Iran and Democracy?: A Brief Summary of Some Reflections on its Recent Election

  by Joshua Phoebus, CCD Intern and Graduate Student at American University

The June 2005 Iranian elections may have changed little but they allowed the spotlight to be focused on that country's unique political system. Most observers have noted that Iran has a complex political identity that is best understood as being composed of a mix of democracy and theocracy. While regularly holding elections for parliament (Majlis) as well as the presidency, Article 91 of Iran's Constitution establishes that the Council of Guardians holds final approval over all legislation passed by the Majlis. That Council is composed of six clergyman and six Muslim lawyers whose purpose is to examine all laws passed to ensure that they conform to Islamic principles. If they approve a piece of legislation, it is ratified while disapproval sends the legislation back to the Parliament for revisions.

In reflecting upon the implications of Iran 's recent Presidential election on its democratic development, it is also important to understand the role of the faqih. According to Article 5 of the Iranian Constitution, the faqih is the Supreme Leader who “is a just and pious jurist who is recognized by the majority of people at any period as best qualified to lead the nation.” One of his major powers relevant to this examination of Iranian politics is his power to approve the list of individuals allowed to run in presidential elections. Prior to this recent election, Ayatollah Khamenei denied more than a thousand people the right to be on the ballot with only eight individuals approved to run for president. This list allowed only one reformist candidate, Mustafa Moin to be eligible. President Bush repeatedly criticized the legitimacy of Iran 's electoral process as one that “ignores the basic requirements of democracy” and stated that “The Iranian people deserve a genuinely democratic system in which elections are honest—and in which the leaders answer to them instead of the other way around.”(CNN News, 6/17)

In the end, hard-line candidate and current mayor of Tehran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won a decisive victory in the run-off election over former Iranian President Rafsanjani. The mayor was a strong ally of the Supreme Leader and other candidates alleged that the voting was rigged by heavy-handed tactics by police and other forces loyal to the Supreme Leader to ensure that Ahmadinejad was elected. Despite an a controversial announcement by the government that close to 62 percent of eligible voters voted in the election, experts on the ground suggested that many voters hungry for political reform boycotted the election in response to the actions of Khamenei in preventing candidates from being placed on the ballot.

International response to this election has been mixed. On one hand, the Wall Street Journal dismissed it in a June 20 editorial entitled “Iran's ‘Democracy'” noting that “The most astonishing aspect of Friday's presidential elections [is]…that Tehran managed to convince so many in the West that this is a real demonstration of democracy. The New York Times joined in the condemnation of the process in its June 17 editorial entitled “ Iran 's Sham Democracy” where it argued that the election was “…an affront to true democracy”. The Times editorial concluded that “The world would be better off if Western leaders used their little influence to press for more authentic democracy in Iran .”

In the end, if Iran is to move towards a more legitimate multi-party democratic system there must be a societal referendum taken on the role of the faqih and the Council of Guardians in Iranian politics. A San Francisco Chronicle article of June 27 headlined “Iran vote fuels fear of a return to a hard line” observed that “Elected Iranian politicians still have relatively little power compared to the Guardian Council and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who managed to water down or squelch altogether most of Khatami's more ambitious reforms.