100 Days Ahmadinejad in Office

Ahmadinejad's 17 million voters are waiting impatiently for their president to turn his election promise into action by fighting poverty, corruption and unemployment in Iran. It's precisely in these areas that he comes up against embittered opposition

After one hundred days in office and two setbacks, things do not look too promising for the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His wing in Parliament, the conservative majority, refused to give a vote of confidence to the three prospective Ministers he had proposed for office. In addition, the resolution by the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEO) has cleared the way for Iran to be reported to the UN Security Council.

The resolution says that Iran must give up its uranium enrichment programme for good by the middle of November; in addition, the country should refrain from operating a nuclear power plant and stop working on its heavy-water reactor. The Islamic Republic insists on its right to enrich uranium, however, and is therefore threatening to opt out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty if the pressure should continue.

Iran's nuclear policy

Yet Iran's attitude to the issue of atomic power is not a result of Ahmadinejad's personal position but the official policy of the Islamic Republic. The President himself plays no decisive role in the formulation of this policy.

According to Iranian law, the competence to issue directives, across the entire range of foreign- and security policy, lies solely in the hands of the religious leader and the National Security Council – whose main members are appointed by the religious leader.

Inside Iran, the nuclear policy of the Islamic Republic will not meet any serious resistance. At the parliamentary and presidential elections, the only candidates up for election are those permitted by the Council of Guardians. And most members of that Council are in turn appointed by the religious leader.

Radio and TV stations, too, are monopolised by the religious leader. The strict censorship of the press and the imprisonment or murder of opposition intellectuals gives political challengers no chance to become active.

Liberal and secular tendencies that support democracy and a separation of church and state cannot manifest themselves in public. Within Iran, there is no longer any organised opposition, and the divided opposition in exile has no influence inside the country.

Amongst representatives of all tendencies in the Iranian government, there is an awareness that the interior and exterior circumstances for an atomisation of Iran have never been more favourable.

Ahmadinejad's limited influence on foreign policy

The new President agrees with the religious leader on the issues of foreign- and security policy. Foreign policy, and particularly Iran's course of action on the atomic issue, is in the hands of the National Security Council, which is led by Larijani, one of Ahmadinejad's rivals in the election. As a representative of the religious leader and as Chairman of the Council, Larijani is in charge of negotiations with the European Union and the IAEA.

But the second challenge – the new president's Achilles' heel – has already brought him up against numerous problems: His 17 million voters are waiting impatiently for him to turn his election promise into action by fighting poverty, corruption and unemployment and by striving to achieve a fairer distribution of Iran's oil wealth.

It's precisely in these areas that Ahmadinejad comes up against embittered opposition – both from elements within the government and the financially powerful religious foundations, and from the small but influential class of nouveau riche multimillionaires.

These influential religious foundations are allied either with the religious leader or with other leading government politicians. They control 60% of the economy and are exempted from any kind of official auditing of their accounts.

Politics and Big Business

The oil business and the import of weapons and consumer goods are monopolised by the ruling politicians and their families. They have become fabulously rich by exploiting the privileges offered by the semi-nationalised and black economies, and by making big profits from foreign business.

At the last presidential elections, the country's widespread poverty played a decisive role. Of the six candidates allowed to compete, the best-known was Rafsanjani, who is counted among the religious pragmatists. He was unable to achieve a majority because he is seen by most Iranians as a symbol of institutionalised corruption, despotism, political murder and imprisonment of dissidents. He is also the godfather of the richest family in the country.

A further candidate was the former Minister Moin, a representative of the religious reformist wing, who had no new ideas to present, merely a warmed-up version of Khatami's failed programme. Two other contenders from the conservative camp, Larijani und Qalibaf, were rejected by most of the electorate because of their past history with the military and the intelligence agencies.

One candidate, Karubi, promised that, if he won, he would pay every Iranian 50,000 toman a month (approximately 50 euros). This promise brought him around 5 million votes, which then went to Ahmadinejad on the second ballot.

