A bigger struggle lies ahead

If there was ever any doubt that the Islamic Republic offers a genuine form of democracy, the 2009 Iranian presidential election campaign has surely put the record straight. Iran is gripped by election fervor and Friday's poll offered a genuine choice. The outcome will have profound consequences for the country, the region and beyond.

Predicting the results of Iranian elections is notoriously difficult. Both the 1997 and 2005 polls produced surprising results. The former propelled the reformist Mohammad Khatami to the presidency while the latter witnessed the rise of the incumbent Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

While the majority of well-informed and well-connected Iranian journalists insist that former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi - despite his poor elections campaign - will clinch a victory, it would be foolish to write off the formidable Ahmadinejad, who in the past two weeks of campaigning has displayed remarkable political skills and stamina.

The futility of predicting outcomes notwithstanding, the election campaign has exposed the deep divisions inside the labyrinthine and impossibly complex circles of power in the Islamic Republic. The rules of the game - carefully worked out over three decades - were repeatedly broken (most of the time by the incumbent president), signaling an irrevocable divide in the regime.

In the long term, the formalization of fundamental divisions can lead to two outcomes; either the emergence of a political culture that transcends the idiom, sensitivities and self-perception of the Islamic regime (ie regime change - albeit peacefully) or the beginning of genuine party politics and the significant broadening and deepening of the democratic dimension of the Islamic system.

The current institutional mechanisms and ideological parameters can no longer contain the deep divisions and tensions that divide the inheritors of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The combative president
Ahmadinejad has not disappointed his supporters in the election campaign. More importantly, he has startled and demoralized many of his enemies. His combative style, independence of mind and unflinching belief in his ideas and political programs have been the key feature of the election.

Ahmadinejad came on top during all the televised debates with his three opponents. His combative spirit, pugilistic style of debating and remarkable grasp of detail demolished his opponents one after another. While many people would still question his suitability for the presidential role, at the very least now they know why he reached the top in the first place.

The televised debates - unprecedented in Iran - were not so much an opportunity to test the candidates' policies and political programs, but were instead a fascinating window to the deep-rooted and multi-faceted divides in the Islamic Republic.

At the personality level, there is a divide between first-generation revolutionaries and second-generation types, exemplified by the comparatively young Ahmadinejad, who is 53. During his explosive TV debate with his main opponent, former premier Mousavi, Ahmadinejad claimed (partially correctly) that three (former) governments are ranged against him. He was referring to the Mousavi administration in the 1980s and the Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami presidencies in the subsequent decades.

At the political level, the debates indicate a fascinating realignment of factional alliances in the regime. Powerful elements from across the ideological spectrum are now opposed to Ahmadinejad (lending credence to the embattled president's cries of encirclement and a wide-ranging campaign to oust him). Naturally, the president's enemies have swung behind his strongest rival, giving rise to the oddest political moment in the three-decade history of the Islamic Republic.

The strangest alliance of all is between Mousavi and his erstwhile foe Rafsanjani (himself a former president and current head of the Expediency Council). It was Rafsanjani who engineered the downfall of Mousavi in the summer of 1989 in what amounted to a ruthless political assassination. Moreover, throughout the 1980s, Rafsanjani was critical of the economic policies of the former prime minister, which he decried as left-wing and injurious to the Islamic regime's deep-rooted attachment to private property and individual commercial enterprise. [1]

If three decades of experience is any indication, these alliances of convenience will not last long. The grandees of the Iranian establishment have long memories; more importantly, they have competing constituencies.

Ahmadinejad's resounding victories in the televised presidential debates should not be underestimated. He took on some of the most formidable personalities in the establishment (past and present) and systematically deconstructed their motivation, connections and political programs (or lack of). If political skills were the only attribute required for the presidential role, then Ahmadinejad deserves a resounding victory. In some respects it is a tragedy for Iran, that more than 30 years after the revolution, the country's most formidable politician is a self-obsessed and quixotic populist, with an insatiable will to power.

Ahmadinejad has powerful enemies and detractors not only in Iran but across the global community. But there is only one set of opinion that really matters in this debate, and that is the collective assessment of Islamic Republic supporters and sympathizers. While Ahmadinejad has plenty of supporters in the rank-and-file of the revolutionary faithful, he has at least an equal amount of opponents.

It is relatively easy to criticize Ahmadinejad's economic policies, which have driven up inflation and left vast swathes of the urban middle classes reeling, without bringing significant tangible benefits to the urban and rural poor. It is equally easy to criticize his government's political and social program, especially the clampdown on civil society, independent professional journalists and amateur bloggers and so-called citizen journalists.

But the real critique goes much deeper than that, and was evident throughout the president's aggressive debating style with his three opponents. Despite his remarkable grasp of economic and political details, Ahmadinejad lacks far-sighted insight into the delicate factional balance that keeps the entire post-revolutionary order viable. It is precisely this balance - that is tirelessly worked through and reinforced day by day - which at a more abstract and strategic level bridges the gulf between ideology and politics in the Islamic Republic, and reconciles (albeit grudgingly) the system's Islamic and democratic dimensions.

