The Coldest Parliamentary Elections in Iran
As we approach March 1st, the day of elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts, the government’s efforts to encourage participation are increasing. However, what is to be held lacks even minimal competition and resembles more of an indirect appointment by Khamenei through the Guardian Council with the cooperation of Ebrahim Raisi’s government.
The government’s refrain in efforts is to instill the false claim that refusing to vote conflicts with the institution of elections and even Islam. There is also skepticism about the usefulness of not voting, alongside direct and implied threats that not voting will result in the elimination of elections and endanger the security and stability of the country.
Amidst this, a deeper examination of the positions and particularly the statements of some Friday prayer leaders like Yousef Tabatabaei-Nejad in Isfahan, Ahmad Khatami in Tehran, and Ahmad Alamolhoda in Mashhad regarding the consequences of not voting and the enemy’s plan to turn the elections into a referendum against the regime shows that their main audience is not the entire dissatisfied society or the grey spectrum, but rather they are concerned about the social base that supports the government.
Within this framework, the points recently emphasized by Ali Khamenei regarding the importance of elections in the Islamic Republic are perceived as directed at this part of society, which seems to lack the motivation to vote.
Currently, the challenge for the government in ensuring participation in the elections is not limited to opponents, the grey spectrum, and reformists, but also includes a range of government supporters who are colloquially described as insiders. This note delves into the background and reasons for this intra-governmental challenge.
After assuming the leadership position, Ali Khamenei attempted to guide the social base of the institution of the Supreme Leader according to his own positions and opinions. In the early years of his leadership, he tried to accuse the Imam’s Line faction, known as the left-wing faction and more favored by government insiders in the 1980s, of deviation and transformation, pushing them to the margins.
In this context, he formed a tactical alliance with Hashemi Rafsanjani. However, after Rafsanjani’s second presidential election, factors such as political monopolization, refusal to distribute power, and disagreements over governance methods, especially in economic and cultural areas, led to their separation.
This disagreement, along with societal developments and the left-wing faction’s efforts to renew itself in the political arena, led to the formation of a dual governance. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, the propaganda apparatus of the Supreme Leader’s office mobilized the social base of the institution against elected institutions, claiming they were controlled by deviants, power-seekers, Western infiltrators, and revisionists.
With the end of the reformist government of Mohammad Khatami and the start of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, there was hope within the institution of the Supreme Leader that unified governance was in the hands of jihadist, valued, revolutionary managers. However, Ahmadinejad’s disobedience and the violent suppression of the Green Movement led to the claim that the deviation sedition had troubled the elected institutions.
Subsequently, the expediency of the government and the necessity to change the scene for temporary and limited de-escalation with the United States led to an undesirable moderate government from the perspective of the institution of the Supreme Leader taking control of the executive branch, with a parliament not entirely aligned following it.
For the past 30 years, Hezbollah members, Basijis, believers in the theory of absolute guardianship of the jurist, and the overall supporters of the classical government face a barrage of propaganda that if forces completely aligned with Khamenei and believers in guardianship come to power, the government will improve and the demands of the social base will be met.
Furthermore, political disputes will be set aside, and all capacities of governmental institutions will be mobilized to solve economic problems. However, the unified governance of principlists not only failed to achieve this claim but worsened the situation.
Now, the challenge for the government in ensuring participation in the elections is not limited to opponents, the grey spectrum, and reformists but even includes insiders. The reasons for this intra-governmental problem are enumerated below.
1. Lack of Competition
In all previous election cycles, the bipolarity between maintaining and changing the current situation was the main driver for supporters of the institution of the Supreme Leader to participate in the elections. The confrontation with those labeled as seditionists, enemy agents, liberals, capitalist agents, mansion dwellers, corrupt individuals, and unworthy people motivated them. In the upcoming elections, this bipolarity is absent, and everyone is described as being in the revolutionary front. The competition between the Stability Front and Ghalibaf’s close circle is not significant enough to create enthusiasm for voting.
2. Exacerbation of Dire Economic Conditions
Before Ebrahim Raisi’s government took office, platforms associated with the dominant power promoted the idea that the presence of non-revolutionary and non-guardianship forces and the preference for political issues and party and factional disputes caused the country’s economy to be in dire condition. However, the start of work by guardianship and jihadist managers, as used in the literature of the Islamic Republic, worsened the situation considerably. Political and individual group disputes did not leave the governing institutions and even became trivial.
These forces, most of whom do not have access to rents and special privileges, are themselves entangled in livelihood problems and are also subject to criticism and protest from the people, including neighbors, relatives, locals, colleagues, etc., and cannot defend themselves. As a result, they have also seen within their own evaluations that elections have little impact on their livelihood basket, and again, non-insiders relatively manage the economy with fewer problems in the areas of inflation and employment.
3. Spread of Unbridled Corruption
Government supporters expected that the unified governance of principlists would reduce corruption and that statesmen would work solely for the pleasure of God, the people, and the government’s value standards. However, the result, contrary to their expectations, indicates the growth and deepening of corruption, which is not only related to elected institutions and their officials, but the main problem lies elsewhere. This situation has led them to at least be exposed to the perception that corruption is systemic and voting without structural changes has no effect on stopping widespread corruption.
4. Value and Cultural Principles
The atmosphere created by appointed institutions and principlists had fostered the belief that the broad cultural and value gap in society was the result of the presence of managers who did not believe in the government’s official values. However, the social base of the institution of the Supreme Leader has now objectively seen that the seizure of all governing institutions by guardianship supporters and Hezbollah members has not only failed to reduce or control hijablessness or the increasing prevalence of joyful and different lifestyles that conflict with their value system.
But rather, cultural contradictions have even become a basis for expressing political opposition and strengthening protest movements. From this perspective, too, they have little motivation to participate in the elections and continue the activities of the revolutionary parliament. Even some reactions testify that the new chastity and hijab law of the eleventh parliament has not met their expectations.
5. Continuation of Tactical Prudence in Hostile Foreign Policy
One of the goals principlists proposed for managing the executive branch was to remove compromising forces in the realm of foreign policy, who, according to Khamenei in 2016, are submissive and suffer from self-deprecation before the regime’s enemies. The presence of revolutionary principlists was supposed to expand the revolutionary discourse in foreign policy and strengthen what they call the resistance front, forming a full-scale confrontation with Israel and the United States in the Middle East.
However, the start of Raisi’s government has not led to a significant change in the government’s final performance in diplomacy. The claimed authority has not been realized and is continually deferred to the future. The JCPOA, which was considered a document of betrayal, is now the desire of Ebrahim Raisi’s government for revival. Saudi Arabia, which was considered a milk cow and the fifth column of the great Satan, is today described as a friendly and brotherly state, and proximity to it is described as a great success for the government.
Tactical considerations have limited Iran’s confrontational domain with the West, and the claims of IRGC commanders about taking severe revenge have resulted in mere words and limited operations with ambiguous outcomes. The government continues to avoid direct confrontation with Israel’s aggression and, in facing protests, claims Israel’s plan to draw Iran into its desired playing field.
This situation could lead to dissatisfaction among the Basij and principlist forces, to the extent that media close to the institution of the Supreme Leader, like the Javan newspaper and Fars and Tasnim news agencies, respond to protests accusing the government of passivity and weakness in retaliation.
All these reasons have led a significant portion of the social base supporting the institution of the Supreme Leader to be dissatisfied with the performance of the eleventh parliament and the thirteenth government and to lack motivation for participating in the March elections.
