GET OUT THE VOTE:

The Battle for Iran's Future (BAGHER ASADI, 1/07/04, NY Times)

The town council elections of last February, which had an astonishingly low turnout of 10 percent to 15 percent in Tehran and other major cities, should have served as a national wake-up call. The conservative ticket was victorious simply because it is very good at getting its supporters to the polls. The low percentage of voters clearly signaled a deep sense of political exhaustion and disenchantment with the status quo.

Yet the conservative bloc and its authoritarian fringe — which had seen a succession of devastating defeats from 1997 to 2001 — were emboldened by last year's result and have set their eyes on recapturing the Parliament next month. Should this happen, the immediate result would be that President Khatami's hands would be tied for the rest of his final term of office, which expires in 2005.

In the longer term, the conservatives see parliamentary victory as a step to a total consolidation of the governance structure, which they hope could be sealed in the presidential elections in 2005. This even though conservative control of the Majlis would inevitably widen the gap between the overwhelming majority of the populace and those wielding power. In addition, the conservatives' blatant disdain for human rights and republican aspects of governance, among other things, would inevitably invite outside censure and further complicate an already tenuous relationship.

The conservatives' best chance next month is another low turnout. Thus we have seen a wide range of political and propaganda campaigns that have been accompanied by legal and pseudo-legal administrative measures, including stringent new vetting procedures intended to disqualify prominent reform candidates in Tehran and other big cities.

The best hope for the reformers is a high turnout, which could be spurred by an active participatory campaign and, more important, a heated national debate on just what this election means to the future of the country. The likely turnout is very difficult to predict or even analyze at this stage.

Thus with the widespread disenchantment with official policies and the bubbling restlessness among the growing ranks of the youth, it is not hard to fear the future direction of events in the case of a conservative victory. A determined drive for total power by the conservative coalition has the potential to ignite an intrinsically explosive situation. If history is any indication, anachronistic campaigns, let alone follies, more often than not turn sour and backfire.

Getting as many Iranians as possible to turn out and vote should be the focus of Western policy and rhetoric. This is a chance for the people of Iran to stage a democratic revolution.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 7, 2004 08:52 AM