An overt power struggle has been a salient feature of the Islamic Republic since the 1979 Revolution. Confrontations between the faqih Ayatollah Khomeini and President Bani Sadr, between the clergy supporting the Vilayet-i-Faqih (rule of the supreme jurist) and their opponents, such as Ayatollah Montazari -- these are only a few examples. Yet there have also been significant compromises.
The elections of the Assembly of Experts on 23 October embody the interplay of conflict and compromise. The result came as no surprise. The conservatives won easily, gaining 54 of 86 seats. Khatami's supporters won only 13, and the remaining 16 went to independents believed to be disguised moderates. The victory of the conservatives was already determined before the elections by the Council of Guardians, a 16-member clerical body whose primary task is to interpret the Constitution and to make sure that the laws enacted in the Majlis (Parliament) are in accordance with Islamic principles. The council also screens the candidates for the presidency, Assembly of Experts and the Majlis to determine their eligibility. In a partisan decision, the Council rejected the nomination of 80 per cent of the pro-Khatami candidates, on the grounds that they did not qualify.
Formidable structural constraints prevent meaningful reform under the Islamic Republic. The Vilayet-i-Faqih is set up in such a way as to reproduce itself. The constitution grants more power to the faqih than the president of the republic. The faqih, currently Ayatollah Khamenei, appoints the Council of Guardians, the head of the judiciary, military commanders and Revolutionary Guards, and can dismiss the president. Yet the faqih is not chosen in a general election; he is elected for an unlimited period of time by the Assembly of Experts (which also supervises and, if necessary, suspends him). The members of this Assembly are, in turn, screened and effectively sanctioned by the Council of Guardians, whose members are appointed by the faqih himself. So the Assembly of Experts, which elects and is supposed to supervise the faqih, is effectively sanctioned by him. This structure of loyalty and reciprocity hinders a democratic process guided by competitive and free elections. While the conservatives are now compelled to speak the "language of democracy" -- moving away from their exclusively "Islamic alternatives" toward liberal democracy -- there has yet to be a meaningful alteration of power structure.
The disposition and distribution of power in Iran is highly complex. First, the terms "moderate" and "conservative" should be understood in a particular context. On certain social issues, moderates may toe a line as conservative as the "conservatives". This means that the two factions are internally divided.
On the other hand, the moderate/conservative divide (expressed in terms of a right-wing/left-wing division) is more ideological and social than class-related. The conservative right, led by Ayatollah Khamenei, Nateq-Nouri and others, have an interest in maintaining the political structure of the Vilayet-i Faqih. They believe in the monopoly of "religious truth", implementing elitist, patrimonial clerical rule. They are adamant with respect to the application of Islamic laws on family, women and public morality. Individuality matters little in their philosophy. They tend to be anti-West and pan-Islamist. The conservatives seem to uphold the free market system, while maintaining their pro-mustazafin (downtrodden) rhetoric. Their current emphasis on "economic development" as opposed to Khatami's "political development" serves as a populist slogan to undercut the president's reform programme. Their support comes from traditional segments of the population: bazaar merchants, older male generations, some ulama, adherents to revolutionary ideals like the Basiji (mobilisation) groups, Pasdaran, and victims of war and revolutionary violence.
The moderate or "left" faction is composed of modernist clergy and Islamic liberals caught between the appeal of modernity and the desire to preserve cultural and religious traditions. The conservatives have less support, but a coherent support base; the moderates' constituency, although vast, is differentiated.
After over a decade of war, draconian social control and isolation, President Khatami has come to embody the deep desire of a large segment of Iranian society for pluralism, a softer interpretation of Islamic rule, attention to the concerns of women and youth, integration within the international community, and some economic protection for the underprivileged. Perhaps for the lack of a more liberal alternative, urban youth, women, the modern middle classes, and minorities, but also the secularist and westernised urbanites, have come to support him.
The conservatives' power lies fundamentally in their control of major state institutions. They command Iran's most strategically important establishments -- the military, judiciary, intelligence, police... Given such a power structure, Khatami's government is virtually a government in opposition.
