An Objective Analysis of Iranian Election
The motivation to write this article grew as I started a semi-concrete study of current election campaigns in Iran. In following I will give a brief introduction of Iranian politic system as a try to shed light on complexities of a so-called “democracy” in Iran.
Political system:
The Iranian political system resembles nearly no other common political system, caused by existence of “Council of Guardians” and the “Supreme Leader” which have legal administrative and legislative rights mentioned directly in the constitution.
As an example, according to the Iranian constitution (revised on 1989):
Article 91:With a view to safeguard the Islamic ordinances and the Constitution, in order to examine the compatibility of the legislation passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly with Islam, a council to be known as the Guardian Council is to be constituted.
Relatively, duties and powers of Leadership are also mentioned in article 110.
Leadership and Council of Guardians are known to be the most effective political powers, after which the president is the key decision maker and lastly the Parliament.
It is called the “Islamic Republic of Iran”, which implies that people have an impact (may it be direct or indirect) on the government but exactly in contrast to this, those above mentioned councils hinder the very basic democratic rights of individuals.
To get a better picture of this system this site would be helpful.
Candidates:
Each and every person is allowed to register himself for the presidency. A vague description of president’s qualifications is also to be found in the constitution:
Article115:The President must be elected from among religious and political personalities possessing the following qualifications: Iranian origin; Iranian nationality; administrative capacity and resourcefulness; a good past-record; trustworthiness and piety; convinced belief in the fundamental principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the official religion of the country.
After the registration, it is upon the Council of Guardians to decide who is eligible for presidency and who’s not. No woman has ever been approved as eligible.
It wouldn’t be irrelevant to mention that in the Persian version, the word “Rejal” (رجال), which is here translated as “personalities”, is used. It literally (in Arabic) means “Men”. Women rights activists have demanded revision on this article.
On the upcoming elections are four persons approved, two from Islamic lefts (also known as reformists) and two from Islamic rights (also known as conservatives), which means that actually there exists no different options to choose from, but one with different varieties. It’s like the difference between rain and snow: both are water.
To read more about candidates please visit here.
About Campaigning:
Election campaign is allowed in a period of less than a month (for upcoming elections is 20 days), and is done in rather a traditional way: printing all sorts of posters and banners. I can remember about 12 years ago, as I was just a kid, it was all like a big colorful fest and for us mainly a playground.
In the last decade a lot has been changed, candidates do their best to contact and meet different groups of people directly by holding meetings, debates and etc. and indirect by making use of various media including public television channels, newspapers and so on.
Both candidates of reformists have made best use of independent media such as YouTube and Facebook to facilitate a more liberal communication primarily with youth.
Point of View
As someone who lives abroad, or let me put it this way, made to leave homeland for a better education and future, (as I was personally not satisfied with the education system of Iran) I got involved with politics, in hope of building a better future.
I’m following presidential campaigns from start up to now, and have tried to analyze it as a third person watching from outside of the country, explained in following:
- All of candidates promise freedom, women rights, free press and a lot of other great things without even clarifying their own understanding of these terms as they lack objectivity.
- People are convinced that it’s the one and only alternative to choose between bad and worse.
- We lack oppositions and political theorists to introduce new alternatives and options.
- Candidates target people’s emotions.
I feel as I’m being abused and manipulated by a very smart group of administrating people whose goal is only to stay in power, whatever the price may be. Propaganda is sickening the people.
Join the Conversation
Can you explain further how the media is used during Iranian elections? How do most voters get their news and election coverage?
One thing to be considered is that, constitution was meant to ensure press freedom and freedom of speech, chapter 3 is dedicated to “The Rights of the People” and article 24 is especially about press freedom. Also the following article is of importance:
Everything seems sound up to the point that every programm is limited to “Islamic criteria and ineterest of country”, which can be loosley interpreted.
Another matter which limits free public access to information is made by the following article:
According to this one, having private channels is ruled out by the government and naturally everything else, broadcasted over TV or Radio is controlled by the state. There has been different attemps (mainly by Karroubi, a current presidency candidate) to establish a private sattelite TV station called Saba, which lead to failure.
Realated to current elections, different programs was organized by main TV station i.e. each candidate was given 30 minutes for a “documantary film” evolving around their future plans and perspectives, and also pairwise debates between candidates.
Newspapers are mostly controlled by conservatives and even hardliners,the only one published by reformists is called “Etemad Melli” which license also belongs to Karroubi.
So it’s obvious that generally “state media” cannot be considered as covering or even reliable sources of information. Exactly because of this fact, candidates (mostly reformists, whose campaign get no sound coverage) try to contact their audiences face to face, may it be by meetings in universities or by visiting different provinces.
Another popular way (particularly by current election) is to make use of independet online media, a great option as about half of Iran’s population is under 25 years old.
I hope that I’ve answered your question.