Improving Governance: The Rhetorical Game of Conservatives
Improving Governance: The Rhetorical Game of Conservatives. Is there a will among the conservatives in power to respond to the people’s demands, or is everything they say or promise more of a spokesperson’s rhetoric than a serious intention or plan? Qalibaf had promised that if things calm down, we will move towards reform and new governance, but he did not specify what he meant by this new governance.
He did not say whether this was just his personal opinion or if there is such a will in other parts of the power structure. After losing the 2013 election, he also brought up the discussion of neo-conservatism, which later turned out to be more about seeking a share rather 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 again been raised by Gholamreza Mesbahi Moghadam, a member of the Society of Clerics, and Elias Naderan, a member of parliament. An idea that, within the framework of current laws and political structure, leads not to openness but to a more closed political space. Perhaps this is what they meant by new governance.
Statements like these, at the height of protests, led to a series of discussions and analyses, with some taking them as a positive sign and welcoming them, 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 no practical sign of change been seen, but it seems all of this has been 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 conventional policies and methods.
Confronting Mandatory Hijab
The first sign of a desire for change should be seen in the way the power structure deals with the issue of mandatory hijab. Tolerance in dealing with optional hijab, which is the foundation of the protesters’ demands, has led some, based on evidence, to believe that the regime has retreated from its stubborn stance on mandatory hijab or has concluded that the policy was wrong and needs reform.
Mohsen Hesam Moghaddam, a researcher in the field of religion and politics, believes that although serious doubts about the mandatory hijab policy have arisen among the regime’s supporters in the past two months, at the high levels of governance, things are still the same as before these two months.
He writes that one cannot expect a forty-something-year-old policy to suddenly change in two months. It is natural to 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 more control is possible.
He believes that now the ball is in the court of the government to gradually adapt to the new situation. The imposition of the reality and law of mandatory hijab should also face the fate of laws like the prohibition of video and satellite possession, laws that are not repealed but are not enforced because they are no longer enforceable.
Meanwhile, alongside this optimism, other murmurs are being raised in the parliament. The murmur that instead of judicial coercion against those not wearing 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 rather to intensification. We must wait and see which policy is adopted.
Confronting Students
The way of dealing with student activists, however, shows no sign of tolerance or retreat and dialogue, but on the contrary, indicates intensified confrontations. From the heavy sentences being issued for students these days to the change in the student disciplinary regulations, which makes holding a gathering of one hundred people conditional on obtaining a permit and expands the scope of criminalization to predict up to 5 years of educational deprivation for student activists.
Improving Governance with a Parliamentary System
Did Qalibaf or other conservatives mean by improving governance merely a change in the presidential electoral structure? That the president, after passing the Guardian Council’s barrier, comes out of the parliament’s ballot box instead of the public ballot box, or that the presidency is completely abolished and a prime minister elected by the parliament replaces him? A parliamentary system belongs to a party-based political structure.
Where there is no Guardian Council, parties participate in elections, party representatives enter parliament, and the party with the majority selects the prime minister, with the responsibility for the prime minister’s performance lying 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 supposed to accept responsibility for the prime minister’s performance, and what is the legal mechanism for dealing with this accountability or lack thereof? In the current political structure, changing the presidential system to a parliamentary one ultimately leads to an even more closed political environment.
Conservatives, who have managed to unify politics as much as possible with the Guardian Council’s lever, will now advance this uniformity with the least cost and hassle if the system is changed to a parliamentary one. The Guardian Council, instead of filtering twice in two elections, parliament and presidency, will do it once.
Elias Naderan recently clarified in parliament and said the government must decide whether a parliamentary or presidential system should prevail. A dual system in the country is not efficient. Our country’s experience over the past forty-something years and the lack of accountability of parliament-building and government-building institutions necessitate fundamental reforms in this area as follows.
Many reports and analyses have been published regarding the promises of Ebrahim Raisi’s government.
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