It was only five years ago when the then unknown mayor of Tehran kissed the hands of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei during his inauguration as president. At the time, the unknown mayor surfed on a wave of public anger towards the establishment, and with the blessing of Khamenei and his loyal armed forces, this man became the sixth Iranian president. It was not long before the unknown mayor became a well-known president, who, along with his powerful friends, asked for a bigger share of power in Iran.
The defeat of Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani in 2005 at the hands of then Tehran’s Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad brought to the fore a major cleavage within the conservative camp in Iran. And this rift has only widened in the years since. Those on the conservative side considered moderates feel that they have been marginalized by the hardliners. The hardliners, led by President Ahmadinejad and his allies in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), are unwilling to allow any room for their political rivals. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has been one of Ahmadinejad’s ardent supporters, has felt the threat posed to the regime by Ahmadinejad and the IRGC’s recently growing and unchecked powers. Acting accordingly, he has taken a number of steps to check their influence and clear the path for moderate-conservatives to return to the table.
A unifying conservative cause
During the years of reformist President Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005, Iranian conservatives faced a common political enemy. After their candidate, Parliament Speaker Ali-Akbar Nategh-Nouri, lost the election in a landslide, the conservative camp retreated into the political wilderness. It took them many months to regroup and strategize major blows to the reformist movement and the reformist administration. Conservatives in control of the Iranian parliament successfully impeached Abdollah Nouri, Khatami’s minister of interior, and made a serious but unsuccessful attempt to unseat Aiatollah Mohajerani, the minister of culture and Islamic guidance. Such strategic artillery fire from the parliament against the Khatami administration was halted in 1999 when reformists secured a strong majority.
Despite the ideological and generational differences among them, conservatives were united in an attempt to weaken Khatami’s government in the parliament and ruin his efforts to implement political reforms. The judiciary, first under Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi and then Ayatollah Ali Hashemi-Shahroudi, both of whom were appointed by Supreme Leader Khamenei, spearheaded these conservative attacks against reformist political foes in the country. Through well-organized and well-executed tactics such as the closing down of hundreds of newspapers and the arrest of large numbers of reformists and opposition activists, the conservatives began to slowly but steadily regain even the small amount of power they had unwittingly conceded to the reformists. The infamous Revolutionary Court, the equally notorious Special Court for the Clergy and the hardliner Press Court served as the henchmen for the conservatives, jailing many reformists, incarcerating outspoken clerics, and locking up critical journalists in a mass purging of the reformist camp.
In 2003, the Council of Guardians, a powerful institution composed of six clerics and six laymen responsible for monitoring and supervising elections, prevented a large number of reformist candidates, many of whom were sitting members of parliament, from running in parliamentary elections. These restrictions handed a huge victory to their conservative brethren. With both the judicial and legislative branches again in their firm clasp, the conservatives had only to wait out the remainder of Khatami’s second term in office and defeat a fragmented, disorganized and at times disorderly reformist camp during the 2005 presidential elections.
To the surprise of many, the conservative leadership failed to produce a single frontrunner candidate. By spring of 2005, and only a few months before election day on 17 June, there were as many as six conservatives struggling for victory in the race. By late spring, the field had shrunk to four contenders: former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani; then Secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council on National Security Ali Larijani; former commander of IRGC air force Bagher Ghalibaf; and then Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The conservative rift
No candidate managed to win more than half of the votes on 17 June 2005. For the first time in Iranian history, a runoff election between candidates—Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad—had to be held in order to determine the fate of the presidency. The runoff election between the two conservatives became an early battleground between the old guard, establishment conservatives represented by Rafsanjani, and the radical, populist supporters of Ahmadinejad. Despite rumors that Supreme Leader Khamenei supported Ahmadinejad’s candidacy, he was still viewed by many as a renegade outsider, fighting the invincible Rafsanjani political machine.
Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad were polar opposites in many regards and represented vastly different values. In the eyes of many Iranians, Rafsanjani represented wealth, power and corruption while Ahmadinejad epitomized the everyman among the downtrodden. Ahmadinejad’s campaign strategy was to portray the Rafsanjani clan, especially his three sons, as corrupt nepotists who had looted the country for years under the protection of the Rafsanjani name. The level of personal attacks waged in the 2005 election was unprecedented in the history of presidential races in the Islamic Republic.
The personal feud between the victorious President Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani did not end on election night. As chairman of both the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, Rafsanjani was determined to undermine Ahmadinejad despite the fact that the new president seemed to enjoy the backing of the Supreme Leader and the IRGC. Ahmadinejad became the first Iranian president to kiss the hand of Supreme Leader Khamenei on inauguration day to show his gratitude—a move that served to further his image as refreshingly humble and relatable. In his first cabinet, Ahmadinejad appointed more IRGC generals and former commanders than any preceding president as opposed to clerics and technocrats.
Despite the support he enjoyed from the masses as the representative of the downtrodden, Ahmadinejad had a fair number of opponents, in addition to the Rafsanjani clan, looking for an opportunity to undermine the upstart president. Many conservatives, who now feared being rendered obsolete by the new radical generation, joined the fight. In 2007, Ali Larijani, a prominent moderate-conservative, became the speaker of parliament and under his leadership, the solidly conservative parliament became a battleground between the executive and the legislative branches. The executive and legislative branches of government clashed many times over major bills such as subsidies reforms.
In what seemed like a playground tug-of-war, the two branches engaged in a seemingly ongoing rhetorical, ideological and bureaucratic battle. For instance, a bill passed by the parliament but disliked by the government would be sent to the Guardian Council, which is responsible for certifying that laws passed by parliament are neither unconstitutional nor against Islam. The Guardian Council, led by Ayatollah Ali Jannati, a staunch supporter of Ahmadinejad, would brand the bill either unconstitutional or unfit according to Islamic laws. Then, according to Iranian law, the bill would go to Rafsanjani’s Expediency Council where serious disputes between branches of government ought to be solved. In most cases, the Expediency Council would back the conservatives in parliament and disappoint the government of President Ahmadinejad. To the surprise of many, two important governmental bodies heavily dominated by conservatives had become major obstacles for a conservative president.
Ahmadinejad had a simple, sly remedy for these setbacks. He decided to simply and quietly shy away from enforcing the laws he did not like. This also caused problems, for instance, after two of his cabinet ministers refused to enforce laws passed by the parliament. Speaker Larijani summoned the Minister of Education (K-12) and the Minister of Higher Education to parliament in this past August for questioning about their failure to implement the laws of the land.
President Ahmadinejad did not stop at refusing to enforce legislations he did not like. The administration’s efforts to defy the role of parliament and its moderate conservative leadership went as far as to ignore the legislative branch altogether. According to Iranian law, the executive branch is required to send to parliament what it passes in cabinet meetings. The parliament will then determine whether what has been passed by the cabinet is in accordance with Iranian law (not to be confused with the Guardian Council’s role). Larijani recently complained that the administration has simply stopped sending its resolutions to the parliament—an act he called illegal.
Ahmadinejad’s troubles with the conservative establishment went beyond parliament. The judiciary, headed by Larijani’s brother, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, began to challenge the executive branch and the very person of the president. In one of his first moves as chief justice. Larijani appointed Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ezhei as Iran’s chief prosecutor. Ezhei had resigned his post as minister of intelligence due to clashes with Ahmadinejad.
Then, in August of this year after President Ahmadinejad had made a number of lewd remarks and used language unbecoming for a head of state, Chief Justice Sadegh Larijani warned the president in a cautionary speech that his speaking manner must be fitting to that of a president and that Ahmadinejad should stay away from using crude language.
