Part 10: The Reofrmists Truimph at the Ballot Box

Before 1997, no presidential election in the history of the Islamic Republic had seen anyone other than the regime’s handpicked choice get elected. President Rafsanjani, who won easy re-election in the 1993, was not eligible to run for a third term due to term limits. The standard bearer candidate for the regime elite was conservative cleric Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri who was the Speaker of the Majlis. Behind the scenes, Khamenei endorsed Nategh-Nouri and threw the support of the regime to get him elected. Given the conservative domination of both the elected and unelected institutions of the regime, it seemed a given that Nategh-Nouri would easily be elected the next president of the Islamic Republic.

The 1997 election was the first time that the reform movement would make a serious effort to win the presidency of the Islamic Republic. The first choice of the reformists to run in the election was former Prime Minister Mousavi who had led the radical faction within the regime in the 1980s. Yet, Mousavi refused to run depriving the reformists of a big name who had previously held a senior position within the regime. Instead, the reformists turned to Khatami who had previously implemented limited liberalization as Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance during the early therimdor period.

Although Khatami needed approval by the Guardian Council to run in the election, few within the regime thought that he could pose a credible challenge to Nategh-Nouri (Takeyh 2009, 185). He was given approval since he was supposed to have no chance of winning and his token opposition would give the regime a sense of competitiveness. Moreover Khatami talked about creating a more liberal regime, but he did not advocate a radical break from the current regime and was a strong supporter of the Islamic Republic.

Things would not go the way conservatives expected as Khatami’s candidacy quickly gained support among a population yearning for change. He emphasized the rule of law and the constitution in a not too subtle criticism of the conservative leaders who had long ignored liberal components of the constitution. Khatami was a fresh face offering something new and different to a population who were used to the same cast of characters being in charge of the Islamic Republic since the revolution.

The reformists reached out to Iran’s youth who had little memory of the 1979 revolution and instead wanted greater social and cultural freedoms. In particular, the reformists tried to win over young women voters who wanted greater rights in the social and economic spheres. Khatami also appealed to the newly emerging urban middle class who wanted greater political freedoms arguing “economic development must be accompanied by political development”. Khatami’s message was also able to appeal to religious segments in the population given his credentials as a cleric and reformist religious critiques of the regime. This wide ranging coalition made Khatami a credible contender for the presidency and showed the reformists mobilizing large segments of population to fundamentally change the regime.

The extent of Khatami’s landslide victory cannot be overstated as he won 70% of the vote carrying nearly every province and municipality in the country. He received almost three times as many votes as his conservative opponent garnering more than 20 million votes to Nateq-Nouri’s 7 million. Khatami won the greatest number of votes in the history of the Islamic Republic and got twice as many votes as Rafsanjani’s 1993 election victory of 10 million votes.

Moreover, Khatami’s landslide was even more remarkable given the large percentage of the population that participated in the election. One of the reformists’ fundamental arguments was that change could come if the population was be adequately mobilized under the slogan, “pressure from below, negotiations from the top”. Khatami successfully engaged the Iranian population in the electoral process as there was an 83% turnout rate of eligible voters compared to a mere 50% in the 1993 election. This rate was remarkably high for a regime that was supposed to be dominated by authoritarian conservatives and easily exceeded turn out rates in almost all Western democracies.

In 1999, the electoral success of the reformists would continue in the first ever local elections in the Islamic Republic to select representatives for municipal city councils. Unlike presidential and parliamentary elections, local elections do not have the normal Guardian Council screening process to approve candidates. As a result, the reformists were free to put forward the candidates they wanted who went on to be elected to vast numbers. When the votes were counted, the reformists won nearly 75% of the 25 million votes with a turn out rate of 62%.

The reformists capped their series of electoral victories with the 2000 Majlis elections where reformist parties dominated. The Guardian Council allowed many reformists candidates to stand in the election making it one of the most open and free parliamentary elections in the history of the modern Middle East. Again there were high levels of participation with 69% of eligible voters turning out and reformist parties winning 215 of the 290 seats in the Majlis. With this final electoral domination, the reformists completed their takeover of the elected components of the Islamic Republic and seemed poised to deliver on their goal of creating a more democratic regime.

These elections show a pattern of high public participation in competitive elections when the regime was at the peak of its political openness during the thirmidor period. Essentially, the reformists and the population in general would work within the electoral channels of the regime when elections were relatively free and competitive. This pattern reversed once conservatives clamped down on the reformists and limited the freedom of elections. Yet at the time, Khatami’s presidency and subsequent reformist electoral victories were an earthquake in Iranian politics representing a triumph for the reform movement.