Politicians Eager To Win Parliament Seats, If Khamenei Allows
New developments in In Iran's reformist and conservative camps are indicative of a new momentum in the country's political dynamics ahead of March 2024 elections.
New developments in In Iran's reformist and conservative camps are indicative of a new momentum in the country's political dynamics ahead of March 2024 elections.
Ultraconservatives, who dominate the current parliament and the government, are ready to go out of their way to ensure their continued supremacy in the political landscape.
The Reformist Front, an umbrella organization of several parties and groups elected Azar Mansouri as the Front's leader last week to replace aging political heavyweight Behzad Nabavi who led the front during the past two years. Mansouri was the front's spokesperson during this period.
However, based on the experience of the last two elections in 2020 and 2021, an electoral watchdog controlled by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will determine who can become a candidate. In the 2020 parliamentary vote hundreds of reformist candidates were disqualified, allowing hardliners to dominate the parliament.
Ms. Mansouri took part in a meeting with former President Mohammad Khatami, who is considered the undeclared leader of Iran's reform movement although his recent stances indicate that he is not too eager to risk big changes in the current governing system.
According to Etemad Online, at the meeting Khatami endorsed Mansouri's qualifications as the leader of Iran's Reform Front and insisted on its independence. He said the power and capabilities of the Reform Front depends on its members' strengths and capabilities.
Khatami called on the front's leaders to do their best to ensure its cohesion, while also benefitting from the views of experts outside the front. He added that the front's views should reflect the collective opinion of its members.
At the meeting, Mansouri said that Khatami is the Reform Front's focal point and that all of the reformists agree on his key role.
Meanwhile, according to conservative website Nameh News, Mohammad Ali Namazi, a member of the Centrist Executives of Construction Party (EoC), which is a part of the Reform Front, has said that the Reform Front would have been more successful if its members elected EoC leader Hossein Marashi as its chairman.
However, he added that Mansouri's election as the Reform Front's leader does not mean that the views of her party, the Unity of Nation Party will determine the underlying policies of the front. Ms. Mansouri will have only one vote in determining those policies.
He said a majority of the front's member wanted Nabavi to be elected as the leader, but the aging politician was not interested in the position.
Meanwhile, Namazi made it clear that he is aware that the conservative-led Guardian Council that vets election candidates has already made its decisions about who are those who are allowed to run for the upcoming election.
At the same time changes in the leadership of the conservative camp indicated their strong interest in the upcoming election. In one of the latest developments, political heavyweight Mohammad Reza Bahonar joined SHANA [Persian acronym for the conservative alliance council of revolutionary forces]. Despite what the word "revolutionary" might indicate, the alliance consists of elderly politicians such as Bahonar and former Majles Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel who have been active in Iran's domestic politics for more than four decades.
However, Expediency Council member Bahonar's move to the forefront of electioneering could mean that traditional conservatives are serious in trying to keep their position in the Iranian political landscape despite the power of ultraconservatives, most notably the Paydari Party, to win the lion's share of the seats in the next parliament.
Nonetheless, as Namazi noted, getting through the Guardian Council's net is not guaranteed for anyone unless Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei pulls the right strings for them.
Hadi Talebian Moqaddam, a trade official, told a news website in Tehran that soon Iran will invite Pakistan to hold talks about bartering commodities and goods, with an eye “on creating free trade.” He mentioned textiles as an area where Pakistan can supply Iran, although importing rice also has a long history.
US sanctions imposed since 2018 have seriously limited Iran’s oil exports and its revenues, which are vital for supplying hard currency to a government that controls the economy and is responsible for providing food and medicine to the population.
Although the oil exports have substantially increased in the past two years, the revenues have not been sufficient for all the needs of a population reaching 85 million and an inefficient economy mired with corruption and international isolation.
The US Energy Information Administration recently estimated that Iran’s total oil exports in 2023 will reach $46 billion, but it admitted that this a rough calculation based on global energy prices, not on actual amounts Iran charges its customers.
In fact, Iran and Russia, two sanctioned countries, offer large discounts to their buyers. The amount of the discounts remains secret, but some have said that Iran might be selling its oil in clandestine ways to small Chinese refineries for as low as $40 per barrel.
What is clear is that Iran must use middlemen who mix its oil shipments with cargoes from other countries, transfer the oil to other tankers somewhere in south-Asian waters and deliver it to China as Omani, Malaysian or Iraqi oil.
In addition, it is not easy to repatriate the money in hard currency since Iran is cut off from the international banking system mainly due to US sanctions. That too costs money. All these cuts into Iran’s oil revenues, which are probably half of what the US estimate shows.