Ahmadinejad – the mayor of Teheran

In the last 27 years, Ahmadinejad's five rivals had held important positions in politics, in the military or with the secret services. The highest position Ahmadinejad had held was the office of Mayor of Teheran.

He had had less experience of high office in government than his rivals, and he was more vehemently critical than any of them about the sorry state of affairs in Iran. Ahmadinejad managed to win 17 million votes by addressing the deep discontent amongst most of the population. He criticised the institutionalised corruption, the widespread poverty and unemployment and the extreme differences in income. He demanded social justice, a battle against corruption and a fairer distribution of oil profits.

A large number of Iranians from the lower and middle classes had spent much of their youth on battlefields during the eight-year war against Iraq. Many of them did so of their own free will, because they shared the ideals propounded by the populist Ayatollah Khomeini. When they came back from the war, they were confronted by a society sinking into poverty, and by a set of rulers whose sudden wealth and uncontested power made a mockery of those populist ideals.

Low- and middle-level members of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militias of the People's Army form the main basis for the Islamic government within the population. Many of these former soldiers feel that they and the Islamic revolution have been betrayed. In the recent elections, they united with the poor of Iran to support Ahmadinejad.

Ahmadinejad's defeat in Parliament

Now, Ahmadinejad has signalled his agreement with the oppressive policies of the conservative fundamentalists by nominating three grim, implacable characters for the central posts in the Ministry of Information, the Security Police, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance ("Ershad").

Yet the conservative majority in Parliament responded to this by rejecting three other Ministers nominated by Ahmadinejad – the only ones who actually agreed with the populist programmes he had campaigned on; the only ones who spoke of the battle against financial corruption and the need for a fairer distribution of the profits from oil.

With their rejection of his three Ministerial nominees and part of his economic programme, Ahmadinejad's "party" are trying to teach him that promises cease to be binding the day after election victory.

Rafsanjani – Coming in through the back door

On October 3rd, the religious leader completed this lesson. By transferring some of his authority to Rafsanjani, he placed the loser of the election in a more powerful position than the winner. With immediate effect, Rafsanjani – besides his influential position as head of the Expediency Council – will also oversee the executive, legislative and judiciary branches of government.

For the powerful and wealthy factions in Iran, Rafsanjani's new powers are a guarantee that Ahmadinejad's promised battle against corruption and for a fair distribution of oil wealth will come to nothing.

At present, the level of investment in Iran is low. If capital investors were to be frightened by populist slogans, the number of investments would sink to zero. Capital flight and capital investments abroad were already rampant in the Iranian economy, and they have increased in the last hundred days.

The Iranian economy is still marked by the state's running of things of recent decades. Ahmadinejad has tried to lower the budget of his Presidential office by limiting its paraphernalia and by maintaining his simple lifestyle.

Yet measures such as these cannot solve the main problem facing the people, and they expect their President to keep his promises. In view of the challenges confronting Ahmadinejad's economic programme, one of the central concepts of Islamic ideology is now facing a very tough test: the implementation of "divine justice on earth".

Faraj Sarkohi

Translated from the German by Patrick Lanagan

Qantara.de

Commentary: Iran's Nuclear Program
Much Ado About Nothing
Iranian technicians are expected to remove the UN seals to a nuclear power plant. The EU is unhappy but Mideast expert Peter Philipp doesn't think that the move should change negotiation strategies.

Iran's Hardliners against Opening up the Economy
Unwelcome European Offer in the Nuclear Conflict
EU negotiators hope that economic incentives will convince Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program. However, economic cooperation with the West is not nearly as welcome as the Europeans believe. By Michael Heim

Analysis Faraj Sarkohi
The Gulf between Population and Opposition
One of the greatest successes of the Islamic Republic has been its ability to violently suppress the Iranian opposition, However, this triumph would not have been possible without the assistance of the opposition itself, writes Faraj Sarkohi