Iranian Candidates and Coalitions Prepare for Elections
Iranian presidential candidates are increasingly representing economic rather than political interests amid signs of the beginnings of coalition politics, writes Kourosh Avaei.
Iranians will go to the polls on June 14, 2013, to elect a new president. Two unprecedented phenomena catch the observer's eye in the months leading to the polls:
- The enormously high number of serious candidates running
- The coalition politics that have emerged in anticipation of the final nominations
In mid-April, more than 30 serious candidates had already been directly or conditionally nominated. This is new, as in the past, very few serious contenders had emerged who could genuinely mobilize votes in Iranian elections. There are different explanations for this profusion. One can analyze it as Hassan Rouhani (himself a leading candidate) did in an interview when he said that since the election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "everyone thinks that he could also run and win elections. Therefore, we have many hopefuls.” — in other words, the success of Ahmadinejad in winning the 2005 election as a “no name” has lowered the entry bar in assuming the presidency.
However, the real explanation is to be found in the fact that Iran’s power has been fragmented during Ahmadinejad's two terms. This fragmentation happened for various reasons, but most importantly, Ahmadinejad paved the way for marginal networks to enter the center stage of Iranian politics as he tried to isolate or marginalize the networks of power that ruled Iran in previous decades. He succeeded in the first effort, but failed in the second (which is visible in the fact that former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is still a viable political force in Iran).
Consequently, the Islamic Republic has a fragmented power structure in which all existing networks fear being undermined or isolated by the competing networks and power centers. The result is attempts by all networks to nominate their own candidates and test their own abilities to mobilize support, as opposed to risking marginalization after the elections. Even, if they fail, their ability to mobilize support could in some cases make them immune to future attempts of marginalization.
