DATE=8/3/1999
TYPE=BACKGROUND REPORT
TITLE=KHATAMI ANNIVERSARY
NUMBER=5-43994
BYLINE=ALI JALALI
DATELINE=WASHINGTON
INTERNET=YES
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: This week (Aug 3), Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami completes his second year in office. Elected
on a reform mandate, the moderate cleric was believed
by many people inside and outside Iran to embody the
aspirations of a growing movement for change in the
country. But, as V-O-A's Ali Jalali reports, two
years after his inauguration, Mr. Khatami's reform
agenda faces increasing opposition from conservative
forces in the ruling clergy.
TEXT: The closing days of President Khatami's second
year in office saw the worst social unrest in Iran
since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Last month's week-long demonstrations by pro-reform
students and the brutal suppression of those
demonstrations by the police and hardline vigilantes
capped a long-standing struggle between opposing
factions in Iran. The showdown pitted pro-Khatami
reformists against right-wing clerics clustered around
the supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali
Khamenei.
Relying on their control of most of the state
institutions - including the parliament, the
judiciary, the Army and the security forces - the
conservatives have sought, for the most part
successfully, to impede the growing campaign for
democratic changes. With most public institutions
controlled by the conservatives, the moderates have
reacted by pursuing their efforts for reform in the
emerging independent press and through public rallies
and demonstrations.
The recent student unrest was sparked by efforts of
conservative parliamentarians to impose new
restrictions on the pro-reform press. It was these
restrictions that provoked the student demonstrations
that the police suppressed.
Geoffrey Kemp, the director of Regional Strategic
Programs at the Nixon center (in California), says the
student demonstrations and the government crackdown
that followed served as a wake up call for both sides.
/// KEMP ACT ///
Both Mr. Khatami and the conservative opposition
were very shaken by the recent events in Tehran
-- both the student unrest and the brutal
suppression of the students by the vigilante
forces. And my guess is that both the moderates
and the conservatives are reassessing their
positions at this time and probably have decided
they don't want to see this issue come to
another confrontation at any time soon because
both sides will lose.
/// END ACT ///
Following last month's unrest, President Khatami
renewed his election pledge to promote social reforms
and the building of civil society. However, he
criticized the way the student demonstrations
developed into street riots in Tehran. The campaign
for political development, he stressed, should not
undermine the rule of law and the underlying
principles of the Islamic revolution.
Critics say that Mr. Khatami slowed the momentum of
the reformist movement by joining the conservatives in
suppressing the pro-reform demonstrations. According
to the critics, while the Khatami government says it
wants change, it is really working to reinforce the
clerical system and not to dismantle it. A recent
editorial in a U-S paper, the Boston Globe, says that
like the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mr.
Khatami plainly wishes to save the faltering political
order by reforming it. Patrick Clawson of Washington
Institute for Near East Policy says the comparison
between the two leaders makes a lot of sense.
/// CLAWSON ACT ///
I certainly think that President Khatami like
President Gorbachev is completely committed to
the system, to the Islamic republic, and his
goal is very much to strengthen the Islamic
Republic. And the big question is whether or not
in the end the opening that Khatami is engaged
in will result in the collapse of the system or
will instead strengthen the system.
/// END ACT ///
But French analyst and a long-time Iran watcher
Olivier Roy cautions against drawing parallels between
Khatami's Iran and Gorbachev's former Soviet Union.
He says unlike Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Khatami is the
people's choice and not an insider. Further, he says,
there is a consensus among all factions about the
validity of certain aspects of Iran's Islamic
revolution, which are going to survive any reform.
/// ROY ACT ///
In the Soviet Union there was no civil society,
there were no elections, no freedom of press
and things like that. In Iran at the time of
the election of President Khatami there was a
certain freedom of expression and there were
elections so we have a political scene in Iran,
we have political space which didn't exist in
the Soviet Union.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Khatami has supported democratic changes in Iran
without changing the rule of law. He favors building
a civil society through peaceful campaign and
political persuasion. Therefore, say his supporters,
during the past two years, he has had to walk a tight
rope between public demand for change and anti-reform
resistance by the ruling conservative clergy.
Many analysts of the Iranian political scene argue
that acts of reform, no matter how modest they may be,
will eventually chip away at the conservative power in
the system. They say, it is going to be a slow and
incremental process. Geoffrey Kemp says this
assumption - bringing change slowly -- constitutes the
basis of Khatami's reform strategy, but he questions
whether it will work.
/// KEMP ACT ///
It is difficult to see how you can have a
pluralistic democracy with all the freedoms Mr.
Khatami is talking about while at the same time
relying on a system of government that gives
supreme authority to Mr. Khamenei who only takes
his directions from God. And this whole issue
of the power of the Supreme Leader is the
essence of the debate about the Iranian
constitution and the future of the Islamic
Republic.
/// END ACT ///
Mr. Kemp says economic reform in Iran is even a more
urgent issue than democratic reform. However, he
adds, no profound recovery can be achieved without
political and legal adjustments that attract foreign
investment and thereby diminishes the power of
stagnant state-owned conglomerates (Bonyads).
Looking ahead, analysts see no immediate changes in
Iran's power structure. The reformers seem unwilling
to risk violent confrontation while the conservatives
are cautious in using full force against those seeking
reforms. But Geoffrey Kemp says the situation might
change dramatically in the not too distant future.
/// KEMP ACT ///
I would say in the coming years, that is to say
the next two-to-three years, there has to be a
fundamental change in Iran away from the strict
authoritarian, almost mediaeval beliefs of the
conservatives. Because Iran's economy, Iran's
youth, Iran's women all demand change. That is
not to say however that in the immediate short
run, the next two-to-three months or a year,
there could not be a repression and the clock
could be turned back.
/// END ACT ///
During the next six months, the opposing factions are
expected to campaign intensely for next February's
Majlis (parliament) elections. A major victory by
reformers could lead to deeper changes through
constitutional amendments. But there is no doubt
conservatives will fight hard to maintain their
control of the Majlis. (Signed)
NEB/AJ/
03-Aug-1999 12:54 PM EDT (03-Aug-1999 1654 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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