Teaching Comparative Government and Politics

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Regime change in Iran?

According to Thomas Erdbrink, writing in The Washington Post, regime change is happening as the president claims more and more authority.

Iranian president increasingly grabbing power from parliament

Two years ago, Iran's parliament blocked several of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's key decisions and impeached one of his top ministers. But today, the ambitious leader routinely ignores parliament's laws and undercuts its authority, leading some politicians and analysts to fear the country is slipping toward dictatorship.

A strong parliament is central to the Islamic Republic's political system, which mixes religion and democracy and divides power among the parliament, the president, and several councils of clerics…

In a recent open letter, leading parliamentarians demanded a resolution to the escalating dispute and warned they could start several procedures, including impeachment, against the president, if his power is not checked…

After the 1979 revolution, Iranians overwhelming supported a referendum that turned the country into an Islamic republic in which a supreme leader has the final say over all political and religious affairs. Responsibility for the daily management of government affairs rests with a directly elected parliament, Ahmadinejad and his ministers, and a mix of appointed and elected clerical councils, who are in different ways supposed to control and supervise one another…

Ahmadinejad responded to the parliamentarians' letter by insisting that, after Khamenei, he is the most powerful man in the Islamic Republic.

"As president, I lead the executive power, I come second after the leader and I am in charge of implementing the constitution," he told reporters in a Nov. 29 news conference. "They are wasting our time with these letters," he said…

The Ahmadinejad "government says it needs more power and wants its hand to be open to implement its policies," said Emad Afroogh, a former parliamentarian who had been a strong supporter of Ahmadinejad but now disagrees with his polices.

For the president and his ministers, the parliament is an obstacle, Afroogh said. "But if parliament is weakened and decisions are taken personally, against the constitution, in reality that would mean dictatorship."…