Part 15: People Stop Participating

While the relatively free elections of the late 1990s saw widespread participation among the population, the elections in the mid 2000s were marked by public apathy after conservatives clamped down on the democratic process. Public participation in the Islamic Republic plummeted as a far smaller percentage of eligible voters took part in the elections.

Figure 4.1 shows the overall downward trend of public participation in presidential, local, and parliamentary elections from 1997 to 2005 by tracking the percentage of eligible voters who actually voted in elections. The points mark the actual percentage of participation while a regression line demonstrates the overall downward trend.

Figure 4.1 Percentage of the eligible population participating in elections from 1997 to 2005

The chart demonstrates that a significantly smaller percentage of the population participated in the Islamic Republic as the conservatives began to clamp down on democratic rights ensured in the constitution. The public participated in the system in greater numbers when they believed that their votes had a real chance at changing the regime. Once conservatives made it clear that they were not going to allow the elected branches of government to bring about significant changes, the public decreased its participation in elections.

This trend means that less people would work within the confines of the regime when they believed their votes would not bring about change. The fact that large numbers of people would abandon participating in the Islamic Republic would foreshadow future protests against the regime when elections were viewed as completely meaningless. Once people believed that elections were fraudulent, then opposition to the regime would work outside of the confines of the regime to bring change by taking to the streets.

In the mean time even though segments of the reform movement had abandoned participating in the regime, a significant portion still wanted to work within the elected channels to bring change. However, they did not have enough support to override the resurgence of the conservatives ultimately losing out again in the 2006 local elections and the 2008 Majlis elections. While the reformists did not know how to respond to the clamp down by the conservatives, they did not give up contesting elections regrouping for the looming 2009 presidential election.

The Iranian people may have participated less in the electoral process once the conservatives struck back, but they still had to live with the outcome of those elections. Even with the failure of reformist electoral victories to bring change to the regime, anger at the direction of the country under Ahmadinejad meant that the public would be lured back into the electoral process.

Elections no longer had to be about changing policy in the Islamic Republic as long as they offered the possibility of changing the person who was president. This scenario would set the stage for the final showdown between a resurgent reform movement and the conservative coalition that wanted to maintain its authoritarian gains. What resulted was a complete breakdown of the Islamist coalition that had maintained the Islamic Republic for 30 years leading to the return of revolution in Iran.

Part 14: Ahmadinejad Wins the 2005 Election

The final piece of the puzzle for the conservative coalition was the 2005 presidential election. It would prove to be the most interesting elections in the history of the Islamic Republic up to that point and would set the stage for the monumental presidential election of 2009. The 2005 election showed the shifting sands of political loyalties in Iran and cemented the fault lines between different factions in the regime.

Former President Rafsanjani announced that he would once again run in the election, but he would not become the consensus candidate showing the highly fractured nature of the regime. While Rafsanjani had originally aligned himself with Khamenei and conservatives during his presidency, he had grown distant from the conservative movement with the rise of the neo-conservatives. As part of the neo-conservatives appeal, they campaigned heavily on a populist appeal to win over the pious lower classes of Iran. They heavily criticized Rafsanjani for being corrupt and for the failure of his free market approach to help the masses of Iranians. Rafsanjani would run from the middle distancing himself from the conservatives, but also not embracing the reformist cause either.

The traditional conservatives under Khamenei would not endorse Rafsanjani and instead put forth Ali Larijani as the standard bearer for the regime. The neo-conservatives would select Ahmadinejad as their candidate in the election showing an independence from the traditional conservatives and the regime’s elite. Since a majority of votes was required to be elected in the first round, the highly fractured nature of all parts of the regime meant that a runoff was inevitable. As a result, the two factions of the conservative movement could put forth different candidates, as long as they united in the runoff.

