Iranian Elections -- implications

There has been much dicussion in the western press and on the blogosphere as to the meaning of the recent elections in Iran. The best analysis I have found yet appeared in the NY Post [yes, the Post!].

Amir Tehari notes:

1) Participation levels were low.

It is virtually impossible to know how many voters actually went to the polls. Iran has no independent election commission and there were no impartial observers..... But even in the official results, the percentage of the electorate that took part is the lowest of all the nine presidential elections held since the Islamic Republic's creation in 1979.

2) The disaffection of voters was primarily in urban areas.

While the rural areas reportedly went to the poll in huge numbers, at times reaching over 80 percent, urban Iran clearly shunned the exercise, with turnout as low as 12 percent in some cities.

3) And it primarily affected the younger generation.

The first analyses show that a majority of the young, those 15 to 30, did not go to the polls, while turnout reached 70 percent at the upper ends of the age ladder.

4) The influence of the mullahs is beginning to wane.

This is the first election since 1981 in which the mullahs were a minority among the candidates. Only two mullahs were allowed to stand this time, as opposed to the average of four for the previous elections. The key reason is that over the past decade or so the Shiite clergy has been distancing itself from the regime.

Today, there are no young rising mullahs within the regime, individuals who could provide it with high-level leadership in the future. The two mullahs who stood this time, Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mahdi Karrubi, were the oldest of the candidates, with the best part of their careers behind them. Together they captured just 38 percent of the votes declared — another sign that the mullahs' domination of politics is on the decline even within the establishment.

5) As the power of the moderate mullahs declines, that of the Islamists rises.

[T]his election was a spectacular show of force by the more hard-line Khomeinists, whose most successful standard-bearer Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be present in the run-off against Rafsanjani.

Together, the four hard-line Khomeinist candidates, all members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), collected more votes than the two mullahs. This shows that the generation of militants produced by the IRGC now provides the dominant force within the ruling establishment....

Put it all together and what does it mean?

As the main body of Iranian society moves away from the Khomeinist regime, the ruling establishment becomes more radical in emphasizing its Khomeinist identity.

The best hope to resolve this potentially fatal discrepency would be a convincing election of Rafsanjani in this week's runoff. But,

even if Rafsanjani wins the presidency he will be operating from a relatively weak position within the regime.

What can we look for in the upcoming runoff?

A win by Rafsanjani would be a sure sign that Khamenei thinks he still needs a kind of interface with the broader Iranian society, similar to the role that the outgoing President Muhammad Khatami played in his first four-year term. It would also indicate that the "Supreme Guide" is still interested in playing diplomatic games, especially with the Europeans, rather than provoking a direct confrontation with the major powers, especially the United States.

On the domestic front, Rafsanjani's victory would allow the cosmetic reforms introduced by Khatami, especially allowing some women to show a few strands of their hair from under the Khomeinist hijab, to continue.

Ahmadinejad, on the other hand, represents the North Koreans of Islam: hard-line radicals who believe that they have discovered the recipe for the ideal society and that the rest of the world, which is corrupt and godforsaken must, at some point , either submit to them or be forced into submission.

Read it here.

In no case does the future look good. A win by the hard-liners would be disastrous for all concerned, but at best a Rasfanjani win would install a weak regime that would simply continue the current situation with all its fatal contradictions.

The key question remaining is what will be the role of Iran's disaffected youth? The blogosphere is filled with predictions that they have real revolutionary potential, but other reports [here] suggest that they are more likely to seek escape from rather than confrontation with the current regime. This is particularly likely if Rafsanjani is elected and continues the cosmetic reforms he has pushed in the past. But if the hard-liners emerge victorious, simple disaffection could easily shift into revolutionary consciousness.

Either way, the future does not look good for Iran.

And, to ease your mind, think about the consequences of a radical Khomeinist regime with nuclear capabilities.

Stay tuned....