Teaching Comparative

Another analysis of Iranian politics

This comes in an unsigned analysis from Al Jazeera.

Get out your Iranian government organization chart (or look at the one from the BBC) and find where the men discussed here are positioned. I think that will help explain much about how the political system in Iran is working right now.

Supreme leader under pressure

Iranians have taken to the streets in the wake of the country's disputed elections, but behind the public face of the election protests lies a deeper power struggle.

In the corridors of power, analysts see a battle between Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the reformist former president.

Khamenei had publicly endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadeinejad, the incumbent president, whose resounding election victory over Mir Hossein Mousavi, his main rival, prompted a wave of protests and allegations of voter fraud.

Rafsanjani, on the other hand, has been a vocal critic of the president.

One of Iran's richest men, Rafsanjani, like Mousavi, is also one of the old guard of the 1979 Iranian revolution.

"It [the election dispute] represents the conflict between two schools of thought in Iran," Mahjoob Zweiri, a professor in Middle East politics at the University of Jordan, told Al Jazeera.

"The first one, which is represented by the supreme leader, says Iran should stay a revolutionary state, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wants the state to move on - to become a modern state, a pragmatic state..."

The supreme leader's decision-making powers are said to be absolute, but Iran's Assembly of Experts also wield considerable political clout.

Rafsanjani is chairman of the 86-member body, which appoints the supreme leader and monitors his performance.

It seems unlikely that Rafsanjani would move to oust Khamenei, but the assembly could - in theory, at least - remove the supreme leader from office, if his actions are deemed un-Islamic or if he is unable to carry out his sworn duties...

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Labels: elections, Iran, political culture, politics

posted by Ken Wedding @ 8:32 AM