It was not just the conservative coalition that was divided; the reformists were in disarray after a series of electoral disasters. The elite of the reform movement favored Mostafa Moin as their candidate and he was nominated by the leading reformist parties. Yet former speaker of the Majlis Karroubi also ran in the reformist camp and he was the one that was able to quickly gain momentum in the race.

The various factions in the Islamic Republic had never been so divided between each other or within themselves, and this chaotic situation created the perfect storm for a dark horse candidate to emerge. Ahmadinejad had very little name recognition at the beginning of the campaign and few expected him to be a significant player in the election. Yet his campaign targeted the poor masses of Iran who cared less about political freedoms and more about basic economic concerns. He presented himself as a servant of the people from a modest background and spoke out against the corruption of regime elite embodied in Rafsanjani.

Ahmadinejad’s campaign was able to gain traction given the division within the reformists and the unpopularity of traditional conservatives among the population. After the first round of voting, Rafsanjani was first with a mere 21% of the vote, but it was Ahmadinejad who surprisingly placed second to make it to the runoff with 19% of the vote. Karroubi and Moin split the reformist vote with Karroubi’s late momentum giving him 17% of the vote to Moin’s 14%. Larijani received just 6% of the vote showing how unpopular the traditional conservatives had become among the Iranian people.

Interestingly the split within the reformist camp meant that Ahmadinejad and not Karroubi would make it to the runoff. Had the reformists agreed on one candidate, then they almost certainly would have got the most votes in the first round since Karroubi and Moin’s vote total was 31%. However, the reformist division meant that the first ever presidential runoff election in the Islamic Republic occurred between the pragmatic conservative Rafsanjani and the neo-conservative Ahmadinejad.

At first most observers gave the upstart Ahmadinejad little chance to defeat one of the most powerful men in Iran who had previously won two presidential elections. However in the short runoff campaign, Ahmadinejad attacked Rafsanjani for the widely held belief that he had attained much of his wealth through corruption. Ahmadinejad by contrast lived a humble lifestyle and played up the fact that he had little personal wealth in comparison to one of the richest men in Iran.

Reformist leaders urged their followers to vote for Rafsanjani to keep the presidency from the neo-conservatives, but Rafsanjani’s past authoritarian tendencies meant that many reformist voters would stay home on Election Day. Ahmadinejad campaigned in all parts of the country gaining momentum among rural voters who often felt that the elite of the regime had forgotten about them. Rafsanjani by comparison barely left Tehran reinforcing the image that he was the ultimate insider who knew little about the suffering of ordinary people.

In the end, Ahmadinejad scored a decisive win garnering 62% of the vote and stunning the establishment of the Islamic Republic. His victory demonstrated that the neo-conservatives were a powerful force within the regime and that they were quickly becoming the dominant party in their coalition with traditional conservatives. Rafsanjani would argue that there was electoral manipulation, but the population never backed his candidacy enough to care. “Although the conservatives had no compunction about rigging votes, Ahmadinejad’s victory could not be attributed to fraud. A largely exhausted population unimpressed with Rafsanjani’s reincarnation and disillusioned with the reform movement was willing to concede the state to the conservatives”.

UN Empty for Ahmadinejad Speech

The UN General Assembly is nearly empty as Ahmadinejad gives his speech showing that he has little support around the world.

Shouts of God is Great

Shouts of God is Great are heard in Tehran on September 20 to protest the government repression.

Part 13: The Rise of the Neo-Conservatives

Once the reformists’ efforts at change had been successfully stopped, conservatives would turn their focus on regaining control of the elected branches of the regime. At this point, a new group emerged within the regime and formed a coalition with the traditional conservatives to create an authoritarian state. They can be defined as neo-conservatives “who are ideologically Islamist, revolutionary in character, and populist in application and policy term”.

Part of their emergence has to do with increase American influence in the region in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. As the United States would first invade Afghanistan and then Iraq, Iran would be surrounded on two sides by American troops. The regime would further feel threatened by the Bush administration categorizing the Iran as part of the “Axis of Evil”. Moreover as details of the Iranian nuclear program began to emerge, tensions between Iran and the West would only continue to rise.

