Taboo-breaking election tests how much dissent Iran
can handle
Scott
Peterson
Christian Science MonitorMay 18,
2017
From the
lecterns of mass rally stages, and during live television debates, Iran’s
presidential candidates have crossed multiple regime red lines in their bids to
cast opponents as dangerously unfit for office.
Even by
the rough-and-tumble tradition of Iranian politics, the run-up to the May 19
election has been especially combative, engulfing presidential contenders with
starkly opposing worldviews in charges of lying, corruption, and misrule, and
underscoring the deep polarization of Iranian society.
Energized
by the electoral fisticuffs, thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets
each night, with activists from both sides – either seeking change, or fearing
it – expressing their views in noisy traffic jams.
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“I am
leaving nothing to chance,” says Sina, a master’s student in civil engineering
from Tehran, who skipped voting in the last election but won’t miss this one. A
hard-line victory, he says, will worsen Iran’s ties abroad, “collapse the
economy, and undermine freedoms.”
Iran’s
tightly controlled political space always expands before an election, but never
before with such vicious personal attacks, uncensored exchanges that have cast
a shadow over the reputation of the Islamic Republic.
Incumbent
President Hassan Rouhani accuses his hard-line opponent, cleric Ebrahim Raisi,
of knowing only “death and imprisonment” – an oblique reference to Mr. Raisi’s
role in ordering the Execution of thousands of political prisoners in 1988, an
event usually taboo to talk about in Iran – and charges that victory for Raisi
will stymie budding freedoms and return Iran to a dark period of isolation.
Raisi,
in turn, accuses Mr. Rouhani – who championed the 2015 nuclear deal with
Western powers as providing a path to prosperity – of “deceiving” Iranians with
unfulfilled promises, “starving people” by neglecting the poor, and betraying
Iran’s revolutionary credentials by selling out to the West. Raisi’s supporters
chant, “Death to the liar!” at campaign rallies.
The
blunt violation of taboos dramatizes the knife-edge balance demanded of Iran’s
supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as he seeks to simultaneously allow and
contain dissent, ensuring enough democratic expression to validate the regime
with a majority-accepted choice for president, while stopping short
of undermining it.
Polls
indicate a close race, with Rouhani ahead, but with his early lead slipping.
CALL FOR
A HIGH TURNOUT
Mr.
Khamenei has called for a mass voter turnout on election day, despite the risks
that higher turnout often yields more support for reform-minded candidates.
Ever since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, a high turnout has been equated with
regime legitimacy, whatever the outcome.
But at
the same time, Khamenei warned that anyone who did not accept the result would
receive a “slap in the face.” On Wednesday he praised Iranians for creating
“peace and security” before the vote, but said it was “likely that some
individuals” might try to break the law.
In a
veiled jibe at Rouhani, he also said the fierce rhetoric of the campaign “did
not suit the dignity of the Iranian nation.” And, in a reference to the months
of street protests that followed the disputed vote in 2009, which were
suppressed with a heavy-handed crackdown, he added that Iran had “learned from
the experiences of the past” that “unlawfulness can be so harmful.”
But the
perennial tension between the republican and theocratic pillars of the Islamic
Republic means there are limits as to how much influence Khamenei can exert.
That is one reason, analysts say, for the signs of high-level anxiety over the
vote.
“The
dynamics of Iranian politics make it very, very difficult for the leader to
come out and publicly take a side in this or any election,” says Farideh Farhi,
an Iran expert at the University of Hawaii.
“That
ambiguity creates opportunities for voters to make a statement about the
direction they want the Islamic Republic to go, even if that is not the
direction the leader or the establishment would like it to go,” Ms. Farhi says.
STILL,
THERE IS APATHY
In that
vein, Rouhani has cast himself as an anti-establishment candidate – or at
least, as the anti-hard-line candidate – in his bid to woo undecided voters and
convince the 40 percent of Iran’s 55 million eligible voters who often don’t
show up to make the effort.
“Most
agree that if people go and vote, Rouhani would win,” says Farhi. “And that’s
one of the ways he’s trying to motivate people to vote, [by raising] the
possibility that Iran will be re-securitized, whether that’s true or not.”
Still,
there is no shortage of apathy.
“It’s
just a show, nothing is going to change,” says Tehran toy shop owner Amirali.
