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04.02.2010

DEVELOPMENTS ROUND IRAN

   

Sevak Sarukhanyan

At the end of 2009 the instability in Iran caused new demonstrations and encounters. On December 16, taking advantage of the mass arrangements connected with the Ashura, the supporters of the Iranian opposition went out to the manifestations. And the death of ayatollah Montazeri on December 20 who took opposition stance to the current spiritual authorities and his funeral ceremony even more urged the actions of the oppositionists.

The preparedness of the anti-governmental manifestations

The manifestations and encounters which took place in December and January came to prove the actions of the Iranian opposition were rather well prepared. The protests which seemed to be spontaneous at first sight and which passed in almost all the big Iranian cities, undoubtedly, were arranged from one common centre which is proved by the similar slogans, the political posters of the same style and methods of the anti-governmental actions going on in different cities. Besides the opposition managed to provide the regular provision of information about the future protests, encounters and victims in the leading Western mass media, their spreading on the Internet, particularly through the social networks. As a result the opposition succeeded in avoiding information blockade, which, most probably, was arranged not without the help of the third parties.

As for the Iranian authorities they had also been prepared to the manifestations and encounters. Probably, the arrests which had taken place for the recent months, tough interrogations during which even deaths occurred, formed good information base for the Iranian special services and, as a result, on the very next day of the manifestations police and security structures carried out arrests of the most active young oppositionist leaders at their homes thus avoiding more inconvenient street actions and greater number of victims.

While observing the way the Iranian opposition acts, one can suppose that it was formed on the following creed: the manifestation may have a success and force authorities to make serious concessions. Such a supposition can be made on the assumption of the fact that opposition leaders M.H. Mousavi, M. Khatami and M. Karubi supported and joined the demonstrators from the very first day though during the previous months they had demonstrated rather prudent and careful conduct. The relatives of Mousavi and Karubi were also actively involved in the arrangement of the demonstrations. The nephew of the first one was killed during the encounters. At the same time it should be mentioned that during the last months M. Mousavi and M. Karubi visited Iranian regions, most probably, in order to prepare the local active circles to the coming manifestations.

Most probably, the leaders of the opposition believed that the organizational works carried out by them for the recent months, propaganda, the violence used against oppositionists in the Iranian prisons, which factuality had already been accepted by the authorities, would boost the tide of public discontent.

Though, despite this and really large-scale manifestations no public burst took place in the Islamic republic. Putting aside the information repercussions with which another manifestations stage of the Iranian political crisis was presented to the international community, the plans of the Iranian opposition, in our opinion, failed. It can be expected that the Iranian opposition will try to arrange big protest actions in spring, during Novruz celebrations and, probably, in summer at the anniversary of the presidential elections. Those actions will be necessary to maintain the opposition movement till 2010 and 2011, when, respectively, the new local authorities’ elections and parliamentary elections will take place.

Steps made by the authorities

The Iranian authorities took rather composed stance during the recent developments. The spiritual leader of Iran Khamenei made no statement on the days of the encounters.

Only on January 10, during his address in Ghom he made important statements, three of which were the basic:

  1. Everything was arranged from abroad,
  2. the authorities will continue responding the same way to the unlawful actions using all the available means,
  3. none of the opposition’s suggestions would be regarded and the political crisis will be solved in the way the authorities had chosen. That way implies “accord with the will of the people, abiding to the law and the respect to your own history”.

The address of Khamenei was more than confident. It is remarkable that Iranian leader did not even pronounce the names of the main leaders of the opposition, leaving without the answer their “offer to the dialogue and overcoming of the crisis”, which implied the arrangement of the new presidential elections. Mousavi’s offer was only keenly criticized by the speaker of the parliament A. Larijani who characterized it as “an obvious step, which proves the irresponsibility and evasion of the dialogue”. Iranian mass media presented the whole process as a plot arranged by the powers from abroad and characterized a part of those who deceased during the encounters as “the fighters of the terrorist organizations”.

In January yet another important event took place in the domestic political live of Iran: the commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) M.A. Jaafari touched on in details and gave his estimations.

It should be mentioned that after the end of the Iranian-Iraqi war the then president of Iran A.A. Hashemi-Rafsanjani persuaded Iranian elite that IRGC should stay away from domestic political processes and not to make statements of political character.

In M. Ahmadinejad’s time who is supposed to be the representative of the IRGC interests the situation formed at the end of the 80s has started to change. And on January 13, 2010 the commander of the IRGC made the statement of purely domestic political character, not failing to sound harsh estimates concerning the going on processes: “the main aim of the ongoing processes is to weaken the positions of the spiritual leader and to turn his power into simply ceremonial which contradicts to the Islamic nature of our country /…/ Our enemies want to arrange here velvet revolution, want to impact out authorities and first of all the spiritual leader /…/, the fact that a part of our elite has retreated from the values of the revolution is not a new one. But today our enemies spread doubt and distrust among our people using that very persons who were involved before ahead by their local and foreign spies into the economic and political treason. /…/ M. Khatami intended to overthrow M. Ahmadinejad in order to strike a blow to the Leader. That will not happen.”

The fact that the IRGC became one of the most important actors in Iran may show that the power is concentrated in hands of radical conservatives. The continuing arrests, terrorist acts, persecutions will only bring to the centralization of the political power in the hands of power structures, which should be used during the most important event in the political life of Iran – the election of the new spiritual leader. The most crucial question for Iran is who will be the next leader of the country after Khamenei.

It should be mentioned that during the recent developments the oppositionist deputies of the Iranian parliament made more restrained statements regarding the ongoing processes and encounters, this, probably, was a result of pressure the authorities imposed on the representatives of the political powers. The arrests of several of the oppositionist figures had a restrictive effect on the political powers.

Estimating the political situation in Iran, it can be called a political crisis without doubt. But the developments in October and January have come to prove that the actions on the streets and mass protests cannot solve the complicated discrepancies of the authorities.


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