The Khatami administration had previously attempted a détente with the United States hoping for better relations, and this new hostility from the Bush administration discredited such an approach. Factions within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) would begin to criticize the reformists for their soft stance against the United States and would call for a more hostile stand.

The IRGC was created in the aftermath of the revolution as the branch of the armed services that would be loyal to Khomeini and his Islamist faction in Iran. Overtime they evolved into the most influential branch of the military with shadow operations in the rest of the government and throughout the country. The IRGC would become a breeding ground for the neo-conservatives who were militaristic in nature and who wanted a more hostile foreign policy.

American military intervention in the Middle East and threats against the Iranian regime would give the neo-conservatives the perfect opportunity to gain prominence in the regime. Compared to the traditional conservatives, the authoritarianism of the neo-conservatives would be based less on religious principles and more on the classical militarism of fascist regimes. A former IRGC member, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would emerge as one of the new leaders of the neo-conservative movement and would lead them to the heights of power in the Islamic Republic.

This new alliance of traditional conservatives and neo-conservatives would first take aim at the 2003 local elections in an effort to turn the tide of reformist electoral victories. By this point, much of the reformists’ base in the population had become disillusioned at their inability to bring real change to the regime. Enthusiasm for the local election plummeted with 49% participation and only 12-15% turnout in the reformist strongholds of big cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, and Mashhad.

The conservative capitalized on this moment of weakness among the reformists and scored a smashing victory in the local elections. They won a majority of all the seats up for grabs around the country and were able to win 14 of the 15 seats in the pivotal Tehran City Council. This dominance in Iran’s biggest city and capital allowed the neo-conservatives to appoint Ahmadinejad as the Mayor of Tehran giving him a platform to eventually seek higher office.

Even with the vacuum of enthusiasm among the reformists’ base, the conservative coalition would use the authoritarian parts of the constitution to make victory certain in the 2004 Majlis elections. The Guardian Council would disqualify nearly 2500 reformist candidates including 80 sitting members of the Majlis. This unprecedented move shocked the reformists who contemplated a boycott, but ultimately decided against doing so as it would have handed the conservatives certain victory.

Even with the setbacks, “the participating reformists, now led by Majlis Speaker Karroubi, who had cobbled together a list of some 120 candidates, was confidently predicting a presence of some 100 seats in the Seventh Majlis”. Yet the reformists’ woefully underestimated the public’s unhappiness at both the regime and the reformists as turnout would plummet to 51% from a high of 69% in 2000 Majlis elections. Conservatives and neo-conservatives dominated the elections putting them back in control of the Majlis and dashing reformist dreams of passing progressive laws to change the regime.

Part 12: The Reformists Blink

One of the most famous victims of this effort would be the reformist intellectual Saeed Hajjarian who was the leading architect of the reformists’ electoral victories and who was himself elected to the Tehran City Council in the 1999 local elections. In March 2000, Hajjarian was shot in the face leaving him paralyzed in an attack that reformists would attribute to the paramilitary group known as the Basij. Others would also be swept up in this new round of institutionalized terror aimed at undermining the reform movement.

Prominent reformist clerics such as Abdollah Nouri, Yousefi Eshkevari, and Mohsen Kadivar would be tried and sentenced to varying time in prison for supposedly undermining the Islamic Republic (Tapper et. al 2006, 133). These clerics, with their religious critiques of the regime, posed a particularly devastating threat to a regime that based much of its legitimacy on religious credentials. The combined effects of political violence and arrests would deprive the reformists of some of their leading intellectuals just as they would need them the most.

