The struggle for Iran's soul
The decision of Muhammad Khatami, Iran's reformist president, to run for re-election preserves hope that Iran can change. But Mr Khatami faces determined opposition from conservative clerics, who still hold the reins of power
Khamenei comes before Khatami
FOR months, Muhammad Khatami's supporters have been begging him to stand for a second term as president of Iran. On May 4th, he set his doubts aside and bowed to their entreaties just two days before the cut-off date for the registration of candidates. He will almost certainly go on to win the poll, which has been set for June 8th: after four years in power, Mr Khatami, a lukewarm reformer, remains Iran's most popular politician, whereas his most prominent opponent, Ahmad Tavakoli, a former labour minister, is a relative lightweight. But Mr Khatami's popularity does not translate into clout. He was reluctant to run again because Iran's powerful conservative establishment has consistently tried to stymie his presidency. That effort is likely to continue, even if he wins by a landslide.
A relatively unknown cleric, Mr Khatami was swept to power in 1997 on the strength of promises to make Iran more democratic, and to improve its image abroad. Twice in the past four years—first at local-council elections, then at last year's parliamentary polls—Iranians reaffirmed their support for these goals by voting the president's supporters into office. But the clerical establishment, which is dominated by conservatives and loosely supervised by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, enjoys more power than the president—especially over the judiciary and security services. Mr Khatami has made progress only on the rare occasions that his fellow clerics have let him.
Old-fashioned national self-interest, rather than any great enthusiasm for Mr Khatami's call for a "dialogue among civilisations", persuaded the old guard to go along with his efforts to build alliances with former foes such as Saudi Arabia, and to put previously fraught relations with the EU on a friendlier footing. But they spiked Mr Khatami's tentative efforts to mend relations with America, not least by continuing ostentatiously to sponsor radical Islamist groups mounting attacks on Israel, a country which Mr Khamenei likes to describe as a "cancerous tumour". Fidel Castro, Cuba's authoritarian leader and a source of constant exasperation to America, arrived in Tehran on May 8th for an official visit. Similarly, the conservatives have seen the wisdom in acceding to Mr Khatami's desire to relax the social restrictions that had made Iran a very severe place since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But this relaxation has been limited, and punctuated by spasms of old-style repression.
Quick—before they're banned
All in all, these advances are trivial compared with the political transformation envisaged by Mr Khatami when his supporters won a thumping majority in parliament last year. Soon afterwards, Mr Khamenei made known his loathing for the voluble reformist newspapers promoted by the government. Hardline judges took the hint; since then, they have banned 47 reformist publications, and jailed some ten journalists. Mr Khamenei forced Ayataollah Mohajerani, the culture minister responsible for the press, to resign. In March and April, 65 members of one nationalist group were arrested on flimsy suspicions of trying to overthrow the regime. An appeals court confirmed a ruling banning Mustafa Tajzadeh, a reformist official charged with running the elections, from holding public office for two-and-a-half years, just two days before Mr Khatami declared his candidacy.
The Council of Guardians, an upper house dominated by conservative clerics, has gone out of its way to prevent parliament from enacting reformist legislation; among the bills it has vetoed as un-Islamic or unconstitutional were one to make it easier for daily newspapers to start up, another to provide government help for girls wanting to study abroad (boys already receive such aid), and a third to raise the legal age of marriage—currently nine for a girl. At the end of last month, a supervisory body appointed by the Council of Guardians disqualified 145 of 356 would-be contestants in by-elections to fill 17 parliamentary seats. The vast majority of those who were disqualified are supporters of the president.
With these rebuffs in mind, Mr Khatami's indecision over standing for a second term is understandable—and possibly highly significant. The more thoughtful kind of conservative, exemplified by Mr Khamenei, is aware that the sulky exit of a president as popular as Mr Khatami would fatally undermine the regime's claim to popular legitimacy. It may be that, in order to induce Mr Khatami to run, the supreme leader has promised to rein in some hardline judges. In return, Mr Khatami may have pledged to keep his reformists polite, and their demands modest. An appeals court's decision to lift a ban on a liberal paper on May 7th was a positive sign. But Mr Khamenei may not have the authority to restrain the hardliners. Equally, if Iran remains unreformed, the president's supporters will one day lose patience with him. A repeat of the street violence that shook Tehran for a week in the summer of 1999 is conceivable.
It's the economy, stupid
For all this, it is easy to forget that Iran's immediate future is as likely to be determined by management as it is by ideology. Despite a few bright ideas—devolving more power to the provinces, for one—Mr Khatami has done precious little to reform the ailing, inefficient and sometimes corrupt state sector he inherited. Cushioned by a $10bn oil-revenue surplus, his economic managers have yet to decide whether they are free-market or command economists. So they are having a stab at being both.
Inflation and unemployment, estimated by independent economists at 17% and 20% respectively, have fuelled social ills and disillusion. Iran has 2m drug addicts. Over the past year, some 220,000 educated and middle-class Iranians emigrated to the West. Small-scale industrial unrest is endemic. So, Mr Khatami has a tall order if he is to achieve his stated goal of revitalising the Islamic Republic, and making it more responsive to its people. On the one hand, he must find a way of injecting life into his moribund movement for political reform. On the other, he must give ordinary Iranians a sense of purpose and a whiff of better times. His decision to stand for a second term might stop the regime from losing what remains of its credibility, but Mr Khatami will need something close to genius if he is to restore it to health.
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