Iran’s conservatives tighten their grip on power
In the twilight of his reign, the supreme leader is done accommodating reformists
Ebrahim Raisi’s election as Iran’s eighth president since the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Shah in 1979 opens a new chapter in the Islamic Republic’s politics.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earnestly works toward strengthening the political system’s foundations and institutionalising the supreme leader’s office. He thinks the U.S. withdrawal from the Middle East and the rise of China, if combined with a new nuclear deal with the major powers, would fulfill Iran’s ambition of becoming the leading regional power.
The Reformists’ Decline
The turnout in last week’s presidential election was about 49% of eligible voters – in Tehran, it was less than 26% – the lowest rate of participation in Iran’s 13 elections since the 1979 revolution. Contrasted with the 85% turnout in the 2009 elections and 73% in the 2017 election, the low 2021 turnout reveals the voters’ disenchantment with the reformists’ ability to effect meaningful political, economic and social changes and their recognition that they are unable to challenge the hegemony of the conservatives.
In 2009, the Iranian people came out in huge numbers, feeling that reformist politician Mir-Hossein Mousavi would easily win the election against ultra-conservative incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But Khamenei, who did not believe that the Islamic Revolution was about counting ballots, rigged the vote to ensure his candidate’s victory, precipitating a massive outburst of protests that the Basij paramilitary force crushed ruthlessly.
In the 2017 election, Raisi was Khamenei’s favoured candidate. But incumbent President Hassan Rouhani’s popularity and promise of better days ahead, especially after he successfully negotiated the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, sealed Raisi’s fate. He received only 38% of the vote, behind Rouhani’s 57%. Secure in his position and reluctant to repeat the 2009 popular uprising, Khamenei did not interfere.
The ensuing four years of the Rouhani presidency eroded the public’s faith in the reformists’ ability to live up to their aspirations of far-reaching reforms and a redefinition of their relationship with the ruling elite.
First came the economic crisis that beset Iran beginning in 2018, including massive protests over runaway inflation. Then came last year’s accidental shooting down of a Ukrainian plane, killing 176 mostly Iranian passengers.
The coup de grace was the reformists’ failure to present an official candidate to challenge Raisi. They would have lost anyway.
Implications of Raisi’s Election
Raisi came under U.S. sanctions in 2019 for human rights abuses, including his role in the 1988 Tehran death committee, which sentenced thousands of political prisoners to death after the end of their prison terms, as well as many other extrajudicial killings over four decades.
Nevertheless, he has won not only notoriety but also the complete trust of Khamenei, who in 2019 tapped Raisi to head Iran’s judiciary. The 12-member Guardian Council, hand-picked by the supreme leader and the judiciary chief, effectively determined the outcome of the presidential election in favour of Raisi when it disqualified 592 of 599 candidates.
Khamenei was keen on excluding other powerful conservative candidates, namely former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and former Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani, to ensure Raisi’s win by simple majority in the first round. It mattered much to the 82-year-old Khamenei that Raisi, his loyal disciple and a true believer in the principles of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, became president so that Khamenei could groom him for the supreme leader’s position.
Khamenei was Iran’s president when
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini died in 1989, and the 88-member Assembly of Experts immediately elected him as Khomeini’s successor.
With the election of Raisi, the conservatives have secured their control of the three formal branches of government. Raisi’s election also means that Iran’s ruling conservatives in the future will not tolerate opposing viewpoints about fundamental state issues, especially when it comes to the formulation of political, economic and social policies.
Raisi faces the unenviable task of restoring the voters’ trust in the political system and addressing public grievances about deteriorating quality of life. He must immediately tackle the challenge of Iran’s flagging economy, aggravated by U.S. sanctions, low oil prices, COVID-19 and corruption.
During the past two years, which he spent as the top judicial leader, he tried and convicted senior officials for financial irregularities. This included Rouhani’s brother, who received a five-year prison sentence for embezzling public funds and receiving millions of dollars in bribes.
Raisi promised that as president he would build 4 million housing units and create 1 million jobs every year. He also committed the government to sponsor 700,000 marriages annually. He said he would draw up plans to combat smuggling and promote Iran’s non-oil export diversification.
In 2017, Raisi said that if elected he would give Iranian-Arab relations more attention, provided that the peoples of Yemen, Syria and Iraq decide their fate without foreign intervention. He reiterated the same statements during and after his election bid.
Given that Iran already wields significant influence in these countries, their selfdetermination – in Raisi’s terms – means the perpetuation of Tehran’s role in determining their policies. Raisi’s Arab policy statements echo Khomeini’s 1979 Arab policy, which focused on spreading Iran’s Islamic Revolution throughout the Arab region, effectively promoting its regional imperialism, even if it meant triggering protracted low-intensity conflicts.
When he travelled to Baghdad four months ago, Raisi made a point to visit the site where Qassem Soleimani was killed last year in a U.S. drone strike to signify Iran’s determination to continue Khomeini’s regional policy.
In sum, Raisi’s election spells the continuation of longstanding conservative policies: domestically, to consolidate power and silence the opposition, and regionally, to build on Iran’s gains during the past four decades and fill the vacuum generated by the U.S. decision to withdraw from the Middle East.
Khamenei’s Frame of Mind
Last February, Khamenei delivered a speech to the nation that outlined his vision for Iran’s development over the next quarter century. He talked about reviving the Islamic Revolution under the sole leadership of young religious revolutionaries, implying an end to the days of accommodating reformists.
Khamenei intends to mobilise the youth and the different shades of civil society organisations disaffected by the reformers’ moribund performance to rally behind Raisi, who promised sweeping bureaucratic reforms and economic incentives.
Khamenei has concerns about societal restlessness due to inadequate government performance and economic stagnation during the previous decade. What seems to matter most for him is the institutionalisation of the supreme leader’s office and the permanence of the theocratic ideals of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
The two likely contenders for succession are Khamenei’s son Mojtaba and Raisi. These two powerful men enjoy the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, including the Basij (literally, “the organisation for mobilisation of the oppressed”), which is the primary agent for suppressing dissidents and ensuring conformity with state ideology.
Even though Mojtaba’s succession chances are real, Raisi seems more likely to succeed Khamenei because of his advanced theological credentials, proven repressive attributes and commitment to pursue the first two supreme leaders’ quest to make Iran a world power.
Khamenei is keen on resolving the nuclear standoff with the U.S. and securing a new deal with the Biden administration, which is eager to put this issue behind it and focus its attention on the Pacific and the emerging Sino-Russian alliance. However, he is not interested in warming up to Washington because he thinks the U.S. represents the greatest threat to the survival of Iran’s Islamic Revolution.
Khamenei believes the future of Iran lies in allying with China and Russia. He believes that Iran’s modernisation does not hinge on improving relations with the U.S. and other Western countries. Instead, the recent 25year strategic agreement with China points to the direction in which Iran sees itself going.
The agreement sets the stage for $400 billion in Chinese investment in Iran over the next 25 years and ushers in cooperation in dozens of economic sectors – banking, communication, ports, railroads, medical care and information technology, among many others – in exchange for regular and steady oil supplies at reduced prices. The agreement also calls for close military collaboration.
Iranian leaders believe China needs economic and military cooperation with them to launch its intercontinental Belt and Road Initiative. They seem convinced that the international balance of power is changing amid greater competition among the major countries, and that this would benefit Iran, since Russia and China aim to loosen the U.S. dollar’s hold on international trade and finance.
But increased activity with the outside world, especially with the East, does not mean economic liberalisation for Khamenei, who is also opposed to easing social restrictions or transitioning the political system to majority rule.
In 1905, the Iranians rebelled against the Qajar ruler Mozaffar ad-Din Shah to introduce a parliament and institute a constitutional monarchy.
Still, Anglo-Russian intervention thwarted their objective, eventually paving the way for Reza Khan to establish the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, introducing a new era of authoritarian rule. World War II and the British occupation of southwest Iran in 1941 laid the groundwork for the rise of its democratic period, which culminated in the democratic election of Mohammad Mosaddegh as prime minister in 1952.
However, the U.S.-led Operation Ajax in 1953 overthrew him and reinstated the rule of Mohammad Reza Shah. In 1978, the Iranian people again started a revolution to establish a secular democracy, but in 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini hijacked it and installed a theocracy.
Khamenei is trying to deepen and broaden Khomeini’s state. However, his efforts will only postpone the inception of an unavoidable nationwide uprising.
Most Iranians have fundamental issues with an anachronistic form of government that allocates more material resources to foreign adventures than the well-being of its people.