Iran’s confrontational foreign policy and its controversial nuclear program have left it far behind other regional countries like Saudi Arabia that have huge oil revenues and invest it back into infrastructure. Saudi oil revenues in 2023 are expected to reach $223 billion – at least five times that of Iran.
The picture becomes clearer if per-capita oil revenues are considered. Saudi per capita income from oil in 2023 is estimated at $6,450 and Iraq’s $2,356, while Iran’s per capita revenue is a meager $516.
In this situation, the clerical regime in Tehran boasting of its revolutionary credentials has to turn to barter trade with Pakistan, a country facing its own serious financial crisis.
Current US sanctions are not the only external reason for Iran’s economic crisis. The first serious economic sanctions began appearing 15 years ago when the international community discovered a secret Iranian nuclear program, and the UN Security Council began imposing sanctions. Since then, Iran’s average rate of economic growth has been zero, although international sanctions were lifted when the JCPOA nuclear deal with world powers was signed in 2015. After a two-year reprieve, the United States pulled out of that accord and imposed its own unilateral sanctions.
In a recent article, a relatively independent website in Iran argued that the nuclear program has cost the country 4 trillion dollars in the past 15 years, in lost growth, inflationary damage, and lack of domestic and international investments. The issue, the article argued is not just lost oil revenues but its cumulative impact on the economy, including loss of business confidence.
While Iran sits on the world’s second largest natural gas reserves, its tiny Persian Gulf neighbor Qatar exports $120 billion of LNG annually. Iran cannot match that because no Western company is willing to provide capital and technology to expand Iran’s gas fields or tap into new ones. Iran's annual losses are estimated to be much more than what Qatar is exporting.
Repeating Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s decree that being unveiled is “both politically and religiously haram”, Ahmad Khatami, the ultra-hardliner Friday imam of Tehran, told a congregation gathering for special Eid ul-Adha prayers that those who are unveiled aim to weaken the pillars of family life and destroy peace of mind in the society.
“I’m telling those who are unveiled that their defiance of hijab will never become a norm, because it was, is and will be against norms,” Khatami said, complaining that some unveiled women on social media “attack those who wear it”.
“Discarding hijab is haram based on Sharia and also politically,” Khamenei declared in a speech in April. His declaration was a clear signal to officials and his loyalists to do anything it takes to re-establish control over women.
But in the past few months the regime has been struggling to enforce the hijab as successfully as it used to in previous years. Less force is being used in the streets against women due to the fear of igniting another round of anti-government protests.
“It is unbearable that those who wear the hijab and their children are assaulted in the Islamic Republic,” Khatami said and urged the authorities to take legal action. “You, authorities who are in charge, [be aware] that assault on women who wear the hijab is a crime. What and who are you waiting for? [Are you waiting for them] to commit a crime and then apologize and say they are sorry for overreacting?”
It is not clear what the firebrand cleric was referring to. There have been no attacks against women for wearing the hijab. There have been argument and scuffles in the streets when religious women on government payrollhave stopped other women to scold them for ‘improper hijab.’
Other clerics and hardliners have also been making similar allegations against unveiled women whose number has been on the rise to the extent that being unveiled is becoming “the new norm” in some Iranian cities.
Pro-hijab enforcement rally outside the Iranian parliament June 27
A video circulating on social media of a pro-hijab rally in front of the parliament June 27, shows a cleric who demands stricter enforcement of hijab rules calling the anti-compulsory hijab women “promiscuous”. The cleric claims that unveiled women are only “a minority of two to three percent [of all women] who present themselves as the majority”.
“And how many participated in this rally? Maximum 30 people. No need for further explanation,” dissident journalist Ehsan Bodaghi in Tehran tweeted about the cleric’s claim.
Authorities have been making various threats against those who defy the hijab rules since mid-March when protests that had engulfed the country for over six months became less frequent.
Iran's Police Chief Ahmad Radan in June threatened government offices that do not deny services to unveiled women with repercussions as part of hijab enforcement. Authorities have also been putting pressure on businesses including cab companies to make them enforce such rules by denying services to unveiled women.
Earlier this month students at University of Art in Tehran who had staged a sit-in protesting draconian hijab laws were assaulted by a security official of the university and several students were reportedly badly injured.
The regime has also tried to tighten its control over entertainment content in line with its policy of enforcing religious restrictions on the population and warned filmmakers not to hire actresses who have been supporting the anti-compulsory hijab movement by unveiling in public or publishing unveiled photos on social media.