Tehran: Iran’s newly elected parliament held its first session on May 27, against the backdrop of unprecedented internal and external pressures and the novel coronavirus pandemic that has exacerbated its already dire socio-economic situation.
The 11th parliamentary elections for the 290-member legislator were held on February 21 and despite the lower than expected turnout and in the absence of a significant rival, anti-western hawks made big gains. With their victory in the election and getting the majority of seats in parliament, conservatives (known as principlists) have moved one step closer toward monopolising power again.
Efforts to monopolise power centres could remind us of the direction of the country after the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005, when conservatives and ultraconservatives dominated Iranian power structures for eight years.
Ahmadinejad’s administration earned around $531 billion from crude oil export, which is close to half of what the country has made from crude exports in over one hundred years since oil was discovered in Iran. These windfall oil revenues allowed his administration to marginalise urban middle classes and technocrats, to make up for its inefficiencies, to use cash to buy loyalties and to finance his populist economic policies independent from taxpayers.
Nevertheless, under Ahmadinejad, the Islamic Republic witnessed one of its most tumultuous periods that was marred by widespread corruption, mismanagement, and internal and external political turmoil.
Former Iran president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Photo: Reuters
The outcome of that bitter historical experience and growing public discontent with the state of affairs led to the election of President Hassan Rouhani in 2013. Rouhani took office on a platform of economic prosperity among a host of other pledges. However, the withdrawal of the US from the nuclear deal in 2018 during his second term in office and the re-imposition of sanctions against Iran brought the country’s economic progress back to square one.
Today, Rouhani’s administration is busy dealing with the fallout from COVID-19. But even before this health emergency, his administration had been grappling with a wide range of internal problems. The outbreak of the virus only made a bad situation worse. Rouhani has been widely criticised for his administration’s poor economic performance among other inadequacies. Hardliners have accused him of putting too much faith in the west, of inaction and giving up on the country, waiting for his term to come to an end at a time when the country is facing a host of problems—on top of them “the toughest” US sanctions against Iran. Besides, they have claimed the 10th parliament that was filled with reformist and moderate politicians allied with Rouhani was ‘ineffective’ because it failed to address the people’s ‘real problems’.
The combination of all those factors made principlists/hardliners (known in Iran as the Osul-Garayan) to believe that this system of “dual government”, at least for the time being, is not working because under the present circumstances: Different powers only defuse each other and do not allow decisions concerning running the country to be properly implemented. Therefore to guarantee the survival of the Islamic Republic, they need to consolidate their “rear-guards” by forming a radical new parliament as the first essential step.
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‘No realistic plan’
The 11th parliamentary elections were held at a time when officially there was no news of the coronavirus in Iran. Nevertheless, as parliament opened, the deadly virus had crossed borders and become the main priority for politicians and policymakers worldwide. Still, the pandemic has not changed the political priorities for principlists. They started their election campaign based on the platform of fighting corruption and fiscal transparency as they believed these slogans have been among the main demands of their political base and supporters.
In a recent interview with IRGC affiliated Tasnim News Agency after being elected as parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said “improving the living condition of the poor strata of the society will be among the top priorities of the 11th parliament.”
Principlists have so far made a long list of pledges that they say are achievable with “revolutionary spirit”. For example, Ghalibaf told Tasnim that “creating jobs, boosting production, reducing inflation, increasing the value of the national currency will be among other priorities of the 11th parliament.” Nevertheless, he didn’t mention how the parliament is going to implement all those plans, even as the country is reeling from the impact of COVID-19 and the government is facing a significant budget deficit as a result of a collapse in the global oil price, a fall in regional trade and the pressure of US sanctions.
The well-known journalist and political analyst Ahmad Zeidabadi, who spent six years in jail after the disputed 2009 presidential election, believes “contrary to their claims, principlists have presented no clear, coherent and realistic plan to address the country’s problems, and they have never gone beyond imaginary slogans that are inconsistent with Iran’s current condition.”
“After dominating the parliament, while the country is facing an alarming situation, those slogans are useless and principlists need to adopt a certain degree of realism to deal with those problems,” he argued.
A woman casts her vote during parliamentary elections at a polling station in Tehran, Iran February 21, 2020. Photo: Nazanin Tabatabaee/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Technocrats will be back
For the above reasons, some analysts believe that the hardliners’ monopoly on power is not sustainable. They say if the “maximum pressure” campaign under the current US administration is lifted, with the easing of pressures on Iran, the role of the middle class and technocrats – whose services the country needs to overcome the numerous challenges and implement economic development plans – would gain importance again.
“It would be impossible for the establishment to ignore the role of the middle classes and their representatives altogether in running the country. That’s mainly because their role in paying taxes and to help the economy move forward and take part in the elections to contribute to a democratic electoral process,” said Saeed Laylaz, a former journalist and prominent economist who has been a vocal advocate of reform in Iran.
Zeidabadi thinks there will be “difficult and challenging” days ahead for principlists in the new parliament. He predicts that pragmatist politicians from the principlist camp, who have had executive records, could seek to enlist the help of some from the moderate and reformist camps to be able to partly resolve the many woes the nation is facing today.
And that does not seem to be a far-fetched prediction. The new parliament speaker, 58-year-old Ghalibaf, has a reputation for being more pragmatic and less ideological than many other conservative lawmakers. Proof of this claim is Ghalibaf’s record as Tehran Mayor (2005-2017), when he drove a new trend towards employing technocrats to improve urban management and tackle some of the capital’s acute infrastructural problems despite allegations of corruption against him and his deputies during his 12-year tenure.
Meanwhile, it is very unlikely for the hardline parliament to be capable of improving Iran’s battered economy and the people’s living conditions in the remaining period before the 2021 presidential election.
For now, it is expected that the 11th parliament will be the scene of many controversial and highly charged speeches by lawmakers that would draw widespread attention from the media. Nevertheless, the coming months could be a good barometer for the political future of the Islamic Republic.
Mohammad Hashemi is a journalist and analyst of Iranian affairs based in Tehran. Follow him at @mo_hashemi.