Iran: Ahmadinejad's Palace Coup
By Kamal Nazer Yasin for ISN
UPDATE: As Iranian voters cast their votes in record numbers today - clinging to the hope that change has finally arrived for them - there are two alarming new developments that do not bode well for the democratic movement.
First, according to usually reliable sources, security forces are preparing for a massive crackdown on the protestors, once the winner of the contest is announced.
Second, in a highly symbolic departure from past norms, the office of the Supreme Leader has issued an official disclaimer about alleged promises made to Hashemi Rafsanjani by ayatollah Khamenei. The Supreme Leader also warned today against “ill-wishers” who spread malicious rumors and are lodged everywhere, adding “they may be found everywhere, in all agencies and groups.”
Experts believe that since the Supreme Leader is not known as someone to bank on the losing side, this can be interpreted, with moderate confidence, as a sign that Mahmood Ahmadinejad is considered as the next president of the Islamic Republic."
The date of 3 June 2009 will be remembered in Iran as a milestone in all the country’s tumultuous 30-year history. On this day, as a record 50 million Iranians were watching a much-anticipated presidential debate between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his chief reformist rival, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the incumbent president broke with the past and unleashed devastating personal attacks on several high-ranking clerical opponents, several former officials and Mousavi’s own wife.
Iran's third-highest authority and Mousavi's ally, Aliakbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who seemed to be the principal target of the attacks, was variously portrayed as venial, corrupt and traitorous.
The charges of theft, impropriety and perfidy were so shocking that at midnight, right after the debate's conclusion, up to a million people poured out into the streets of the capital in spontaneous demonstrations of support of, or opposition to, Ahmadinejad - mostly the latter.
Ahmadinejad and his supporters kept up the momentum with similar accusations in several other appearances and statements against other former associates of ayatollah Khomeieni.
“Iran is a transformed country after this,” one Iranian cleric told ISN Security Watch. The cleric, who insisted on anonymity, said that for nearly three decades, the Iranian public, particularly its youth, had not heard such words uttered by its leaders.
“Ahmadinejad has raised the stakes too high for his own good,” he said.
The cumulative effect of the charges and the highly polarizing nature of the election itself have completely changed the country’s political landscape.
Daily, millions of excited Iranians have been demonstrating, partying and arguing their points in thousands of small and large gatherings in the country’s urban centers. Several cities, such as Ahwaz, have seen their largest recorded pro-reform rallies in history. Amazingly, the over-repressive Law Enforcement Agency has largely left the scene and the streets are witnessing extraordinary instances of mass catharsis.
After me, the deluge
There are strong indications that beyond the dirty political mudslinging tactics or the mass fervor, something far more sweeping and significant may be in the works in Iran: a forcing out of power of important sections of the old guard - Iran’s political-clerical elite, those associates of ayatollah Khomeini who made the revolution possible - and their replacement by the young crop of neo-fundamentalist cadres and activists aligned with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who considers Hashemi Rafsanjani and his reformist friends a major hindrance to his grand plans and policies.
Many people believe that Ahmadinejad’s devastating blows are primarily election-related. There may be some truth in this, but his knock-out punches cannot be attributed entirely to electioneering only for the simple reason that according to experts in Iran, had he not engaged in such dangerous maneuvers, many people would have boycotted the vote as usual and he would have won the election with a safe margin.
Three days before the historic 3 June debate with Mousavi, Ahmadinejad had declared that he would soon expose the names of “economic mafias.” This wasn’t the first time he had threatened to do so. In the last four years, he had made at least nine such threats without living up to them. He has chosen to do so now for several important reasons.
First, the accused have no way of responding to their accuser during the election season. On 5 June, citing the urgency of the election season for the nation and in response to Rafsanjani’s written request for a rejoinder on the national radio and TV (IRIB), IRIB chief, General Ezatollah Zarghami, refused to allow Rafsanjani and the others accused the opportunity to respond. Meanwhile, as has been abundantly clear in street conversations, millions of ordinary Iranians have now accepted some of these allegations as incontrovertible fact.
Second, the extraordinary corruption charges have broadened and energized the Neo-Right’s social base to unprecedented levels not seen since the 1980s.
