Iranian politics is entering a delicate and perhaps pivotal period.
Factional struggles, always lively, have intensified since July’s
nuclear agreement with world powers, while the reformists are also pushing gently to return to mainstream politics.
The economy has slipped, perhaps back into recession, as Iran waits for financial and energy sanctions to ease early in 2016. While growth should resume next year, this is an awkward time for the government of Hassan Rouhani as elections loom in February for both parliament and majles-e khobregan (Assembly of Experts), the directly elected body of clerics that chooses the supreme leader.
Of all the political manoeuvring going on in Iran, that surrounding the Experts Assembly is the most opaque. And yet February’s election for Khobregan is potentially of historic importance given the reasonable chance that it will during its next eight-year term chose a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 76 and who last year underwent prostate surgery.
The only previous succession - when Khamenei was picked by the Experts Assembly in 1989 to step into the large shoes of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - followed the bitter decision to end the eight-year war with Iraq with Saddam Hussein still in power. The next succession may well be more drawn out, but follows the similarly difficult decision to reach a nuclear agreement with world powers including the United States.
When Iran was in nuclear negotiations with the European Union in 2003-05, many principle-ists (fundamentalists) were concerned that the reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami would gain domestic standing from an agreement. Even though the reformists have been largely excluded from politics since the 2009 unrest, many fundamentalists now fear the same over President Hassan Rouhani.
Rouhani is essentially a conservative pragmatist, a man confident he can deliver and manage compromise both at home and in foreign policy. He and his negotiators, especially foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, have not only reached a deal with the ‘Great Satan’, they have carried the bulk of the political class including Khamenei.
But opponents of the agreement are far from down. They know Khamenei wants their continuing support, and were encouraged by his warning to reformists and others, immediately after the nuclear agreement, not to “exploit” the deal and by his continuing stress on the dangers posed by the US. Vilayat-e faqih (‘rule of the jurist’) is a central constitutional principle in Iran, and no-one stresses the importance of loyalty to the leader more than the principle-ists.
The economy has slipped, perhaps back into recession, as Iran waits for financial and energy sanctions to ease early in 2016. While growth should resume next year, this is an awkward time for the government of Hassan Rouhani as elections loom in February for both parliament and majles-e khobregan (Assembly of Experts), the directly elected body of clerics that chooses the supreme leader.
Of all the political manoeuvring going on in Iran, that surrounding the Experts Assembly is the most opaque. And yet February’s election for Khobregan is potentially of historic importance given the reasonable chance that it will during its next eight-year term chose a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 76 and who last year underwent prostate surgery.
The only previous succession - when Khamenei was picked by the Experts Assembly in 1989 to step into the large shoes of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini - followed the bitter decision to end the eight-year war with Iraq with Saddam Hussein still in power. The next succession may well be more drawn out, but follows the similarly difficult decision to reach a nuclear agreement with world powers including the United States.
When Iran was in nuclear negotiations with the European Union in 2003-05, many principle-ists (fundamentalists) were concerned that the reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami would gain domestic standing from an agreement. Even though the reformists have been largely excluded from politics since the 2009 unrest, many fundamentalists now fear the same over President Hassan Rouhani.
Rouhani is essentially a conservative pragmatist, a man confident he can deliver and manage compromise both at home and in foreign policy. He and his negotiators, especially foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, have not only reached a deal with the ‘Great Satan’, they have carried the bulk of the political class including Khamenei.
But opponents of the agreement are far from down. They know Khamenei wants their continuing support, and were encouraged by his warning to reformists and others, immediately after the nuclear agreement, not to “exploit” the deal and by his continuing stress on the dangers posed by the US. Vilayat-e faqih (‘rule of the jurist’) is a central constitutional principle in Iran, and no-one stresses the importance of loyalty to the leader more than the principle-ists.
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