With the takeover of the Majlis in 2000, the stage was set for a confrontation between reformists who wanted to pass progressive legislation and conservatives in the regime who wanted to stop democratic change. Reformists had an ambitious agenda to transform the Islamic Republic by passing laws to reform press freedoms, women’s rights, elections, and overall transparency within the regime. Although conservatives allowed the reformists to get their foot in the door of the elected institutions in the regime, they would use the authoritarian components of the constitution to render the reformists impotent in their attempt to change the regime.

As reformists started to introduce pieces of legislation to reform the system, Khamenei would take unprecedented steps to interfere in the elected branches of the government and undermine their efforts at reform. The defining moment would come in November 2000 when the Majlis was considering a new Press Law that would challenge conservative restrictions on the media. Khamenei sent a letter to the Speaker of the Majlis Mehdi Karroubi “urging that in the interests of stability and harmony the legislation be deferred to an unspecified later date”.

In this moment of truth, the reformists backed down and allowed Khamenei to successfully shelve the proposed law. Rarely had the Supreme Leader ever taken such direct actions to basically dictate the business of the Majlis. Given the vast powers of the Supreme Leader within the constitution, it is not clear whether he was making a request or if he had the authority to dictate what the elected branches of the government could do. In the end, Khamenei effectively was able to stop the Majlis from considering pieces of legislation meaning that the reformists’ effort to pass progressive legislation was dead.

With his legislative agenda defeated by the conservatives, Khatami went into the 2001 presidential elections with little to show for in terms of major reforms. At the same time, conservatives were even more unpopular than before precisely because they had undermined the reformists’ efforts to change the regime. Voters still wanted to have Khatami as the president and he was re-elected with 78% of the vote over token conservative opposition. Yet it was a shallow victory for Khatami and the reformists since the previous year had shown that winning elections did not translate into changing policy in the Islamic Republic.

At this point, the reformists were still willing to participate in the elections and work within the confines of the regime. While their experience in elected government had shown that real change could not be quickly brought to the regime, they were still part of that same regime. In the end, they had in an incentive to maintain the system and work from within to slowly bring about change. As the conservatives would begin their complete purge of reformists from the elected branches of government, that incentive would eventually disappear.

Part 11: The Student Protests

However, it was also a wakeup call for Khamenei and other conservatives in the regime. While they initially allowed competitive elections with the belief that the reformists would not dominate or seek radical change, it quickly became neither of these things were true. The population had become disillusioned with the conservative leadership of the Islamic Republic and turned to the reformists for another way. Moreover, the reformists were serious in their rhetoric of liberalizing the Islamic Republic and pursued fundamental changes to the regime.

Although both the reformists and conservatives were strong supporters of the concept of an Islamic Republic, they differed sharply on their visions for Iran. Both camps within the regime would claim to be following the true path of Khomeini and the 1979 revolution. The coalition of Islamists that had existed for twenty years was splintering as two irreconcilable visions of the Islamic Republic were now competing for power in Iran.

In this environment, the conservatives made the decision to clamp down on any reformist attempts to change the authoritarian bent of the regime. They would launch a campaign to regain control of the elected branches of the government using any means necessary. This also meant that the reformists would also have to decide how they would respond to the conservative backlash against their efforts to transform the regime.

One of first tests for both the reformists and the conservatives would be during the student protests of July 1999. In effect, the conservative backlash already had started with limits on freedom of speech and the closure of reformist newspapers in early 1999. In this effort, Salam newspaper which belonged to Khatami’s political party was forced to close causing widespread discontent among students at Tehran University.

They organized a peaceful protest against the closure and in support Khatami, but paramilitary groups loyal to conservatives in the regime descended on the university arresting hundreds and killing one student. This incident triggered protests among students throughout the country which was joined by other youths who were generally dissatisfied with the regime.

The 1999 student protests represented the greatest unrest in Iran up to that point since the 1979 revolution, and it would have profound consequences for both the conservatives and reformists. The conservatives’ natural inclination was to put down the protest by force and the paramilitary groups loyal to the regime were able to restore order within a week. Such a response from conservatives was expected, but the actions of Khatami and the reformists deeply disappointed those who wanted them to stand up for the protesters.

