Iran Goes to the Polls
June 11th, 2009 § 2 Comments
This year's election race included never before used adversarial-style televised debates. Photo credit Mehdi Dehghan/AFP/Getty Images
Iranians will vote on a new President in less than 24 hours — below is my piece from AlterNet.
It was clear from the beginning that Iran’s presidential election would ultimately be a race between current leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hossein Mousavi. But the question of who will be victorious after Iranians take to the polls on Friday is as difficult to predict now as it was when the nominees first started campaigning. While images of impassioned Iranian men and women decked in green have dominated mainstream reports favoring reformist nominee Mousavi, few concrete predictions have been made to answer the question of who Iran’s seventh president will be.
Most agree that this election has been unique, exciting, and in many ways unprecedented. For the first time in Iranian history, nominees debated each other on live television, discussing controversial issues like the economy and Ahmadinejad’s views of the Holocaust. Mousavi has also campaigned on the platform of introducing reforms that would benefit women rights in Iran, while declaring that he would review laws that are believed to be the source of discrimination against them. It is also the first time that every candidate has expressed such harsh criticism of the current president. During his televised debate with Mousavi, Ahmadinejad argued that this election has turned into three candidates running against him, rather than four candidates running against each other.
Even though dissenting Iranian factions (many of whom live abroad) have announced plans to boycott the election because they are opposed to the makeup of the Iranian government in its entirety, Henry Newman of The Guardian argues that Ahmadinejad’s style of garnering international attention has given both supporters and opponents alike a recharged sense of zeal:
“The electoral mania of today stands in stark contrast to the run-up to the 2005 presidential elections when there was, among some groups of Iranian society, a strong frustration at the failures by President Khatami’s administration to achieve reform. Then, many expressed disinterest, others a commitment to abstain from voting. Now, the country is gripped by a desire to participate: a strong reminder perhaps of the potential universal appeal of participatory politics.”
Roger Cohen of The New York Times has described a refreshed sense of excitement in the streets of Tehran, while also urging Americans to look beyond the propaganda delivered by pro-war hawks who demonize Iran in an attempt to undermine its legitimacy in the Middle East as a sovereign nation:
“Iran, its internal fissures exposed as never before, is teetering again on the brink of change. For months now, I’ve been urging another look at Iran, beyond dangerous demonization of it as a totalitarian state. Seldom has the country looked less like one than in these giddy June days.”
Of course, recent events suggest that the Obama Administration is currently resisting calls to go to war with Iran, opting to pursue diplomacy first. This could ultimately result in a break in the 30 year silence that has so far ensued between the two governments.
Earlier this week, scholar and president of the National Iranian American Council, Trita Parsi, wrote in The Huffington Post about how House lawmakers decided to postpone a vote on a bill endorsed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee proposing more sanctions on Iran:
“The House of Representatives is no longer planning to vote on the Iran Sanctions Enabling Act of 2009 this week. After publishing an article on Huffington Post about this, my staff at the National Iranian American Council was contacted by the House Financial Services Committee who informed us that the bill was no longer on the suspension calendar for Tuesday. The reason for the change? Concern that it could benefit hardline candidates in the Iranian election, as I had pointed out in my original article.”
The idea that the Obama Administration wants to avoid influencing the vote in Ahmadinejad’s favor implies that they intend to continue pursuing talks with the new president, an outcome which the Israel lobby, who has been constantly advocating for a hardline approach to Iran, is opposed to.
Playing on the Bush Administration’s classification of Iran as part of an “axis of evil,” Jonathan Steele of The Guardian argues that the Obama Administration should include Iran in an “axis of respect” if they are really interested in garnering change and working towards peace in the Middle East:
“In Cairo Obama spoke much of ‘mutual respect.’ The test is to show he means it.”
While Robert Dreyfuss of The Nation seems to believe that Mousavi will win, he also maintains that relations with America will continue to be rocky regardless of who the victor is due to the complex variables that have been impeding positive relations between the two states for years:
“There are minefields aplenty in the coming U.S.-Iran dialogue. Both sides are hugely suspicious of the other, and there are real, underlying issues that reflect conflicting interests between Washington and Tehran. On both sides, there are radicals and hardliners intent on sabotaging the prospect for better relations.”
This does not mean, however, that an improved alternative to past relations is not attainable. Indeed, just as Iranian society is in a constant state of flux, so too are state relations on the world stage, especially in regards to the Middle East. Moreover, both countries have expressed a desire to change previous relations since Obama’s nomination as president. While Obama extended an outstretched hand to the Iranian people during his famous Nowruz Message, the Iranian government continues to express its desire to talk directly with America, with Ahmadinejad reportedly telling the press that he would challenge Obama to a debate if he was elected.
The Iranian election has been boycotted by some, passionately participated in by others and watched intently by foreign powers. But whatever the outcome this Friday, one thing is clear: the Iran we see today is significantly different than the Iran we saw two presidencies ago — and if the Iranian people do so desire it, Iranian society will continue on this natural and sustainable path of change and reform. Of course, this is provided that foreign powers do not interfere in a way that will destroy this movement, or hurl it back a hundred years or more.
I was first introduced to the election here, which couched it in terms of social reform:
http://www.newsy.com/videos/challenging_ahmadinejad
It seems as if the economy is also an incredible integral issue ( http://iranquest.com/blog/?p=6988&cpage=1#comment-870 ), and one where Ahmadinejad lost a lot of ground due to protest votes. Of course, I am skeptical that any will change will take place even if Mousavi wins, politicians always promise a lot and they really aren’t too different to begin with (candidates have to be ‘approved’ by a council so there is a lot less variety than you would expect).
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