Iran's 2005 Presidential Election

[Mohammad Maljoo <mmaljoo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Paradox and Possibility in Iran's Presidential Election

June 17, 2005

Middle East Report Online

by Arang Keshavarzian and Mohammad Maljoo


Just a short time ago, the Iranian presidential election being held on June
17, 2005 was regarded as a non-event. The prospect that the election would
advance debates over political reform and democratization appeared weak, in
the shadow of the self-described defeat of Iran's parliamentary reformist
movement and the increasing skepticism of the disappointed citizenry that
voting for reform-minded candidates will in fact democratize the regime. In
the past two electoral seasons, the reformist camp allied with President
Mohammad Khatami had fallen victim to a hardline conservative backlash and
voter disenchantment. In the 2003 municipal elections, hardliners took
advantage of low voter turnout to sweep the open seats on city councils,
especially in the capital of Tehran and other large cities. Then, prior to
the February 2004 parliamentary elections, the conservative Guardian Council
disqualified over 2,000 candidates from the major reformist parties, usually
on the grounds of "lack of respect for Islam." The Guardian Council, an
unelected supervisory body vested by the constitution of the Islamic
Republic with the power to overturn acts of Parliament, had intervened
repeatedly since 1997 to block reformist legislation. Popular faith in the
parliamentary reformists' ability to change the system eroded, to the point
that the Guardians' intervention to ban reformist candidates in 2004 did not
elicit a strong reaction from Iranian civil society

full at:  http://www.merip.org/mero/mero061705.html

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