At this point in the history of the Islamic Republic, the reformists were committed to changing Iran by working within the regime in a gradual process of reform. Such a mass uprising threatened this process since conservatives might try to crush the overall reform moment if it did not disavow the protests. Moreover, the reformists still believed in the Islamic Republic and chaos on the streets might lead to a situation in which the entire concept of the regime would be threatened.

As Khatami would later say "Am I supposed to declare war against a regime that I accept in principle? I believe that if this regime is gone, it is not at all clear what will follow it - regardless of my religious belief. The people who want to change the constitution and the regime - can they guarantee that once the current regime is gone, Western-style democracy will be established here?"

Since the reformists at this point still had a role in the regime, they temporarily renewed their old alliance with conservatives to restore order in the Islamic Republic. “Despite his deeply held democratic convictions, Khatami proved too much a man of the system” and would criticize the protests as threatening the foundations of the Islamic Republic (Takeyh 2009, 193). The student protests were crushed and the youth of Iran had felt betrayed by the president they had helped to elect. Yet as the reformists were purged from the system in the years to come, they would no longer have an incentive to cooperate in the same way with conservatives to maintain the system.

The student protests was the last time that reformists and conservatives would work together so closely to maintain the Islamic Republic. Although a conservative backlash had started before the student protests, the events of July 1999 helped to galvanize conservatives to use greater authoritarian tactics to regain control of the regime. As a result, conservatives would intensify their crackdown on the reformists not just by closing newspapers, but launching a campaign of arrests and intimidation.

Diplomats Reject Regime

Iranian Diplomats in Europe are rejecting the regime. Here is the story:

A third Iranian diplomat upset with Tehran's post-election crackdown on dissidents has defected in Europe — this time in Belgium, an opposition group said Monday. The announcement came just hours after the No. 2 man at Iran's mission in Helsinki said he will seek asylum in Finland.

The defections are an embarrassment for Iran, which clamped down on citizens after last year's presidential election was followed by large-scale protests and accusations that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won by fraud. Numerous Iranians have been arrested in a continuing crackdown.

The Europe-based Green Wave opposition movement said Farzad Farhangian, press attache at the Iranian Embassy in Brussels, walked out Friday and flew to Oslo. The group's founder, Amir Hossein Jahanchahi, said in a statement that "other defections from diplomats abroad will follow."

It was the third known defection of an Iranian diplomat in Europe this year to protest Tehran's crackdown.

Mohammed Reza Heydari, who was granted asylum in Norway after leaving his post as an Iranian consular official there in January, confirmed that Farhangian had defected in Brussels. Heydari said Farhangian supported the opposition movement that grew out of unrest following the June 2009 election.

"He left the embassy after informing the ambassador that he was leaving and he came here without anyone (else) knowing about this," Heydari said by telephone from Oslo. "Then he contacted me."

No one at the Iranian Embassy in Brussels could be reached for comment after office hours Monday.

Earlier Monday, Iranian diplomat Hossein Alizadeh, who resigned last week from the embassy in Finland, told reporters that he will apply for political asylum in the Nordic country.

"I cannot accept, tolerate this fraud election. The situation got worse because ... my people are being killed still," Alizadeh said in Helsinki. He added that he was no longer a diplomat but "a political dissident," and that he has no political ambitions except to be a member of the opposition.

The Iranian Embassy in Helsinki said in a statement that Alizadeh's term of office had been terminated on Aug. 20. The Finnish Foreign Ministry said that Alizadeh had worked at the embassy in Helsinki since October 2007 and still had diplomatic status. It declined further comment.

"Ahmadinejad is not any more the Iranian leader and he doesn't represent Iran," the 45-year-old Alizadeh said. "Do not take him seriously. He (does) not have any popularity among the Iranians."

