Raisi And Rouhani Could Face Off In Iran’s Assembly Of Experts Election
Behrouz Turani
Iran International
Iran International
While many expect a dull Iranian election in March, some anticipate a notable showdown: Hardliner President Ebrahim Raisi against his predecessor, Hassan Rouhani.
The competition, however, does not take place in the parliamentary election, but in the simultaneously held Assembly of Experts where 88 clerics will be elected to a body most likely to determine Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's successor at one point during its 8-year term.
Iranian journalist Ehsan Mazandarani's tweet highlighted the potential for a competition between Raisi and Rouhani should they both decide to run in the Tehran Province. Both individuals currently serve as members of the Assembly of Experts in the Tehran Province. It's worth noting that the Tehran Province has 16 representatives in the assembly, whereas the Province of Semnan has only one delegate.
Readers speculated that the Guardian Council might even disqualify Rouhani for the election to make sure that Raisi can make it to the Assembly smoothly without having to face Rouhani who appears to be more popular among the voters. A safe way out of trouble for Rouhani would be naming himself a candidate from his birthplace province of Semnan.
This makes sense, another reader pointed out, only if Iranians bother to take part in the March 2024 election. The latest two elections in Iran, the parliamentary vote in 2020 and the presidential election in 2021 had turnouts barely over 20 percent in most constituencies. That was too low in a country where an election turnout less than 60 percent was considered too bad.
The disqualification of reformist and moderate candidates and the government's overwhelming biased campaign in favor of hardliners such as Raisi are said to be the reasons for the low turnout. With the massive protests in 2022 many observers are led to believe that the situation is likely to be even worse in March.
While there is significant concern among politicians regarding the parliamentary election and its turnout, there is a noticeable absence of discourse regarding the Assembly of Experts, where competition is minimal. Few Iranians can name three or four Assembly of Experts members, and even fewer are aware of the body's activities. Over the past 30 years, Khamenei has not permitted the assembly to scrutinize his performance. Rather than the Assembly supervising the leader's activities, it is Khamenei who imparts guidance to the Assembly of Experts during their annual meetings.
Some politicians, such as the Parties House Chairman Manouchehr Mottaki have politely and cautiously reminded that before deciding whether to take part in the elections or not, the people will look at the government's performance. What he meant was possibly the adverse impact of people's unhappiness about the government's economic performance which has made life difficult for nearly all walks of life in Iran.
Mottaki said that many Iranian political parties and their leaders fear that the March 2024 elections are likely to have low turnouts. Meanwhile, his comment about "some of the parties willing to take part in the elections," indicated that some of them may not be interested in the elections for the time being.
Equally pessimistic about the upcoming elections was hardliner politician Bijan Moqaddam who is close to the powerful core of the Islamic Republic. He said in an interview with Nameh News that the government's performance will have an impact on the election turnout. Meanwhile, to downplay the importance of the two last elections' extremely low turnout, Moqaddam said that the high turnout in the previous decades have raised people's expectations.
He remarked, "There are approximately six months left before the elections, and the government's actions could potentially stimulate increased participation." Moqaddam may have placed undue optimism in the Raisi administration's capacity to bring about positive change within this relatively brief timeframe.
During a speech on Monday, Bagheri-Kani leveled criticism at opponents of negotiations, accusing them of stripping the regime of a vital and crucial “instrument for securing national interests.”
His remarks came amid an ongoing debate among the country’s politicians regarding the approach towards international negotiations over the country’s nuclear program. Bagheri-Kani's support for diplomatic interactions with the West seemed contrary to what his political camp was pushing for when hardliner Saeed Jalili was the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (2007-2013) and former president Hassan Rouhani held office (2013-2021).
Bagheri-Kani was a protégé of hardliner Jalili, who was traditionally opposed to any accommodation with West and has been playing an influential role among Iran's hardliners who were incessantly attacking Rouhani over the JCPOA nuclear deal.
But Bagheri-Kani now maintains that Tehran sees negotiations as a vital means to secure national interests. “The redline in criticizing the government’s foreign policy is safeguarding national interests, not individuals or institutions,” he added.
“Foreign policy is not a realm of emotions but rather a field of beliefs, rationality, and intelligence," Bagheri-Kani said addressing a group of university professors. He pointed out that some try to portray "security and development" as being in conflict with "commitment to ideals and values," explaining that “sustainable security and development" is, in fact, contingent upon "adherence to ideals and values."
In a clear jab directed at hardliners, he said, "Those who, under the guise of defending values, seek to portray negotiations as fundamentally opposed to values are essentially aiming to deplete the regime's hand in utilizing this key and vital tool for national interests,” he stated.