Third, Ahmadinejad is implicitly shifting blame for his economic difficulties to his rivals by claiming that they have blocked his populist agenda. This is a reprise of 2005 election tactics which successfully tapped into the economic resentments and grievances of lower- and working-class Iranians.
Fourth, Ahmadinejad’s last four years have been marked by a near-paralysis of his government’s policies thanks in part to entrenched opposition from other factions against his radical vision. The highlight of this was last March when the parliament rejected his radical comprehensive economic reform plan, which envisioned axing tens of billions of dollars in state subsidies and giving huge cash handouts to dispossessed or pro-Ahmadinejad constituencies. By all indications, the anti-Ahmadinejad front was intent on acting even more determinedly under Ahmadinejad’s second term.
Fifth, during the last four years, both Rafsanjani and ayatollah Khamenei have waged a proxy war against one another, with Ahmadinejad as their common foil. Ayatollah Khamenei used Ahmadinejad as a battering ram against Rafsanjani whenever it suited him, and Rafsanjani in turn cited Ahmadinejad’s shortcomings as a way to question the Supreme Leader’s wisdom with regard to several policies.
In this context, this can be considered a masterstroke by the Supreme Leader against his old rival.
A new alignment
Ahmadinejad, whose political acumen is routinely underestimated by his opponents, is fully backed in this by very powerful forces in Iran - chief among them are most of the Revolutionary Guards’ leadership and rank and file, the Basij militia.
For instance, a pro-Ahmadinejad 300,000-strong political rally on 8 June at Tehran’s Mosala Mosque Complex, hundreds of buses full of Basij militiamen, who constitute one of RGCI’s five sub-sections, were brought to the rally en masse.
A external pagewebsite published by dissident conservatives subsequently obtained the text of a directive sent by a RGCI base to Basij section heads in which each militia man was required to mobilize 80 other individuals for the rally. During the rambunctious and rowdy rally, the hysterical crowd broke into brand new religious and political chants in complete unison. One of these was “Death to Hashemi [Rafsanjani].” Another one was: “Ahmadi, Ahmadi, you are the Leader’s follower” and “the looter of the country’s coffer must be executed.”
The frenzied crowd - with its new organizational and political make-up - gives a clear indication of where the powers that be would like to steer Iran: a new radical-fundamental movement headed by former officers of the Revolutionary Guards Corps.
On 9 June, Rafsanjani sent an extraordinary letter to the Supreme Leader decrying what he called a frontal attack on the old revolutionary cadre; thus throwing the ball in the Supreme Leader’s court. In this letter, Rafsanjani publicly asked the Supreme Leader to condemn Ahmadinejad before the 12 June election since, in his words, the “fomenters of this dangerous scheme would otherwise add fuel to the fire.”
As of this writing, the Supreme Leader has not denounced the attacks on his former friends, which include a top member of his own staff, giving credence to rumors of his support for Ahmadinejad’s demarche.
On 10 June, the Revolutionary Guards’ paper, Sobh-e Sadegh, ran a front-page article in which it condemned Rafsanjani’s letter as a pretext for a velvet-type counter-revolution. In tandem with this, a well-organized campaign is under way to defeat Mousavi by linking him to Rafsanjani.
On the same day, hard-line clerics marched against Rafsanjani in the holy city of Qum. Two days earlier, a crowd attacked and destroyed the facade of the building that houses the Expediency Council, which Rafsanjani chairs.
For the Friday poll, which will see one of Iran’s largest turnouts, the reformists have devised a plan to monitor the vote. In the first round of the election in 2005, the Revolutionary Guards undertook a massive vote-stuffing attempt, which changed the outcome. There are signs that the same will be repeated this year - that is, unless the Supreme Leader personally intervenes.
There are also reports that many high-ranking ayatollahs are making public stands against attacks on Rafsanjani and other fellow-clerics. Several, like ayatollah Javadi and Jafari, have said they would now vote for Mousavi instead of Ahmadinejad.
The next few days will be critical. The police have forbidden further displays of political loyalty in the streets. With several million people having experienced the joys of freedom in the streets of Tehran and other cities, it will be interesting to see how the government can contain popular anger once Ahmadinejad is announced the winner.