ELECTIONS IN IRAN
Mass turnout reflects growing crisis
By Ali
Azad
On Feb. 26 in a strong show of popular participation, the
overwhelming majority of Iranian people over age 16 elected
200,000 representatives from 297,500 candidates to their local
village and town councils, called Shora. Both the mass
character of the elections and the historical significance of
the Shora increase the importance of these elections.
Two pro-capitalist political groupings faced off in these
elections. One is the group that has governed Iran since soon
after the 1979 revolution, led now by the Ayatollah Khamenei
and representing the financial aristocracy. The other is led by
President Khatami, elected two years ago in an upset victory
and representing those capitalists who want to invest in the
infrastructure and production.
Most of those elected were from Khatami's grouping,
including all 15 representatives in Tehran, the capital.
The most interesting aspect of the election was the
overwhelming participation of women, with three of the Tehran
seats going to women and all seats in the southwest town
Hamadan going to women.
Khatami's grouping and the still-powerful ex-president
Rafsanjani represent two wings of a bourgeois-liberal current
that uses the mass electoral upsurge as leverage against
Khamenei's grouping. Alongside Khatami's electoral engine there
is also a genuine mass movement whose objectives go far beyond
Khatami's. This latter has revolutionary potential and--if
provided with revolutionary leadership--could alter the
political arena on behalf of the workers and all the poor.
Background to the Shora
During Iran's constitutional revolution of 1906-11, the
concept of the Shora was first introduced in the Iranian
constitution. The impulse for these Shora came from the soviets
of the 1905 revolution in Russia, which embodied the workers,
peasants and soldiers' will.
After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, Iranian progressives
and democratic forces worked closely then with the Russian,
Armenian, Georgian and Azerbaijani Marxists. Baku, capital of
Soviet Azerbaijan, was a convening place of many gatherings of
the peoples of the East, as they were then called, to chart
their struggle for emancipation from feudal reaction and
imperialist domination.
Even under the reactionary Shah's Constitution the article
referring to Shoras was not deleted.
After the February 1979 revolution in Iran, the masses of
people created their own ruling institutions to carry out the
wishes of the new-born revolution and to prevent the return of
the old system. All across the country, workers, peasants,
students, petty-bourgeois elements, clergy and non-clergy
created the "Committees of Revolution."
For about a year the Committees of Revolution expressed a
situation of dual power in Iran. Revolutionary elements in
these committees helped guarantee a true but temporary
democracy and prevented the old system from returning. They
embodied the kind of Shoras progressive forces had in mind in
the 1921 constitutional revolution.
During the same 1979-1980 period, a new constitution was
being written. Due to the climate created by the revolution and
the strength of progressive and working-class organizations,
the new constitution had to include the article mandating the
regular elections of Shoras.
By the end of 1980, communists and other progressives had
been purged from the Committees of Revolution. The supporters
of Ayatollah Khomeini used brutal measures and bloody
crackdowns during these purges.
Though it is almost 20 years since the constitution of the
Islamic republic was written and ratified by referendum, these
are the first Shora elections held.
Oil-dependent economy
The drop in oil prices--due in part to the global capitalist
crisis of overproduction and in part to more consolidation
among the imperialist oil monopolies--has thrown Iran's heavily
oil-dependent economy into a tail spin.
Iran's population has almost doubled since the 1979
revolution to almost 70 million. Tens of millions of youths are
without jobs or any prospects for the future. Over the past
four years the masses of poor and jobless youth have frequently
demonstrated their outrage at the system of political and
economic injustice. Numerous and mostly spontaneous acts of
defiance and rebellion took place across the country.
A byproduct of this underlying crisis is squabbling and
internal fighting between the two main ruling-class
factions.
In addition, political repression--in particular the
repression of women and national minorities--has aroused
resistance. On many occasions the repressive apparatus of the
Tehran government has marched its big guns into the
poverty-stricken and underdeveloped Kurdish towns and
villages--most recently during the elections for the
Shoras.
For the past 20 years the financial aristocracy has ruled
the country. This section of the current ruling class was
enriched by expropriating the wealth of the previous ruling
class--the Shah and thousands of his underlings. By controlling
currency-dealings and the non-productive sector of the economy
such as commercial activities, this class has accumulated many
billions of dollars. They control the legislative body, or
majlis.
Traditionally they have controlled internal and foreign
policy through a maze of religious edicts highly favorable to
their class interests. This faction most importantly controlled
the top leadership of the country, both in political and
religious terms, through the Ayatollah Khamenei, the
Velaya-te-Faghih, whose views and verdicts up to now supersede
those of the elected president.
