Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R) and Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei (L) wave during their press conference after Mashaei registered his candidacy for the upcoming presidential election at the interior ministry in Tehran on May 11, 2013. (BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images)[/caption]Since his surprise election victory in 2004, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been something of a boogeyman in the eyes of the US and its allies, mocked and distrusted for his controversial rhetoric, particularly his various statements on the Holocaust. However, despite his high profile and notorious reputation, it seems more and more likely that Iran’s forthcoming presidential elections will see his political influence within Iran thoroughly eclipsed.
Unpopular in many quarters in Iran and barred from serving more than two consecutive terms as president, Ahmadinejad faces the prospect of exile into the wilderness reserved for powerless ex-presidents with no route back into mainstream politics, or any way to secure his legacy.
The root of this lies in the rift that has opened between Ahmadinejad and his followers on the one hand, and followers of Iran’s rahbar, or ‘leader,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on the other. Despite his reputation as a conservative and anti-Western figure, Ahmadinejad has found himself increasingly at odds with many others in the conservative camp over his views. Chief among those found objectionable is his opposition to clerics playing a central role in politics, something embodied in the person of Khamenei and the office he holds.
This has led backers of Khamenei and the existing system, dubbed ‘principalists,’ to label Ahmadinejad and his followers as a “deviant current.” The strife between the two men was demonstrated by their clashes over Ahmadinejad’s choice of ministers and vice-presidents. Two years ago, when Khamenei overruled his attempt to dismiss the deputy minister of intelligence, Ahmadinejad launched a kind of boycott of the cabinet, refusing to show up for its meetings for almost two weeks.
Much of the animus between the two sides has been focused on the person of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, Ahmadinejad’s former chief of staff, and widely seen as a spiritual and political mentor to Ahmadinejad. The controversial president has been making strenuous efforts to promote Mashaei as his successor as president, being barred from serving more than two consecutive terms by Iran’s constitution.
A bewitching figure
According to Anoush Ehteshami, professor of International Relations at Durham University and co-author of a book on Ahmadinejad and his followers, Iran and the Rise of its Neoconservatives, “Mashaei has been a controversial figure for a number of years.... He is not your usual conformist. He believes that the state should be run not be clerics or clerical linkage, but by so-called ‘qualified’ individuals.
“And his second weakness from the establishment’s point of view is that he also believes very strongly in the sanctity of Iranian nationalism, and for him this nationalism goes back to the imperial period, to Cyrus the great and so on. So he puts real value on the pre-Islamic history of Persia and Iran, which makes the clerics very nervous. So for these reasons, he is regarded with great suspicion.”
Consequently, when the rifts between Ahmadinejad and Khamenei began to come out into the open in 2011, it was Mashaei who attracted much of the criticism, and he became something of a lightning rod for attacks on President Ahmadinejad. One of Ahmadinejad’s early backers among the ranks of Iran’s clerics, the hard-line conservative Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, accused Mashaei of "bewitching" the president with his views.
Ahmadinejad attempted to make Mashaei his most senior vice-president in 2009, but this was vetoed by Khamenei, who ordered Mashaei to resign after less than a week in the job. Ahmadinejad subsequently made Meshaei his chief of staff instead, a post that could be filled at his discretion and that allowed him to keep him to keep his mentor close by.
However, many analysts believe that Mashaei will not even be permitted to run in the first place. Candidates for president and parliament in Iran are vetted by the country’s Guardian Council, a committee comprised of six clerics appointed by the supreme leader and six lawyers appointed by the judiciary with parliamentary approval. One of its jobs is to ensure that candidates judged to be insufficiently loyal to the ideals that underpin existing political system of the Islamic Republic of Iran are not permitted to stand for office.
In the past, it has rejected the candidacy of large numbers of people seeking to be elected, especially those known to be associated with the reformist currents in Iranian politics. Given that Mashaei has become a very controversial figure, many observers say that his chances of being approved as a presidential candidate are slim, given the suspicion with which he is viewed.
“There are so many big names who will not be allowed to stand that his will be one amongst many, so they are not going to highlight that we approved everybody else, but not this guy,” says Ehteshami. “They are not going to have him stand out as the victim of the establishment, which is what he would love. And so, in a sense, he will be amongst many, and that is the end of it.”
Ahmadinejad has also made many enemies, says Meir Javandefar, an Iran analyst with the Middle East Economic and Political Analysis Company, and this will also likely be a factor if Mashaei is disqualified: “He is a hostage to having a very controversial friend called Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who over the last several years has made more enemies than centrifuges ... Ahmadinejad has not been very good at coalition-building, and in [the Iranian] system you have to be very good at coalition-building.”
Outside of the office of the presidency, the prospects for Ahmadinejad and his followers also look bleak in the other branches of the government, leaving him without a power base to prevent being shut out of political power completely. Ahmadinejad’s camp has lost a great deal of influence in Iran’s parliament.
Legislative elections held last year are widely held to have been a victory for his opponents in the conservative camp. Candidates for future parliamentary elections will, as in the past, also be vetted by the Guardian Council, raising the prospect that supporters of Ahmadinejad in Iran’s parliament will shrink even further.
Kicking up a fuss
What then does the future hold for Ahmadinejad, Mashaei and their followers? Admittedly, while they will undoubtedly face a struggle to remain influential, and perhaps even relevant, it would be premature to write the obituary of the political movement they have tried to construct.
Ahmadinejad himself is “not the kind of person who would go away quietly,” says Meir Javandefar. With his own legacy and the political future of his movement at stake, Ahmadinejad may turn to one of the few resources he has left—embarrassing information about the Iranian political and economic establishment—in a bid for leverage behind the scenes.
Javandefar points to the angry scenes in Iran’s parliament in February, when Ahmadinejad spoke out against legislators’ attempts to impeach one of his ministers. Upon taking the podium, he played a video recording which he claimed showed the brother of the current parliamentary speaker, Ali Larijani, offering to use his influence to assist the minister in return for business favors.
“I don’t think we are going to see an uprising, but I think Ahmadinejad may reveal more secrets about the inside workings of the regime,” Javandefar says.
However, it is likely that Ayatollah Khamenei and Ahmadinejad’s opponents believe they can contain any of his attempts to break back into politics. The Revolutionary Guard Corps, seen by many as the ultimate bulwark of the current system, are in favor of seeing Ahmadinejad cut down to size, says Ehteshami, and “are all for containing Ahmadinejad and his faction.”
As for the Iranian public, many believe that they will not be too troubled by the eventual fate of Ahmadinejad and his camp, and would not give it much support even if it is able to field a candidate.
“There is a whiff of court politics going on here, political infighting that has little to do with the people,” says Ali Ansari, director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the University of St. Andrews. “Ahmadinejad is clearly doing everything he possibly can to whip up popular enthusiasm, but again it is not clear how many people are paying attention.”
Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, an Iran expert at the School of Oriental and African Studies and author of Iran in World Politics, concurs with this assessment. “Mashaei is a protege of Ahmadinejad, who is probably the least popular president in the history of the Islamic Republic,” he told The Majalla.
“In the unlikely event that the Guardian Council will approve his candidacy, I deem his chances slim. Having said that, the Iranian elections are always good for a massive surprise.”