The chief justice also accused the administration of President Ahmadinejad for being guilty of seeking direct talks with the US and bending over backwards for the Great Satan. Ayatollah Larijani, himself a Khamenei appointee, said, “Everyone must know that our policy regarding talks with the US is a matter decided only by the Supreme Leader.”
Ayatollah Khamenei against a monopoly of power
While parliamentary challenges and occasional warnings from the chief justice can cause headaches for President Ahmadinejad, his biggest worry should come from losing the support of the Supreme Leader and the IRGC. Though there is no evidence that the IRGC is moving away from the president, it seems that Supreme Leader Khamenei is beginning to grant more powers to moderates and reducing his support for the hardliners.
In mid August, the Supreme Leader stripped Judge Saeed Mortazavi of his judicial status pending an investigation into the killings at the Kahrizak detention facility, a notorious jail on the outskirts of Tehran where many detainees have died due to harsh treatment and disease in the aftermath of the 12 June election last year. Judge Mortazavi, who once led the notorious Press Court responsible for shutting down hundreds of newspapers and publications, was considered a Khamenei loyalist. But his ties to Ahmadinejad and the hardliner faction were also prominent. Stripping Mortazavi of his status, and potentially allowing him to be prosecuted, demonstrates that Khamenei is willing to sacrifice a number of hardliners close to Ahmadinejad in order to curb their power in even the most sensitive positions of government.
There are more signs that the Supreme Leader is aiming to bring back the moderates. For one, direct personal attacks against Rafsanjani and his family have decreased significantly in major publications linked to the leader. Kayhan, a state-owned daily with intimate ties to the office of the Supreme Leader, has not run an anti-Rafsanjani rant in some time. In a dinner ceremony celebrating the month of Ramadan, the Supreme Leader invited key figures to his residence, including Rafsanjani. Furthermore, according to Rafsanjani’s own personal website, he regularly meets with Khamenei and the pair lunch together twice a month and discuss the most important affairs of state.
After one year of attacking Rafsanjani and his family, the editorial page of Kayhan and other publications close to the Supreme Leader have shifted their attention onto other individuals, including those close to President Ahmadinejad. Kayhan has become a leading force in criticizing Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie, Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, his closest friend and the father of his son’s bride. The gaffe-prone Rahim-Mashaie has been the subject of criticism for many moderate conservatives and even some hardliners. Last year, President Ahmadinejad decided to appoint Rahim-Mashaie as his vice-president. After a few days of intra-factional fighting, Supreme Leader Khamenei got involved and asked President Ahmadinejad to remove Rahim-Mashaie. When the president refused to remove him, Rahim-Mashaie, fearing a bigger backlash from the conservative base, resigned. Last week, and after Rahim-Mashaie made controversial remarks at a gathering in Tehran, Major General Hassan Firouzabadi, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the closest military aide to Khamenei, called his remarks “treasonous” and threatened Rahim-Mashaie with prosecution.
Also in August, Morteza Nabavi, a prominent conservative, criticized Ahmadinejad for his one-year absence in the meetings of the Expediency Council chaired by Rafsanjani. Nabavi stated that the people of Iran, many key political figures, and the Supreme Leader want Mr. Ahmadinejad to return to these meetings.
His recent overtures to the moderate conservatives imply that Supreme Leader Khamenei is trying to create a balance of power between the two main conservative factions. He knows full well that both factions will need him most when there is a balance of power, and his influence as Supreme Leader is most prominent when no faction can simply eliminate the other and create a monopoly over power. There should be no doubt that Khamenei is an astute politician. He has weathered many storms including the turbulent Khatami years and the messy aftermath of the 12 June election. He is now facing the increasingly unpopular growth of President Ahmadinejad and his allies in the IRGC and, as Iran’s highest religious and political authority, he is actively trying to curb their precarious spread.
Arash Aramesh – Iran researcher at The Century Foundation and InsideIRAN.org. He has published in the International Herald Tribune, NYTimes online and the Diplomatic Courier, among other publications.