In the absence of more robust institutional arrangements (that can handle greater levels of democracy), upsetting this delicate balance can have grave consequences. Under less fortuitous times it may even trigger system collapse. It is this fundamental insight that mobilizes opinion against Ahmadinejad within regime circles and the outer circles of sympathizers and supporters.

Reformists at crossroads
The lively presidential campaign has exposed the weakness of Ahmadinejad's opponents. None of the three, Mousavi, former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Mohsen Rezai and former Majlis (parliament) speaker Mehdi Karroubi, have put forward anything that even remotely resembles a coherent political and economic program. Instead, the challengers (with the exception of Rezai) focused their campaign on character assassination.

Mousavi is the strongest contender - thus attracting widespread support from unlikely quarters - but the campaign has revealed him to be overly grey, remarkably uncharismatic and lacking political skills. Mousavi virtually collapsed during the TV debate with Ahmadinejad, proving no match for the latter's pugilistic style of debating.

Despite his glaring weaknesses, Mousavi continues to maintain cross-factional support, if only because he is the only man capable of ousting Ahmadinejad. But as stated earlier, this broad cross-factional support would likely disintegrate shortly after he assumed office, if Mousavi manages to win in the first place.

But in the event of victory, Mousavi would face more formidable challenges. He has already upset key elements in the Islamic left - which constitutes his core base - through his choice of allies and election campaign postures. His open alliance with Khatami has raised eyebrows, not so much because of what Khatami stands for, but because the former president is widely regarded as a failure.

Moreover, Mousavi's election team has consistently tried to woo the constituency that 12 years ago mobilized behind Khatami; namely, a certain type of young people (especially young women) who espouse a range of political and socio-cultural demands that if put into practice would amount to abolishing the Islamic regime.

Furthermore, Mousavi's statements about foreign policy, especially his seemingly unconditional acceptance of negotiations with the Islamic Republic's arch-enemy, the United States, has rankled the deepest reaches of the Islamic left, who historically have constituted the most anti-American elements in the regime.

And yet despite these glaring weaknesses, Mousavi can yet become a successful president. His administration would self-consciously project itself as reformist (in line with the program and self-perception of the Islamic left since 1989), but Mousavi is unlikely to mimic the discourse and language of Khatami. His administration would be reformist from an institutional point of view, with less emphasis on cultural change and certainly no insistence on esoteric themes such as "dialogue among civilizations", which was the hallmark of the Khatami presidency.

The problem is not that the divisions in the Islamic Republic are now too deep (they have been deep from day one), the real point is that these divisions (in all its embarrassing detail) is now fully public. Ahmadinejad broke any remaining taboo by accusing the grandees of the establishment, in particular Rafsanjani and former Majlis speaker Nategh Nouri, of widespread corruption on live television.

The fights at the top hint at more ferocious jockeying for power and position at lower levels. The current institutional order - especially the watchdog and oversight mechanisms employed to control politics as exemplified by the Council of Guardians - will not be able to handle the tensions and political conflicts that lie ahead. The only viable solution is to go beyond factional politics and encourage the establishment of genuine political parties in Iran. This in turn requires the broadening and deepening of the country's democratic spaces.

But no one should underestimate the Herculean task that lies ahead. Aside from restoring normalcy to the functioning of government, the new reformist administration must secure consensus across the board, and work to convince key stakeholders that strengthening the system's democratic component will not come at the expense of its Islamic identity and worldview. Khatami failed miserably in this endeavor, but Mousavi has a greater chance of success, owing to his administrative and management skills and residual cross-factional support.

While it is expected that many of his election allies will abandon him, nonetheless a residual core of revolutionary sympathizers from across the ideological spectrum (including the ideological right) will remain loyal to Mousavi, if only because he is a symbol of revolutionary continuity.

All of this may prove to have been mere speculation in the very near future, when the election results come out. Despite widespread predictions to the contrary, the formidable Ahmadinejad may yet clinch victory, and not necessarily by a narrow margin.

Iran's democratic spaces may be embattled, but they are very real. The events of the past four weeks have made this abundantly clear. The Islamic Republic - despite all its contradictions, weaknesses and petty authoritarianism - can sincerely claim to be a democracy of sorts. The outcome of this presidential election, more than any other, will have a significant impact on the everyday life of ordinary Iranians. Some Iranians may feel the choice is between the least-worst option, but even the most cynical would readily agree that the choices are real, and they have consequences.

The choice is between stability and reform as opposed to volatility and superficial change. For Ahmadinejad's opponents, the greatest worry is that the notoriously unpredictable Iranian electorate may deliver yet another stunningly surprising result.

Note
1. For a list of 40 statements made by Rafsanjani against the Mousavi administration in the 1989-1991 period (ie immediately after Rafsanjani ousted Mousavi as premier) click here.

Mahan Abedin is a senior researcher in terrorism studies and a consultant to independent media in Iran. He is currently based in northern Iraq, where he is helping to develop local media capacity.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd.