Iran Reformers Favored in Vote for Parliament

Could it happen again?

In 1997, a relatively unknown cleric stunned the religious establishment in the Islamic Republic of Iran and won the country’s presidency in a 70% landslide. His victory was credited mainly to young voters and women weary of moralistic hectoring and failed economic policies from the country’s ruling mullahs.

Today, Iranians go to the polls in a general election. And many observers believe that they will once again humiliate religious conservatives by choosing a parliament majority of reformists--deputies who, like their hero, President Mohammad Khatami, openly favor greater individual freedom, detente with the West and the transparent rule of law.

For three years, Khatami has been thwarted again and again by the hard-line parliament and judiciary--including the closure of pro-Khatami newspapers, the impeachment of pro-Khatami officials and the jailing of leading reformists. For the reform-minded set, this is payback time.

The election of Iran’s Sixth Majlis, or parliament, is more than exciting, “it is vital,” said 21-year-old Bahare Karimi, a student of commercial management who wears blue-rimmed eyeglasses that give a hint of style despite her drab chador.

Standing amid students from the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the most gung-ho, pro-reform pro-Khatami party, she said: “If the next parliament will be the parliament of Mr. Khatami, surely it will be able to do whatever we want.”

If all goes as these youths expect, it could be a new Iran. The hard-liners would lose control of parliament, and Khatami would be given the leeway he needs to carry out his agenda.

Reformers are talking hopefully about early constitutional changes to reduce the clerical establishment’s power grip on elections, the security services and the courts. They anticipate gradual shifts in foreign policy, such as eventual resumption of relations with Washington, a loaded political question here that Khatami has been unable to pursue energetically.

Youths Rally and Pass Out Fliers

As in the days before Khatami’s election, an infectious enthusiasm began to take hold this week. Young people were massed on sidewalks in this capital city, shoving election fliers through the windows of passing cars and flocking to symposiums and rallies in support of their favorites. At one event, students awaited the arrival of their idol of the day, Khatami’s younger brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami, who is heading the Participation Front’s 30-member slate in Tehran.

“Look at him. Isn’t he good-looking?” one enthusiast cooed, gesturing toward the flier’s portrait of the round-faced 40-year-old who sports a prematurely gray, close-cropped beard.

As the candidate pulled up, he was greeted by adulation one might expect for a rock star anywhere else--whistling, clapping, cheers and chants of “Our champion Khatami, [the future] speaker of the parliament!”

In many ways, this reform movement is a children’s crusade. The voting age is 16, and the young have swelled Iran’s electorate to 39 million, up from 30 million just three years ago. The burgeoning youth bloc was built by an explosion in birthrates in the 1980s that was encouraged by the government at the time, which no doubt envisioned a brave new generation that would uphold and spread the Islamic Revolution.

Now that these post-revolution babies are voting, they appear instead to be turning against the religious conservatives. Young people are quick to describe their hatred for the social controls that, among other things, demand full veiling of females in public from age 9; forbid dancing, drinking and mixed-gender parties; frown on makeup and public displays of happiness; and bar women from singing in public.

With policies like these, it’s little surprise that the mullahs have had a hard time wooing this generation, whose world view is shaped more by illegal satellite broadcasts and downloaded music from the Internet than by Friday prayer sermons.

Across Iran, more than 6,000 candidates are fighting for the 290 seats, 20 more than in the current parliament. First unofficial results from the handwritten ballots are expected by Saturday, but many races will not be resolved until another round of voting, presumably within two weeks.

Conservatives Can Rely on Bedrock Support

Analysts estimate that the hard-line faction can rely on bedrock support from 25% to 30% of the electorate. These conservative voters are people like seminary student Mohammad Sadeq Moharram-Khani, 26, who believes that the country is becoming libertine under Khatami, with boys and girls daring to fraternize in public.

“Those who sacrificed for the sake of Islam and the revolution will lose their patience with this state of affairs,” he warned.

With the support of sympathizers in the large pool of independent deputies, conservatives now hold a de facto majority in parliament. Mohammed Javad Larijani, a leading conservative in parliament, estimated that his hard-line faction would lose 10 or 15 of the 126 seats it now holds.

Political scientist Hadi Semati scoffed at that projection, predicting that reformers will capture at least 60% of the seats. Diplomats here agree that the reformers, with their sympathetic independents, will prevail, reducing conservatives to an opposition role.

The victory is in sight even though scores of the country’s best-known reformist figures--most notably the popular former interior minister and newspaper editor, Abdollah Nouri--have been barred from the ballot by the Council of Guardians. Iran’s constitution empowers this panel of conservative clerics to vet candidates for religious orthodoxy and loyalty to the revolution.

The reformers have responded with the same strategy they used when their newspapers were being closed over the last two years. For each paper shut down, they simply opened two more. And for every candidate stricken from the ballot by the Council of Guardians, other reformists are stepping up to run instead, explained Nouri’s younger brother, vascular surgeon Ali Reza Nouri.

The younger Nouri is a case in point--he entered politics in November, on the day his brother was sentenced to five years in prison by a religious court for publishing opinions deemed heretical to the Islamic state.

The pro-Khatami camp did get a jolt from the candidacy of Hashemi Rafsanjani, a towering figure in Iranian politics who was president from 1989 to 1997 and served as parliament speaker for the 10 years before that.

Long known as a calculating politician who loves the limelight, Rafsanjani has presented himself as a moderate alternative to “extreme” reformers. With his considerable personal wealth, experience and long-standing political connections, Rafsanjani’s candidacy had immediate credibility, introducing a murky middle element to what had seemed a straightforward reformers-versus-conservatives contest.

In fact, he was endorsed both by the main hard-line party, the Followers of the Imam’s Line, and by one of the oldest pro-Khatami groups, the Servants of Construction.

Khatami’s most radical supporters in the Participation Front see Rafsanjani as a figure of the past, more apt to be a brake on political and economic reforms than an accelerator. Their nightmare is that Rafsanjani would regain the post of parliament speaker, hamstring Khatami and save the day for the conservatives.

Parliament member Larijani said the conservatives want Rafsanjani as speaker to serve as a consensus broker in a parliament that Larijani believes will be divided among reformers, conservatives and independents. With his practical experience, Larijani said, Rafsanjani could help Khatami, who is viewed even by supporters as more of a theorist than a politician who gets things done. “They need each other,” Larijani asserted.

No matter how it plays out, the election is a dramatic event, said a longtime Western resident of Tehran who closely follows internal affairs.

“We shouldn’t lose sight of how significant it is,” he said. “This is supposed to be a clerical theocracy, and it is being transformed before our eyes into a pretty lively democracy.”