Secretly democratic or secretly authoritarian?
As you and your students contmeplate the problems and stability of the Iranian government and regime from yesterday's entry here, don't forget about this piece of the complex puzzle.This report on the Assembly of Experts comes from the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) web site. (It includes a term, "caesaropapism" I haven't seen since I read Wilson's description of the Tsarist regime in Russia twenty years ago. The unusual word did stick in my mind. Perhaps more unusual words will help your students remember things.)
Secretive Assembly Of Experts Begins Fourth Term
"The Assembly of Experts, an 86-member body of clerics that ostensibly elects Iran's supreme leader and supervises his work, [Tuesday] opened its fourth term since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
"Members of the assembly were elected to their eight-year terms on December 15. The assembly's authority in overseeing the supreme leader would appear to give it a decisive role in Iranian politics, but as with other institutions in the Islamic Republic, its power is more theoretical than actual...
"In a system some might see as a modern caesaropapism, Iran's supreme leader is to be a judge enjoying many and, ideally, every quality needed for him to exercise his political and religious supremacy.
"This means that those who supervise him must be 'experts' in both religion and politics, though past members of the Assembly of Experts have consisted principally of clerics rather than civilian technocrats.
"The Guardians Council -- the body of jurists that must approve candidates for most elected offices in Iran -- has previously rejected a great many aspiring members of the assembly. That includes many incumbents of the last assembly because it was decided that they had an insufficient knowledge of Islamic jurisprudence.
"The issue of membership has been a contentious one between reformers and conservatives: if the leader is to be held accountable to the people through the Assembly of Experts -- as reformers claim is intended by the constitution -- then the experts must include laymen and politicians in order to see if the leader is performing his secular duties adequately...
"Supervising the leader might imply supervising the work of bodies under his authority, but that is not the interpretation current members have of the scope of their power and the supreme leader's authority. [A political observer] said the body would have to vote for powers to supervise such agencies.
"Last December's elections are thought to have consolidated the position of veteran clerics and establishment figures... against a current of political radicalism associated with Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, considered an ideological mentor of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad...
"This balance of power -- if it is real, because the assembly usually works in private -- may prove important in shaping coming decisions..."
posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:32 AM
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