Khatami's victory unleashed enormous intellectual, social and political energy, unseen since the early months of the revolution. His government's control of the ministries of culture, the interior and foreign affairs, among others, offered institutional support to some reform policies. This political opportunity allowed for the emergence of a number of social movements (women, intellectuals, and students). The flourishing print media (again unprecedented since the revolution days) gave rise to a kind of political glasnost which embodied the social struggle, and made people aware of the dynamics of the factional conflict within the state. This awareness, in turn, broadened the social struggle. Conflict streamed from the pages of the dailies onto the streets.
Perhaps the most significant issue is the legitimacy of the Vilayet-i-Faqih, a taboo subject until recently. While the liberals blasted the undemocratic essence of the Vilayet-i-Faqih, other Muslim intellectuals questioned the compatibility of this notion with Shi'ite tradition. At times, radical expressions such as these went beyond the position of even the moderates, frustrating the deeply defensive conservatives.
Before long, the conservatives launched a counterattack against what they termed a "cultural conspiracy". Their frustration soon led to anti-moderate measures. The popular mayor of Tehran was tried on charges of corruption, legal pressure was placed on women's rights activists, a dozen critical publications were disbanded, and the minister of interior was impeached by the Majlis for his "liberal" policies and criticism of the conservative clergy. Hizbullahi bands attacked pro-Khatami and liberal rallies as the police stood by. Some 80 young Hizbullahis assaulted and injured two ministers, both "liberals", at a Friday prayer in September. The social struggles were often fought out in the main streets of Tehran, leading at times to bloody confrontation. The brutal murder of a former minister of labour, the leader of the liberal Iran Nation Party, and the murder of three intellectuals by a death-squad, are the most recent measures in the campaign of intimidation against vocal critics of the Vilayet-i-Faqih. The ultra-right publication Shalamche warned: "We will never allow Iran to turn into another Turkey. We would sooner turn it into another Lebanon."
This year, Iran has witnessed its deepest schism since the early 1980s, when Ayatollah Khomeini ousted Bani Sadr from the presidency. Things are different this time, however: Ayatollah Khamenei has none of Khomeini's charisma, nor did Bani Sadr's legitimacy match that which Khatami enjoys. No conservative has yet questioned President Khatami's integrity in public. Yet the political conflicts have worried leaders on both sides of the divide.
Against this background of growing political antagonism, the recent Assembly of Experts elections came to manifest a struggle for power, but also a creeping historic compromise between the "moderates" and the "conservatives". Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president and current leader of the Council of Guardians, probably played a crucial part in this. In a move to reconcile the two parties, he attempted to appear as a man who stood above factional conflicts -- valuable political capital.
As part of the tacit pact, Khatami refrained from boycotting the elections, thus frustrating his own younger supporters. Khatami and his supporting Executives of Construction Party, led by Mayor Karbaschi, rejected boycotts, although moderate candidates had been thrown out en masse by the Council of Guardians. In addition, Khatami and his minister of culture, Mohajerani, complied with the banning of a number of influential critical publications, such as Tous and Rah-i-Nou. In exchange, Karbaschi went home; Ayatollah Khamenei accepted Khatami's position on Salman Rushdie and the resumption of relations with Britain; and Khatami's government gained some control over the police forces, and was able to restrain the violence of the Ansar Hizbullah.
So why this compromise? The conservative right has been extremely concerned about the debate over the legitimacy of the Vilayet-i Faqih. They needed the government's tacit cooperation to limit attacks on their institutional power. The moderates, on the other hand, wish to restore social peace and take charge of the security apparatus. If social peace prevails and if the conservatives are neutralised, Khatami's team seems to think, the future will be theirs. Change will come quietly, if slowly.
President Khatami may have no other choice, but this strategy could demoralise his own supporters. Only 39 per cent of Tehranis participated in the Assembly's elections (as against over 80 per cent in the presidential polls); a great many reject this policy of give and take. The supporters also realise that considerable gains have been made, and many social groups have been empowered since Khatami became president. But to what extent will current social reforms contribute to institutional change and a modification in the highest echelons of the power structure?
*The writer is associate professor of political sociology at the American University in Cairo.
