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Radical supporters of the dominant Jameh-e Ruhaniyat-e Mobarezfaction (Militant Clerics Society) won an overwhelming majority inthe Assembly of Experts elections held on Oct. 23, winning 69 out ofthe total 86 seats. The Assembly's sole duty is to elect the SupremeLeader.
Reformers and Western analysts had looked to the election as atest of the popularity of President Khatami, who has identifiedhimself with the reformers, but the radicals stacked the deck fromthe start by disbarring reformers from running. The reformers are ledby former Tehran mayor Gholamreza Karbaschi and his Servants ofReconstruction party. Despite losing the possibility to runcandidates in many districts, Karbaschi nevertheless called onKhatami supporters to vote.
In Iran's controlled elections, it is not always the outcome thatis the most important gauge of popular opinion, but turnout. In thiscase, the regime took great pains to emphasize high voter turnout,extending poll closing time twice to accommodate "crowds" of would-bevoters. But Western reporters who toured polling places in Tehran andtelephoned people at provincial polling places reported few voters atany of the polling places they surveyed. The opposition People'sMujahedin claimed that no more than 4 million people voted - around10 percent of eligible voters - while the regime claimed that 17.8million cast their votes. This compares to the regime figure of 29million Iranians who cast ballots last year in the presidential racewon by Hojjat-ol eslam Mohammad Khatami.
Some radical clerical leaders urged the regime to abandon itseffort to appear legitimate in Western eyes by urging people to vote.Majlis speaker Nateq-Nouri, who was the regime's candidate againstKhatami last year, put it succinctly: "Our regime gets its legitimacyfrom God," he said. "The legitimacy of the regime does not lie withthe people. Those who say the legitimacy of the leader depends on hispopularity do not understand."
Reformers and their Western supporters had put out the rumor thata Reformer victory in the Assembly of Experts election could herald achange in the structure of the Islamic Republic, perhaps a reductionin the power of the Supreme Leader, who is not elected by popularvote. Alternately, it was suggested that reformers might vote todepose Khamene'i, whose religious credentials have been challenged,replacing him with a more traditional cleric who would eschewpolitics and stick to religious and moral issues.
Liberal bias: In the West, most analysts refer to PresidentKhatami and his Reformers as "moderates," and to Khamene'i's factionas "conservatives." These are Western terms, chosen by a liberalpress and by pro-regime academics, in an effort to generate supportfor Khatami (and before him, for Rafsanjani, who founded the Reformmovement as a means of creating a personal power base).
In fact, Khamene'i and his faction are no more "conservative" thanJoseph Stalin. Determined advocates of "national liberation"struggles against Western domination, an old saw of the radical left,Khamene'i and his faction are also believers in a state-controlledeconomy, which is anathema to conservatives around the world. As forKhatami, he is seeking like Khruschev and Gorbachev to reform theIslamic Republic without changing its underlying ideology. The lastthing he wants is to abandon clerical rule. (He also happens to be abeliever in a command economy).
While anything could happen within the raucous conclave of Iran'sradical clergy, it is highly unlikely that the Assembly of Experts,which only meets to elect the Leader, will be the driving force inmaking constitutional or regime changes since no opponents of theVelayat-e faghih - the doctrine of clerical rule - were allowed tostand for election.
The most outspoken advocate of this position is the layphilosopher Abdelkarim Soroush. But many clerics also support themovement of removing the clergy from positions of political power;most of them, such as Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Rouhani, who died inJuly 1997, have been under house arrest for years.
This is the only faction that could be deemed "moderate" in thesense that they are preaching a return to normality in Iran; however,the culture mavens of the Left would find them to be trueconservatives, advocates of market economics and "traditionalvalues." In the meantime, we believe the terms "radical" and"reformer" and a more accurate description of the dominant factionswithin the Islamic Republic elite.