The majority of the population, in particular women, voted
for Khatami for president two years ago. It was a true
landslide victory for Khatami and the internal bourgeois
opposition to the ruling clique headed by Ayatollah
Khamenei.
The coalition which brought Khatami to power existed for
many years in embryonic form. Khatami always talks about the
voice of the people. But in reality he represents the bourgeois
opposition from manufacturers, whose goals--just like those of
the financial aristocracy--are to preserve the profit system
but to expand the productive forces.
To accomplish this, Khatami looks to bring Iran out of the
isolation imposed by U.S. imperialism. Khatami understands that
capitalism in Iran can't flourish without creating links to
international markets.
This road has been tried many times--both in Iran during the
time of the late Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and in many
other parts of the globe. In 1953, the CIA overthrew Mossadegh,
precisely because he wanted to follow an independent road to
capitalist development. He was not a friend of the Soviet Union
or an undercover communist, as the Western imperialists painted
him.
What happened to Mossadegh should be a constant reminder to
President Khatami about the dangers of creating links with the
imperialists.
During the 1997 election campaign, Khatami promised that he
would ensure elections for the Shoras took place. Khatami and
his grouping have used the Shora elections and the
participation of millions of people in these elections as a
weapon to strengthen their position in relation to the other
ruling-class faction.
The faction opposed to Khatami has already compromised. In a
recent speech, Ayatollah Khamenei repeated many themes that are
President Khatami's earmarks.
The most serious flaw in the Shora election was that
working-class and independent organizations were barred from
participating. Prior to the elections, the two ruling factions
created a candidate screening committee and disallowed anyone
not falling into the ruling-class criteria.
Despite this gross violation of basic democratic rights,
most socialist and working-class groups encouraged the
population to vote for candidates that most likely support
their needs, as a protest vote against the candidates of
reaction, and to refrain from voting where this choice did not
exist.
While encouraging the masses to participate in the election,
the Iranian socialists did not create a false hope of what of
to expect from it.
The election of many women candidates proved this tactic
correct. Only by participating in political activities, of
which the election is only one of many arenas, will the masses
learn how to change their conditions for the better.
Struggle at a crossroads
The long struggle for social and political justice in Iran
has reached another crossroads. The masses of people have been
mobilized to change their living conditions for the better.
Until the working class and toiling masses, together with their
friends among the intelligentsia and other strata of
population, cement their own independent block in the
opposition, no true and lasting democracy and social justice
can be accomplished.
This simple fact, which has been tested so many times over
and over again, is not a mere slogan. It has been proven
correct in the human laboratories of almost any nation on the
face of the world. Precisely because of its truth--first
formulated by Lenin and the Russian revolutionaries--it has
been torn, distorted, disfigured and twisted by the ruling
capitalist classes and its army of bought intellectuals.
If Khatami were genuinely interested in bringing Iran out of
isolation, creating jobs for millions of youth and removing
some of the most Draconian laws aimed against more than half
the population--the heroic women--his victory would be
welcomed. But all historical evidence, present facts and
realities weigh against him. What Khatami promises to
accomplish is only possible through the leadership of the
working class and oppressed masses.
How could someone who is the president of one the biggest
countries in the Middle East keep silent while U.S. fighter
jets pound its neighbor Iraq, just hours from where he
sits?
Is Khatami and his grouping keeping silent in order to win
favor with U.S. imperialism?
If so, they should note that just as Khatami was getting
ready for his trip to Italy and the Vatican, U.S. Defense
Secretary William Cohen, while visiting Saudi Arabia, announced
the sale of sophisticated air-to-air missiles to Saudi Arabia
"in response to worries about military threats from Iraq and
Iran."
U.S. imperialism is carrying out the same hostile,
aggressive policy towards both Iraq and Iran. With Iraq this
involves direct military and economic genocide, with Iran it is
economic pressure while it connives and plots to gain total
domination. Part of the reason for an increase in the CIA
budget is precisely for operations in places like Iran.
A New York Times editorial on March 3 expressed the wishes
of U.S. finance capital: "The high turnout that carried many
moderate candidates to victory may now embolden Mr. Khatami to
take further conciliatory steps toward America [read Wall
Street]." Later in the same editorial, the Wall Street
watchdogs pulled out their sabers and warned Khatami against
"nuclear and unconventional weapons," threatening the regime to
make sure Khatami carries out the first part of their
dictate.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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