Iran’s Thwarted Reformers Set Careful Goals for Coming Vote

THE NEW YORK TIMES-

By THOMAS ERDBRINKFEB–

TEHRAN — They clapped and cheered, and many shouted for the release of their political leaders under house arrest for the past five years. Some held up pictures of a popular former president, Mohammad Khatami. Pictures of his hands, to be exact, because displaying his portrait is illegal.

The young supporters of Iran’s reformist movement gathered behind the safe walls of a sports hall last week to campaign for elections on Friday for Parliament and an influential clerical council. Their longstanding demand has been tangible change, but the forced absence of most of their political leaders illustrated how far they were from their goal of a new and modern Iran.

A decade of relentless pressure from the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards and clerical councils dominated by hard-liners has confined Iran’s reformists. The reformists were a force during the presidential contest of 2009, but the movement was decapitated after its political leaders voiced support for the millions of people who took to the streets to challenge the fairness of the vote. Reformist parties were closed down, and hundreds of activists, politicians and journalists were given long jail sentences.

The election of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013 raised the hopes of the reform movement, and Iran negotiated a nuclear deal with the West and rejoined the world economy. But internally, virtually nothing changed. The political space remained constrained, and the hope that reformers would re-emerge as a guiding force has not come to fruition.

As the reformers again try to stage a comeback, their agenda, once a sweeping manifesto for change in the Islamic republic, has been narrowed to simply calling for a high turnout in the coming vote.

During the campaign rally, the new leader of the reformists, Mohammad Reza Aref, seemed most concerned with reassuring hard-liners who accuse his movement of opposing the legacy of the 1979 revolution. “We act within the system,” Mr. Aref said in front of thousands of supporters. “Nobody loves the revolution more than us. Like a mother, we feel concern for it and want to preserve it.”

For the elections, thousands of reformist candidates were barred from participating by the Guardian Council, a 12-member vetting body that is dominated by hard-liners. As a result, the remaining reformists have joined forces with supporters of Mr. Rouhani’s self-styled moderate government.

In the other election, for the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member council that in theory will choose the next supreme leader, the reformists are also supporting alternative candidates. Their main figure, Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the leader of the 1979 revolution, was also barred from participating.

Despite the obstacles, the reformists still want Iranians to vote. “Our main goal is to have a minimum of hard-liners, both in the assembly and in the Parliament,” said Hamidreza Jaleipour, an advocate for the movement. “Nothing more. We are just being realistic.”

In the early 2000s, the reformists openly sought to alter the Islamic republic’s rigid ideology, and rewrite laws in order to decrease gender inequality and promote personal freedoms. The leader, Mr. Khatami, served two terms as president, and for four years the reformists dominated Parliament. Backed by record numbers of voters, they seemed set to herald a new, more modern era for Iran. Instead, the period was dominated by political infighting, student protests, sit-ins in Parliament and the closure of dozens of reformist newspapers.

However, Iran’s young society has changed at a lightning pace over the past decade, propelled by the rise of the Internet, satellite television, the influx of oil money and cheap foreign travel.

In Tehran and other Iranian cities, long-forbidden Western music can be heard in restaurants, some women drive cars without the obligatory head scarf, and blocked social media sites can be reached with illegal software that is sold openly. But such freedoms are only tolerated, not encapsulated in legislation, as a way of allowing people to blow off steam without officially altering revolutionary Islamic ideology.

Political reforms have been aggressively blocked on all levels by hard-liners who have gained unprecedented power. Much has been done to undermine the reformists.

In recent years, Mr. Khatami has been rendered invisible. Newspapers are not allowed to publish his picture, and politicians, even his supporters, often avoid mentioning his name. Two former presidential candidates, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, have spent more than five years under house arrest since becoming the figureheads of postelection protests in 2009.

For those who remained free, the experience hardened their conviction that compromise and adaptation were crucial to the reformists’ political survival. Especially for the coming elections.

“We need to remain on the political stage,” said Ibrahim Asgarzadeh, a reformist leader who was disqualified from participating in the elections. Old slogans and demands have been shelved. “Yes, we now do not loudly advocate freeing those under house arrest, human rights and freedom of speech,” Mr. Asgarzadeh said. “Our goal is to be a part of the establishment, in order to change it from within in the future.”

