Change of Guard in Iran

 Yuba Nath Lamsal
Iran, an oil rich Middle Eastern country, had a presidential election last week, in which the 64 year old Hasan Rohani was elected. The voter turnout was estimated 73 per cent of nearly 50 million eligible voters. Or more than 36 million Iranians had cast their votes to choose their president. According to the election results, Rohani secured more than half of the total votes cast.
A cleric, known to have close link with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatolla in the past but had kept distance with the Islamic cleric in recent years, narrowly cleared the margin that would have forced a two-candidate runoff. Teheran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf and Saeed Jalili, who was a tough nuclear negotiator with the West, came in distant second and third, respectively. Rohani secured 50.7 per cent of the votes while Qalibaf came second with 16.56 per cent and Saeed only managed to gain 11.35 per cent. At the bottom of the list is supreme leader Khamenei’s foreign affairs advisor Ali Akbar Velayati with meager 6.18 per cent votes.
Until two weeks ago no one had even the slightest hint that Rohani would emerge as the winner in the presidential race. With the endorsements coming from former presidents Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, a sudden wave came in favor of Rohani. Several liberal and reform-minded politicians and activists joined in to rally behind Rohani portraying him as a ‘lesser evil among all six candidates’ that transformed the tight election race into Rohani’s victory.
Despite not being in the list of favorites of the Iran’s supreme leader and the powerful Guardian’s Council, whose approval, according to Iran’s constitution, is mandatory, Rohani’s victory tells that the election, unlike accusation by Western countries, was by and large fair and free. Had the election, as accused and claimed by Western countries, been engineered and manipulated, election results could have been different and Rohani may not have been the winner.
The Western countries dub Iran as an authoritarian country depriving its people of their rights and freedom. Iran is, of course, an autocratic and theocratic regime and not a democracy according to the yardstick of western countries that champion liberal capitalist democracy. But last week’s presidential election was definitely a free choice of the people by any standard. No incident of vote-rigging was reported in the election. The only objectionable thing was the pre-election system that required approval of the candidates by the Guardian Council consisting of conservative Islamic Clerics. According to the system, only those who are approved by the Guardians’ Council can be the candidate in the presidential election. In this election, there were more than 60 aspirants to become the candidate for the presidential race. However, the Guardians’ Council had approved only six candidates.
The objectives of the approval process are to select the most dogmatic hard liners, strong believer in the ideas of the Islamic revolution, and of course, the most compliant to the supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei. This came as a result of the 2009 protests, touted as the largest since the 1979 political upheavals, when two reformists, Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi of Green Movement, were put under house arrest for protesting the electoral process that they claimed were rigged to reelect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Despite this the election was free, which has now been accepted by the international community as well. Even the western countries have recognized the election results and seem to be jubilant from the outcome of the election. The jubilation of the West is understandable because the winner is not the favorite of the Iran’s powerful Guardian Council and its Ayatollah, the Supreme religious leader, who is an arch critic of the United States and some other western countries.
Rohani is not a new face in Iran’s politics as he has already served many years in governments on different capacities and also played crucial and highly sensitive role as Iran’s nuclear negotiator. Between 2003 and 2005, he was actually the head of Iran’s nuclear program. One more thing that caused the election tide to go to his favor was that Rohani had always been critical of the international policies of outgoing President Dr. Ahmadinejad, whom the Western countries and reformist within Iran describe as Islamic conservative opposed to reforms and democracy.
In his first statement after the results were announced, Rohani has pledged to create an environment for free dialogue in Iran and also truly respect democracy. Portraying himself as a champion of reform, freedom, democracy and modernization, he said “this is the victory of wisdom, a victory of moderation and a victory of commitment over extremism.”
It is now expected that Rohani’s victory may ease tension between Iran and the West, to a large extent, in general and with the United States in particular. This could well be reflected by the quick response of the White House congratulating not only Rohani but also Iranian voters for “their courage in making their voices heard.” In a message of congratulation, Obama administration has appealed to the Iranian regime to take the verdict of the people in the election as the clarion call for reforms and democracy.
The prime concern of the United States in Iran at present is not the regime but its military and economic strength and nuclear program. The White House wants Iran to stop its nuclear program, which Iranian leaders firmly resisted. According to Teheran, Iran’s nuclear programs are only for peaceful purposes that includes energy and medical purposes. With the Rohani’s election, the United States expects a complete U-turn in its international policy and nuclear program, which is something Rohani either won’t want to do or simply cannot do. The other concern of the West is to contain and to weaken Iran just because of Iran’s relations with Syria’s Basar al Assad against whom a massive people’s movement is being launched. The West has backed the rebels whereas Iran has openly supported Assad’s regime. If reform minded and pro-West person takes over power in Teheran, it would be easy for the West to oust Assad in Syria and install their lackey in Damascus.
The US desire is to prevent Iran from strengthening and enhancing its military capability—something that would be threat to US monopoly in the Middle East and also threat to Israel’s security. White House officials often claim that Iran’s nuclear efforts may not be threat to Washington but it poses serious threat to regional peace in the Middle East. If the USA is serious about peace and nuclear security in that part of the world, it has to engage itself in the direct talks with Teheran and seek peaceful resolution. Teheran, too, should not be rigid and apprehensive about the issue and fear raised by the West. Iran, thus, needs to open up its nuclear plants for competent and credible international inspectors and offer the proof that its nuclear programs are genuinely for the peaceful purpose. In the same manner, the Western countries, too, have to give up their double standard. If they are at all serious for world peace and denuclearization, nuclear weapons of all countries must be destroyed including that of Israel.
For the past decades, Iran, because of its economic and military power, has been successful in attracting the international limelight by keeping itself at the center of the Middle East’s politics. Although the objectives of Tehran are common knowledge to the world community, they get the international media’s attention as interesting developments simply because it is a country that has been consistently resisting Western pressure and diktats.
Despite will and wishful thinking of the West, Iran’s new leadership, in all its probability, is not likely to depart from its earlier stance. Iran will continue backing Bashar Assad and also it will continue with its nuclear program. But he would definitely be open for talks and dialogue with the West to ease tension and resolve conflict in peaceful manner.
After the election results were declared, Tehran exploded with happiness. People started pouring out on the streets of Teheran and elsewhere in support of newly elected president.  In some places, the celebrations took the form of protests and demonstrations in demand of reform and democracy in Iran. This is a testimony of the fact that a new era— democratic and open era— would begin in Iran which would not only bring about changes in Iran but also contribute to usher bring about reforms in the entire Middle East. The real test, thus, lies on the newly elected president to change the course of Iran and live up to the expectation of the people.