“I’m just a businessman, I don’t care about these games.”
Yet
those in the game say the choice is stark. Rouhani says a second four-year term
would enable Iranians to “continue down the path of freedom of speech,” and to
“continue engaging in honorable interaction with the world.”
By
contrast, he warned last month, a hard-line victory would “begin confrontation
with the world and bring back the ominous shadow of war.”
“We’ve
entered this election to tell those who practice violence and extremism that your
era is over,” Rouhani said at one rally last week.
“The
people will say no to those who over the course of
38 years only executed and jailed, those who cut out
tongues and sewed mouths shut, [who] banned the pen and banned the
picture,” Rouhani said at another rally. “Please don’t even breathe
the word freedom, for it shames freedom."
RAISI
REJECTS 'SCAREMONGERING'
The
president was referring to Raisi’s position as a judge on a four-member panel
in the late 1980s, which came to be known as the “death committee.” It carried
out two fatwas, or religious injunctions, by the founder of the Islamic
Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that targeted for Execution several
thousand jailed members of the OPPOSITION Mojahedin-e Khalq, and “apostates.”
This week,
Raisi rejected the “scaremongering,” and defended his past actions as a young
prosecutor: “My record is removing the ominous shadow of terrorism over the
country. Have you forgotten it?” Raisi told a Tehran rally.
On the
campaign trail itself, there has been no holding back. Three lengthy, live
televised debates between the six approved candidates – winnowed down by
the Guardian Council from 1,636 who registered to run – turned into a spectacle
of mud-slinging and character assassination.
While
each tried to portray themselves as populists with a common touch, they accused
each other of being corrupt elitists who have forsaken revolutionary ideals.
“After
this election mudslinging, and worse … the reaction of the people is, ‘Well,
all of them are thieves, why should I vote for these people?’” says a veteran
Iranian analyst in Tehran, who asked not to be named.
“In the
back of their minds, people always had this pessimism about people in power,
that they are dishonest, after their own personal interests,” says the analyst.
“But suddenly [hearing that] coming out of the mouths of the highest people in
power on TV? This was unexpected.”
APPLAUSE
LINES
That
resonated with voter Zahra, a 30-year-old sales rep for a food company who
wears a loose headscarf.
“Crossing
red lines is good, it helps people know their candidates better,” she says.
“Even indifferent people now feel it’s necessary to vote, not to let things get
worse, at least.”
In his
campaign, Rouhani has spoken against morality police squads arresting young
people on the streets. This week he lashed out at state-run TV for what he
called selective analysis of the debates that unsubtly favored his opponent. He
said the era when state broadcasters “could dominate the people’s mind is
over.”
And in
his final campaign rally, on May 17, Rouhani told the Revolutionary Guard and
Basij ideological militia to get out of politics, and on voting day to “stay in
their own place for their own work.” Both forces were used to quell the unrest
in 2009.
Loud
cheers erupt whenever Rouhani mentions his popular “brother,” former President
Mohammad Khatami, whose images and words have been banned from the media
because of his support for the 2009 Green Movement.
Mr.
Khatami’s last-minute backing in 2013 was instrumental to Rouhani’s narrow
victory, and Khatami called on supporters to vote for him again, “for freedom
of thought … rule of law [and] Human rights.”
EXPECTING
THE UNEXPECTED
Officials
have taken steps to ensure that this freewheeling campaign doesn’t translate
into post-election unrest over the result. Plainclothes security forces
reportedly have been deployed, and Human rights groups say a number of
pro-Rouhani and reformist journalists and activists have been arrested in the
past six months.
Last month,
a dozen administrators of Telegram – a social media messaging app popular in
Iran, and used for mobilizing activists – reportedly were arrested. A Telegram
voice communicator was also blocked by the judiciary, because it was deemed to
be “against national security.”
One
night this week, the veteran analyst saw riot police deployed at an
intersection where protesters often gather in Tehran.
“I look
around, I don’t feel that anything is going to happen, I don’t see signs of
something brewing,” says the analyst. But the police deployment – and warnings
from Khamenei that he would “confront” any challenge to the results – “is
an indication of how nervous people in security are about the situation,” he
says. “They are expecting the unexpected.”
A special
correspondent in Tehran contributed to this report.
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