Others, who are critical of the movement, say its leaders are watering down their ideals to the point where there is nothing left. “Their agenda is minimal, their ambitions have shrunk to the same level,” said Behzad Nourfard, a former activist. “They are aligning themselves with people whom they hope will support them in the future. But who opposed them in the past.”

Iranians often say they get to choose between the bad and the worse in elections. While the reformists might have difficulty promoting their agenda, they are political kingmakers. They can attract millions of potential voters because they are the only viable political option for many urban dwellers. However, these people will vote only if they feel something is at stake. Used to self-censorship, and shy of the dangers of political activism, they tend to turn out in large numbers if they feel it is in their interest.

Fear of hard-line dominance is a major driving force. In 2013, in the final week before the elections, the reformists started supporting Mr. Rouhani, whom they saw as a technocrat, rather than a reformer. Many urbanites feared a hard-liner, Saeed Jalili, might win. Instead of opting for a boycott, the reformists offered support that was a decisive factor in Mr. Rouhani’s victory.

The nuclear deal engineered during his presidency has been a major success for the reformists as well. “But domestically we have not seen much change,” Mr. Asgarzadeh said. When thousands of reformist candidates were disqualified in January, Mr. Rouhani did not intervene on their behalf. “That was disappointing as well,” Mr. Asgarzadeh said.

Nevertheless, for this election, the reformists are again supporting the government, saying that anything is better than the continuation of hard-line dominance in Parliament.

The reformists are even supporting a conservative member of Parliament, Ali Motahari, who stresses that he is independent and not a reformist. On religious issues such as the mandatory Islamic scarf, Mr. Motahari has emphasized that he is a hard-liner and promoted enforcement. The reform leaders are also supporting Ali Larijani, the current head of the Parliament, for a second term. Mr. Larijani has been repositioning himself toward the political middle, but is a scion of a conservative, powerful family.

Mr. Jaleipour, the reformist advocate, said the compromises were part of reaching political adulthood in a hostile environment. “We have learned from our errors and mistakes,” he said, adding that in the beginning, “we thought Iran could be democratized overnight. That was wishful thinking. We shouldn’t have high expectations. That only brings frustration.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/world/middleeast/irans-thwarted-reformers-set-careful-goals-for-coming-vote.html?_r=0

Iran elections test U.S. gamble on nuke deal

By Nahal Toosi 02/22/16

The Obama administration is watching whether moderates gain clout, while three GOP congressman want Iran to let them observe the elections on the ground.

As Iranians head to the polls this week, President Barack Obama and his aides are keenly paying attention. The results of the elections — for parliament and another government body — could signal whether moderate forces are rising in the Islamist country as it adheres to a controversial nuclear deal and continues to engage with the U.S.

But while the Obama administration is careful to keep its interest low-key, fearing that any overt U.S. role could embolden Iranian hardliners, three Republican congressman are demanding that Tehran give them visas so that they can be on the ground as Iranians cast ballots.

After all, the three argue, what better way for the Islamic Republic to prove that its elections are free and fair than to allow skeptical Americans to watch them up close?
“We’re the perfect people,” Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas told POLITICO, referring to himself and House colleagues Lee Zeldin of New York and Frank LoBiondo of New Jersey. “The Iranians should be demanding that we come.”

They’re not. Iran’s Foreign Ministry has dismissed the lawmakers’ request as “a political-propaganda act,” although technically it hasn’t denied them visas. And the Obama administration isn’t exactly taking up the Republicans’ cause. (“They, like everyone else, should carefully read our travel warning,” a State Department official said, adding, “We have no control over who Iran issues a visa to.”)

U.S. officials say they can’t remember the last time a sitting member of Congress visited Iran, a country that hasn’t had diplomatic ties with the U.S. since 1980, and that there are no American officials based there who could help support a congressional delegation.

Still, political stunt or not, the lawmakers’ travel hopes underscore Republican frustration with Obama’s outreach to Iran, which GOP leaders allege has merely emboldened a rogue state. Their visa requests also come as the Iran nuclear deal remains a flashpoint in the American presidential race.

