From Negotiations to Elections and Back – Why the next Iranian President may be chosen for his ‘Nuclear’ Credentials

By Cornelius Adebahr - 20 May 2013

Cornelius Adebahr unpicks the international security dimensions of the next Iranian elections.

Ironically enough, the life-or-death decision whether a country wants to have a nuclear bomb has never been put to a vote but is rather taken in secrecy. The democracies that have one – France, India, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States – all acquired it at a time of outside threat when public debate on this issue was unwanted. The other nuclear powers – autocracies or dictatorships such as China, Pakistan, Russia and then-Apartheid-South Africa – did not even bother to consult their people. Now it appears that voters in Iran, the theocracy-cum-democracy at loggerheads with the international community over its nuclear programme, may actually have a chance to voice their opinions on the country’s nuclear future in the upcoming presidential elections.

The Iranian presidential elections due on 14 June are indeed important both domestically as well as from an international perspective. For months, there has been a lot of chatter in town about who might run and with whose support. A few came out openly, while most potential candidates kept their ambitions ambiguous. That’s also because the main question – which candidate would have the blessing of the Supreme Leader – remained unanswered. This prolonged manoeuvring culminated last week with the official four-day long registration period, which at least brought some clarity about who actually wants to enter the race.

While with a view to the country’s internal politics, numerous factions stretching from reformists to conservatives to hardliners are battling each other, when seen through the prism of the nuclear negotiations the picture becomes a little clearer.

In early April, the former nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rouhani, declared his candidacy, saying that he would follow a more constructive approach with the international community. He nonetheless stressed that he himself had always stayed within the framework set by the Supreme Leader, thus criticising only the government’s current approach and not the underlying negotiation position. Ayatollah Rouhani is a political heavyweight of the Islamic Republic, being a long-standing member of both the Assembly of Experts (which elects the Supreme Leader and formally supervises his work) and a member of the Expediency Council (which can rule on disputes between Parliament and the Guardian Council). As Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, he led his country’s negotiation team in the early nuclear talks from 2003 to 2005 with the then-E3, i.e. France, Germany, and the UK.

Short of actually withdrawing his candidacy, Rouhani nonetheless openly endorsed former President Hashemi Rafsanjani once the latter came out and filed his candidacy literally less than ten minutes before registration closed on Saturday. Rouhani’s endorsement of the 78-years-old Ayatollah Rafsanjani only serves to underline that the country’s grey eminence will try to mend fences not only nationally – he spoke of the need of a government of national unity as early as in the summer of 2010 – but also on the international scene. Most immediately, the former President has already affected the country’s embattled currency, with the rial appreciating considerably within 30 minutes his candidacy became public.

Another contender for presidency is the current top nuclear negotiator, Said Jalili. Although not necessarily close to the departing president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, he would be likely to continue the current path of national defiance in the face of international pressure. The same holds true for other conservative candidates: The three personalities allegedly close to the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, which however could not agree on one among them to be the “coalition’s” candidate. Instead, both Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran’s foreign minister under presidents Khamenei and Rafsanjani and now the Leader’s dry and uninspiring foreign policy adviser; Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf, a former senior official of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and now the popular and pragmatist mayor of Tehran, who might just turn out to be too independent for the Leader should he be elected; and Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, a long-standing MP and erstwhile Speaker of Parliament whose daughter is married to Khamenei’s influential son Mojtaba, all declared their candidacy. Whoever from this camp emerges as the candidate, will have the official backing from Khamenei and would most probably continue the country’s nuclear programme including all its intransparencies.

The wild card, both domestically and internationally, is Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the outgoing president’s closest adviser – and Ahmadinejad’s son’s father-in-law, as it happens. Whereas no government official is allowed to support any of the candidates during the campaign, Ahmadinejad did his utmost to inform the public about his chosen successor. From taking Mashaei along on his official visits to the provinces to holding a huge rally in Tehran’s biggest football stadium to actually accompanying him to the Ministry of the Interior for the signing in – Ahmadinejad did not care how loud the conservative establishment would decry this as illegitimate. After falling out with the Supreme Leader during his second term, seeing his spokesman being imprisoned and he himself allegedly having been recently held in custody for hours, he knows that he can save his legacy – and maybe even his life – only by installing Mashaei as his successor.

While a president Mashaei – with his predecessor close to his ear – would basically pursue the same populist policies at the home front, he might just as well be more conciliatory on the international scene. Despite his fierce rhetoric, Ahmadinejad is said to be open to direct talks with the United States, only to be held back by the Supreme Leader who would not grant the former any foreign policy success. That’s why the latter, knowing that he cannot procrastinate on this issue any longer after the elections, will do everything to make sure that ‘his’ candidate will win. Yet, even in Iran electoral surprises are possible, given that both in 1997 (Khatami) and 2005 (Ahmadinejad) the non-establishment candidate took the election.

So the votes matter (at least to an extent, as the stolen 2009 elections proved). However, achieving the high turnout that the regime needs to boost its legitimacy will prove difficult in the face of widespread frustration among the population. Therefore the regime – in the form of the Guardian Council that has begun the process of vetting the 680-plus candidates – has to give the people at least the resemblance of a choice by offering a fair range of candidates. In past elections, the final list comprised only four to six hopefuls, with the remaining hundreds ruled out for being ‘unfit for office’ or judged ‘not having a chance’.

It is hardly conceivable that Rafsanjani, a high-ranking cleric and the current head of the Expediency Council, is barred from running, despite now being the officially endorsed candidate of the reformers. Likewise, Khamenei would risk an ugly no-holds-barred fight with Ahmadinejad if Mashaei were declared unfit. At the same time, the conservative “coalition” might decide to field Jalili as their ultimate candidate, as ultimately none of the three big shots may be ready to join the ring with Rafsanjani and Mashaei. Add to this maybe a handful of less prominent candidates and the choices become clear.

In the end, Iranian voters may still not be able to decide whether they want their country to have a nuclear bomb – if only because the regime claims that it does not aim for one. Yet, they have the choice to vote for a candidate who in the interest of the country’s short-term economic and long-term strategic interest would be ready to conclude an agreement – once negotiations with the international community will resume after the elections – that contains enough transparency measures to make it impossible for the regime to pursue clandestine nuclear activities. And that’s after all one way of saying No to the bomb. 

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