. In this case, it must be said that confronting mandatory hijab will not lead to tolerance but to intensification. We must wait and see which policy is adopted.
Confrontation with Students
The approach and dealing with student activists, however, not only show no sign of tolerance or retreat and dialogue but, on the contrary, indicate an intensification of confrontations. From the heavy sentences being issued for students these days to changes in the student disciplinary regulations, which require a permit for holding a hundred-person gathering and foresee up to a five-year ban from education for student activists.
Improving Governance with a Parliamentary System
Was Qalibaf or other conservatives’ intention for improving governance merely a change in the presidential election structure? That the president, after passing the Guardian Council’s hurdle, would emerge from the parliamentary vote instead of the public vote, or that the presidency would be abolished entirely and a prime minister elected by the parliament would replace him? A parliamentary system belongs to a party-based political structure.
Where there is no news of the Guardian Council, parties participate in elections, party representatives enter the parliament, and the party with the majority selects the prime minister, and the responsibility for the prime minister’s performance lies with that party.
In a country where none of these conditions exist and its non-party representatives are usually not accountable to their constituents for their performance, how is it expected to accept responsibility for the prime minister’s performance, and what is the legal mechanism for dealing with this responsibility or lack thereof? In the current political structure, changing the presidential system to a parliamentary one ultimately leads to even more closed politics.
Conservatives, who have managed to unify politics as much as possible with the Guardian Council’s lever, will now advance this unification with minimal cost and trouble if the system changes to a parliamentary one. The Guardian Council will filter only once instead of twice in both parliamentary and presidential elections.
Elias Naderan recently poured cold water on everyone in the parliament and said that the governance must decide whether the parliamentary system should prevail or the presidential system. A dual-based system in the country is not efficient. Our country’s experience over the past forty-plus years and the irresponsibility of parliamentary and government-making institutions necessitate fundamental reforms in this area as described below.
Many reports and analyses have been published regarding Ebrahim Raisi’s government promises.
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