Emphasizing that there is no obstacle to the talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement --officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), he said, "The Islamic Republic of Iran sees no obstacle to resuming negotiations and finalizing an agreement if the other parties act realistically and prevent repeating the past mistakes."
"The administration has never blocked the path to diplomacy, negotiations and efforts to secure the national interests through achievement of a balanced agreement," the senior diplomat said.
World powers were in talks in Vienna for 11 months in 2021-2022 to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The negotiations collapsed in March 2022 over Tehran’s demands that the Revolutionary Guards be removed from a US list of foreign terrorist organizations and ‘guarantees’ to cushion its economy and nuclear program from the US again leaving the accord. The Biden administration has been striving to bring the United States back into the JCPOA, a deal that was previously abandoned under the Trump administration.
Recently, Washington and Tehran reached a contentious agreement, whose details have been concealed from the public as well as lawmakers in Washington. The deal entails the release of five American prisoners detained in Tehran in exchange for five Iranian prisoners held in the United States as well as the release of $6 billion of frozen Iranian assets.
As a first step in this deal – which followed a two-year mediation effort by Qatar and Oman -- Iran on August 10 released four imprisoned US citizens from Evin prison into house arrest, where they joined a fifth already under home confinement.
These include businessman Siamak Namazi, 51, Emad Sharqi, 58, and environmental activist Morad Tahbaz, 67, who holds British nationality in addition to Iranian citizenship. The identities of the fourth and fifth Americans who either left prison or were under house arrest have not been disclosed.
Earlier in the day, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, IAEA's Rafael Grossi, said that bilateral talks between Iran and the United States could "provide clarity" and be beneficial.
Speaking at a news conference during the International Atomic Energy Agency 's (IAEA) 35-nation Board of Governors meeting in Vienna, Grossi acknowledged that Washington has informed the International Atomic Energy Agency of confidential talks with Iran, but he clarified that he is not privy to the details. He also added that Washington might be discussing the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal with Tehran but the IAEA has a host of outstanding issues with Iran, including monitoring of its nuclear activities.
The move will allow the funds blocked in two South Korean banks to reach Qatar without violating US banking sanctions imposed on Iran. According to the State Department document, Secretary of State Blinken determined that waiving the sanctions was in the national security interests of the United States.
Sources told AP that Blinken had approved the waiver last week, but Congress was only informed on Monday.
Both Washington and Tehran since announcing the prisoner release deal in August were hinting that the prisoner release deal and the unblocking of the funds were separate issues, but the waiver document clearly links the two as one agreement.
"Allowing these funds to be transferred from restricted Iranian accounts held in the (Republic of Korea) to accounts in Qatar for humanitarian trade is necessary to facilitate the release of these US citizens," the document said.
The news about the waiver came hours after an EU Commissioner expressed deep concern over the situation of Johan Floderus, a Swedish diplomat detained in Iran more than 500 days ago.
Floderus seems to be yet another victim of Iran's 'hostage diplomacy'. His case was kept secret for a long time by Sweden and the European Union in the hope that silence would secure his release.
On Monday, Ylva Johansson, the EU Commissioner previously responsible for Floderus's work, publicly addressed his case for the first time. "I'm very sad. I'm very worried," she said, “let’s hope that we can have him home soon”.
The long-kept secret of Floderus' plight first came to light in a New York Times report on 1 September. Shortly after, his family broke their silence and set out some details of his mistreatment in prison, including 24-hour lighting in the cell and over 300 days in solitary confinement.
Floderus turned 33 in prison last week.
In a statement published by a Swedish newspaper, Floderus’ family said he had spent some time in Iran on EU official business and had no issues. Sometime in early April 2022, he went back to Iran for vacation with his Swedish friends. On 17 April, he wanted to fly back home but was detained at Tehran’s international airport.
It’s not clear if Floderus had been advised against traveling to Iran on a personal capacity.
He has now joined a long list of foreigners and Iranian dual-nationals who in recent years have been detained in Iran and used as bargaining chips to force prisoner exchange or financial concessions.
Early August, four US dual-nationals were released from prison into house arrest in Tehran. Blinken said at the time that the move was the first step of a process to fly them home.
Opponents of the prospective deal say it encourages the Islamic Republic to detain more American and EU citizens.
Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a former Pentagon official, is a vocal critic of what seems to be the current EU/US policy towards Iran.
In a piece for Washington Examiner on Monday, he wrote: "When Iran brings a gun, Biden and his European partners wave cash. No wonder it is open season for Americans and Europeans worldwide."
Rubin lamented the 500-day silence over Johan Floderus' detainment and suggested that the authorities in Iran are looking to "trade him for Hamid Nouri".
Nouri is a former official of the Islamic Republic Judiciary who was arrested in Sweden and is now serving a life sentence for his involvement in the mass execution of up to 5,000 Iranian political prisoners in 1988.