The Tenth Parliamentary Elections and Alliances Without a Plan

The Tenth Parliamentary Elections will be held at the end of the year 1394 (2016) and alliances and coalitions have begun weeks ago, more than a year before this event. How do these alliances differ from previous ones and what vision do they provide for the Tenth Parliament? Will the confrontational stance of the Parliament against Rouhani's government in recent months, including leaving the Ministry of Science without a minister, affect the outcome of next year's elections? The coalition of 'seditionists' is centered around Mohammad Khatami, Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Nategh Nouri. This coalition is influenced by the 1392 presidential elections and it was hard to imagine such a coalition before 1388 (2009) and even during the 1390 parliamentary elections. Rafsanjani and Nategh are more trusted by Khamenei than Khatami, but Khatami has not given up on trying to gain his trust. Khatami has even implicitly apologized for the need to activate reformists close to him (not explicitly repenting for the 1388 protests): 'Every movement may have mistakes, and we do not deny our mistakes.' (Etemad, November 1, 2014) However, Khamenei and the IRGC no longer have the patience to deal with the problems of engaging with reformists in the executive branch. The fate of the Ministry of Science during Rouhani's term, with three rejected ministers (Mili Monfared, Nili Ahmad Abadi, and Fakhruddin Danesh Ashteyani) and one impeached minister (Faraji Dana), reflects this approach. Reformists hope that the increasing rift between the Ninth Parliament and Rouhani's government will help change the composition of the next Parliament, but the Guardian Council will act against this. Government reformists who unofficially boycotted the Ninth Parliament elections are now forming their electoral committees and examining how to participate in the elections and the nature of their electoral activities. They will soon (in Azar or Dey) hold their electoral gathering under the title 'The Great Reformists' Conference.' Meanwhile, newly established groups like the second generation of reformists (Neda, which has not yet received its license from the Ministry of Interior) are examining their chances of mobilizing reformists behind them in the upcoming elections in the context of the ban on the activities of the Participation Party and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. They are hopeful for success due to Sadegh Khrazi's proximity to the leader's office. The 'Shariati' coalition, which is supposed to be formed around Misbah Yazdi (leader of the Stability Front), Mohammad Yazdi (secretary of the Society of Teachers), and Mohammadi Kermani (representative of the Combatant Clergy Association in the absence of Mahdavi Kani, who will likely assume the title of secretary-general), represents three groups: militaristic Islamists, Rabani Salars, and jurisprudentialists, all of whom share common views on Shariati. Meetings for forming this coalition have been ongoing since the split of the 92 elections, but the work of this coalition is difficult due to deep disagreements between Misbah and Mohammad Yazdi and Mohammadi Kermani. If the pragmatic coalition (under the title Moderates) or, as their opponents call them, 'seditionists' manage to reach a unified list of candidates for the Tenth Parliament elections, the opposing side will also be forced to form a coalition and present a unified list. In this expected coalition, divergent factors are also evident. The party that Ali Larijani and his associates are trying to establish, which is claimed to want to fill the void left by Mahdavi Kani, will likely have more differential impacts than collective effects. The 'deviationists' coalition began the day after Ahmadinejad left the Pasteur Street, with his associates trying to return to power. However, they do not take the Parliament seriously because they know that the Parliament has no role in the political structure and does not hold money. Also, the government can completely ignore the Parliament in the same way that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad managed it, and nothing will happen. Ahmadinejad and his friends also know that they can buy members of Parliament very cheaply. According to the lawyer of Mohammad Reza Rahimi, Ahmadinejad's first vice president, he paid money to 170 or 180 members of the authoritarian Parliament during the eighth parliamentary elections. (ILNA, November 4, 2014) The group known as the deviationists (from the perspective of their authoritarian allies) is currently busy holding meetings, visiting Ahmadinejad's constituencies, engaging in media activities on websites, and negotiating with potential collaborators (like Sadegh Khrazi) for the upcoming presidential elections. Ahmadinejad's efforts to contact Khatami are also aimed at the upcoming presidential elections, not the Parliament. The 'reactive' coalitions indicate a divergence in relations among political groups in Iran. In periods when groups feel that their main rival has little chance, they tend to diverge among groups close to them (ideologically and in lifestyle). Reformists felt this way after the second Khordad (May 1997) and participated in the second city council elections with complete fragmentation, losing without oversight. Authoritarians also felt that the reformist faction was no longer competitive after the 88 elections, which is why they entered the 92 presidential elections with complete fragmentation. Thus, the formation of coalitions on either side of the political competition depends on the formation of coalitions on the other side. What is missing in discussions about the Tenth Parliament elections are three topics of interest: 1) those who want to participate or not (like Mohammad Reza Aref and Nategh Nouri); 2) the parties, coalitions, and factions that are formed (like the transformation of the Stability Front into a party, the formation of the second generation of reformists or Neda, with Sadegh Khrazi being their more famous figure, and Ali Larijani's party); and 3) those who are disqualified by the Guardian Council (all those who can be labeled as seditionists). However, even in a single word, there is no mention of programs and policies. No newly established or previously established party wants to approach this public allegiance with a program. It seems that political competition based on programs and policies aimed at solving people's problems (such as educational, health, poverty, unemployment, addiction, insecurity issues) will be ruled out in the post-88 election period because, first, competitors know they cannot do much and lack the power to make promises based on programs and change the existing conditions. Second, the country's policies and programs are already clear and dictated by the leader's office. In this regard, coming with a program and policy would be a kind of interference in the leader's work, which candidates do not want to do. The foreign policy factor: Mohammad Javad Zarif pointed out in October 2014 in New York to encourage Westerners to conclude negotiations that if the negotiations do not succeed, opponents of Rouhani's government may gain a majority in the Tenth Parliament. This tactic is intended to scare the West from harsher and more rebellious Islamists against softer Islamists who have little power in the government and must plead and mention threats and dangers similar to those of ISIS to convince them for negotiation and reconciliation. He, of course, did not mention that in the Ninth Parliament, opponents of the government also hold a majority and only voted for some members of his cabinet due to Rouhani's vote and not delaying the government's work. Some of Rouhani's like-minded colleagues also refer to this issue in their political notes in foreign media. The essence of this matter is correct that if Rouhani's government fails to reach an agreement, the pragmatic faction will be weakened in the upcoming elections, but the absolute power of the authoritarian faction, with Khamenei at the helm, will remain intact. The difference between the presence and absence of the pragmatic faction is not even in the number of executions, arrests, and suppressions; the difference lies in the tone and rhetoric of the executive branch officials towards foreign diplomats (and not even Iranian citizens). The reduction of corruption during Rouhani's government can be better explained not by a change of government but by a change in the government's oil revenues. The outlook for the Tenth Parliament: The existing coalitions and the lack of programs in the coalitions do not provide a vision for change in the future Parliament. The only variable that can make the next Parliament somewhat different is the success of the nuclear negotiations and the pragmatists or the Hashemi-Khatami-Nategh coalition riding the wave of this success to gain a majority in it. Conversely, if the nuclear negotiations do not succeed and sanctions continue, that part of the Shariati faction that has so far cooperated with Rouhani's government will lean more towards the Stability Front, and the Parliament will maintain its existing composition.