In a letter that accompanied their visa applications earlier this month, Zeldin, LoBiondo and Pompeo request meetings with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and the head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, among other Iranian officials. They also ask for access to facilities known to have housed Iran’s nuclear program, which has largely been dismantled since the nuclear deal was struck last July.

The Republicans further request “unmonitored and lengthy” meetings with any Americans held prisoner in Iran; there is at least one, businessman Siamak Namazi, though several were recently freed. The lawmakers also ask Iranian leaders for briefings on Iran’s recent ballistic missile tests and its day-long detention last month of 10 U.S. sailors.

Mainly, however, the House members say they are eager to observe the elections. (“What a historic occasion,” the lawmakers write. “We look forward to seeing Iranian democracy in action.”)

Iran analysts aren’t convinced Friday’s vote will be all that historic, but they say how well moderate factions do could be a useful barometer of where Iranian politics are headed, at least in the immediate wake of the nuclear deal.

Iranians will be voting for two institutions: the 290-seat Iranian parliament; and the 88-member Assembly of Experts, a group of Islamic scholars and jurists responsible for selecting a successor to the supreme leader, Khamenei, presumably when the 76-year-old dies. In Iran’s opaque and complex system, where Khamenei has the ultimate say, both bodies have limited power.
The political spectrum in Iran runs roughly from “reformists” to “moderates,” to “conservatives” to “hardliners,” all fungible terms. More than 12,000 Iranians registered to run for parliament alone, according to reports from the region, although about half were rejected in a screening process that appeared to favor hardliners and conservatives.

Rouhani, a cleric who won the presidency in 2013, is considered a moderate. A strong showing by moderate candidates could help Rouhani gain more influence over parliament. It also could prove popular support for sustaining the nuclear deal, which required Iran to curb its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions. But Rouhani will still have less power than Khamenei and limited ability to maneuver with Iran’s military apparatus.

“I don’t necessarily see how this one election for two bodies that are important but not the ultimate decision-makers is going to determine the pathway forward for U.S.-Iran relations,” said Ilan Goldenberg, a former Obama administration official now with the Center for a New American Security. “It will be an indicator for how strong Rouhani and his faction are, how much space they might have after the agreement and how much the supreme leader will allow the hardliners to push back.”

As is standard diplomatic practice, the U.S. generally avoids all but the most generic commentary on other countries’ electoral processes. And when it comes to Iran, whose 1978-79 Islamic Revolution was spurred in part by anger over U.S. interference, the situation has grown especially complicated.

Not only does the U.S. want to see Iran keep adhering to the nuclear deal, it also needs Tehran’s cooperation to try to end the war in Syria and is pushing it to free Americans still in its custody. Iran also has been fighting the Islamic State terrorist network, a common foe of the U.S., but it is engaged in proxy fights in Yemen and other places against Saudi Arabia and other Arab allies of the United States.

Although Obama and his aides hope that in the long run engaging Iran will help liberalize the country and make it more democratic, they have insisted they are under no illusions that will happen anytime soon, and that the nuclear deal was not built around trusting Iran, which remains on America’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.
Asked for a statement on the Iranian elections, State Department spokesman Mark Toner said: “All Iranians should have the opportunity to express themselves freely regarding the future of their country. We hope Iran conducts its election in a manner that not only conforms to international standards of transparency and accountability but represents the will of the Iranian people.”

The three Republicans hoping to observe Iran’s elections dismiss such timid commentary, arguing that the administration is worried that pressing Iran too hard could lead it to abandon the nuclear deal. “The administration is finding an excuse not to criticize Iran on anything,” LoBiondo said.

They also insist that a lack of U.S. involvement can backfire. In 2009, as Iranians protested the country’s presidential election results, the Obama administration was accused of being too slow to weigh in, even as authorities violently cracked down on what became known as the Green Movement. A frustrated Obama pointed out that even limited comments he made had been used by hardliners in Iran to allege the protests were engineered by the United States.

Ultimately, the Green Movement was crushed along with the dreams of Iran’s liberals, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hugely divisive figure who questioned whether the Holocaust happened, was declared re-elected as Iran’s president.

“We said at that time it was none of our business,” Zeldin said of 2009. “So for us to take the position that whoever is in charge of Iran is really none of our business— it’s actually resulted in significantly more headaches for us, not less.”