He said that since the growth of the opposition after the 2009 election, he "felt confident" that he has "been followed and bugged." His criticism of the regime also led him to worry about the safety of his wife and family who live with him in Finland, including two sons and an eight-year-old daughter.

"Using this language puts me in a situation to look for shelter for myself. I am going to request political asylum from the Finnish government, and here are my passports," he said throwing four of them on a table. "I am going to leave these passports to whoever lets me stay here."

About 2,500 Iranian immigrants live in Finland. Some 300 were granted political asylum in 2008 and 2009, according to official immigration statistics.

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.

Part 9: Reformists Vs. Conservatives

Once the intellectual foundations of the reform movement had been laid out, it was time to puts these theories to use in the Islamic Republic. The reformists had created a civil society to develop their vision of a new Islamic Republic, but they still had to find a way to implement this vision. The elections at the end of the 1990s would give the reformists an opportunity to capture the elected branches of government and bring change.

Yet the possibility of major change to the regime would upset conservatives who saw a challenge to their dominance and to their belief in an authoritarian regime. The conservatives would launch a campaign to stop the reformists from actually making the changes that they had theorized. Ironically, the thermidor period would set the Islamist coalition on a path towards conflict since the regime would soon not be big enough for the both of them.

Conservatives and liberals Islamists still believed in the Islamic Republic, but their conception of what that meant started to drastically drift. While they would continue to compete for power within the same regime, it would become increasingly difficult for them to peacefully coexist with each other. In place of the Islamist coalition, a new coalition would rise within the regime to challenge the liberal threat made up of conservatives who wanted to create an authoritarian regime.

The election of a little known cleric, Muhammad Khatami, to the presidency of the Islamic Republic in 1997 sent shockwaves throughout Iran and the world. For the first time in its history, a candidate not handpicked by the elite of the regime had reached the highest elected position in the Islamic Republic. Moreover, his election with nearly 70% of the vote demonstrated widespread dissatisfaction with the direction of the regime and its authoritarian tendencies.

Khatami’s election was a triumph for the reform movement and marked the culmination of the thermidor period. The period of moderation after the reign of terror allowed liberal Islamists within the regime to challenge its authoritarian bent through contesting elections. Reformist sweeps in the local elections of 1999 and the 2000 Majlis elections would give further credence to their argument that change could come from within the regime.

Indeed, these relatively free elections along with the victory of opposition candidates seemed to demonstrate that Iran had something approaching one of the few pluralistic governments in the Middle East. The period of 1997 to 2000 marked a period in which the regime allowed unprecedented amounts of competitiveness in the electoral system and this resulted in high levels of participation by the opposition and the overall population. Since it seemed like change could come through elections, the reform movement decided to work within the confines of the regime.

Yet Khatami’s election and other reformist victories set off the inevitable backlash from factions within the regime that feared possible liberalization. As a result, the coalition between liberal and conservative Islamists forged in the 1980s to save the Islamic Republic would become strained leading to its eventual collapse. In its place, a new coalition would emerge composed of traditional conservatives and neo-conservatives united in their goal of defeating the reformists and creating a more authoritarian regime.

The conservatives would strike back by vetoing laws and barring candidates from running in elections to undermine reformist efforts at liberalization. The reformists were unable to deliver on their promise of substantive change and the regime largely maintained its authoritarian bent. The masses who had hoped for real change became disillusioned with the reformists and public participation in elections declined considerably after the regime began its crackdown. Under these conditions, the conservatives were able to regain control of regime culminating with the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

While the hardliners were able to stop internal attempts to change the regime, they could not quell the mass public discontentment that had spurred reformist electoral success. The stage was set for another showdown between liberal and conservative Islamists in the 2009 presidential election leading to the complete collapse of the coalition that had maintained the Islamic Republic for 30 years. This period of reformist electoral success and the conservative backlash marks the beginning of the crackdown that would eventually lead to the creation of a fully authoritarian regime in 2009.