The Washington Post

By John Ward Anderson Saturday, May 26, 2001; Page A20

Islamic Democracy's Power Politics

As Iran's Election Nears, Key Issue Is Accountability -- to the Public, or to God?

TEHRAN, May 25 -- What do you call it when an appointed group of 12 religious scholars and clerics vetoes the bills of an elected, 273-member parliament? Or when judges close newspapers for insulting the judiciary? In Iran, it is called Islamic democracy, a concept that this country has been experimenting with for 22 years, a mixture of the rule of people and the supremacy of God.

"We are trying to establish for the first time both a religious and democratic country," said Abolfazl Fateh, head of the Islamic Students News Agency. "I believe that in the short time we've had, compared to the thousands of years of rule by monarchs, we've made big achievements. But in fact the establishment of a religious democracy as the unique example in the world needs more time."

The United States and other Western democracies largely pattern themselves after the model that Abraham Lincoln described as "government of the people, by the people, for the people." Although Iran holds elections, the government's actions are subject to the approval of high-level Islamic clerics and scholars. The rule of democracy is permitted only to the extent that it conforms with Islamic doctrine, which gives the final say to the Koran, Islam's holy book. As a result, Islamic democracy shows both a democratic face and an authoritarian one.

In practical terms, that means that running Iran, like running any country with a divided government, is all about power politics. Conservatives control the Islamic side of the state, which is the more powerful because under the constitution, every aspect of life must conform with Islamic principles. Reformers, having won about 70 percent of the vote in the last three elections, control the elected side of the government. The conservatives claim their governing mandate from God; the reformists claim theirs from the people.

The arrangement has led to clashes between the reformist-controlled elective institutions -- particularly parliament and the presidency -- and the appointive institutions controlled by religious conservatives loyal to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. These include the judiciary, the military and security services, state-run broadcasting and the 12-man Guardian Council, a sort of upper house-cum-supreme court that reviews all laws approved by parliament to ensure they pass Islamic muster. The council also reviews candidates for elective office. "When you place the word 'republic' before 'Iran,' then you have to accept the public vote. But there are some religious authorities who do not accept the public will," said Grand Ayatollah Ali Korani, a moderate cleric from Qom, a center of Islamic study, who has compiled a database of religious books for the computer-assisted study of Islam.

"I find seven or eight sources of power and decision-making in Iran, with limitations of authority that are not defined in the constitution, that are acting in a parallel way and that need to be defined," he said. There are critics on both sides who deplore the idea of an Islamic democracy and may yet kill it. On the far right, hard-line religious scholars favor a religious dictatorship, saying that Iran's constitution and the Koran give them the divine right to rule. On the far left, radical secularists see "Islamic democracy" as a contradiction in terms that will be resolved only through the complete separation of mosque and state. In the middle is the vast majority of Iran's 65 million people, torn between devotion to Islam and an intense longing for freedom and democracy. On June 8, they go to the polls in a presidential election that should indicate where their sympathies lie.

The battle lines are drawn between reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who is seeking a second term, and nine challengers, most of whom are conservatives. Analysts expect Khatami to win handily. "We're promoting the idea that this election is not for a certain individual, but for a certain stream of thought: the one in favor of our [moderate] reading of democracy and Islam," said Mohammad Reza Khatami, the president's younger brother and a leading reformer in parliament. Reformers are not challenging Islam, as conservatives claim, "unless it's the type [the conservatives] are after," he said. "We believe in the type of Islam that never, ever allows us to interfere with the private lives of individuals. . . . Some people may consider [the state-sponsored killing of dissidents] a way of worshiping God and getting closer to God. But the kind of Islam we believe in considers that a crime."

But with its all-inclusive oversight authority, the religious part of Iran's power structure consistently blocks the initiatives of the elected part.

"When the conservatives lost the democratic bodies [during elections], they gave up using democratic means and started a new game and made an undemocratic struggle out of it" using the institutions under their control, said Tehran political analyst Amir Ali Nourbakhsh.

The Guardian Council, for instance, has vetoed numerous "un-Islamic" bills passed by parliament, including raising the legal marriage age for women from 9 to 15, guaranteeing criminal defendants the right to have an attorney present during trial, and facilitating the start-up of newspapers.

Iran's judiciary also has been accused of abusing its powers and politicizing the legal system by closing 40 newspapers and magazines and arresting scores of reformist journalists, students and other political activists.

Reformists claim the Guardian Council and judiciary are thwarting the democratic will of the people, who they say elected them to legislate a more modern and tolerant Islamic state.

"The Guardian Council is not accountable, and in fact if there was room for its accountability to the public, the current situation would be a lot different," said Ali Reza Nouri, a leading reformer in parliament, charging that the council vetoes bills for political reasons, not Islamic ones. "That's the main point of contradiction and conflict between us," he said. "I personally believe those who oppose reform don't really care for religion. They care for their own power rather than Islam."

Ebrahim Azizi, secretary general of the council, denied that its decisions were based on anything but a pure reading of the Koran and Iran's constitution. Lawmakers "do their very best, but in fact they are not experts in this field. The members of the Guardian Council are those qualified" to interpret Islam and the law's adherence to it, he said. Under different circumstances, that could allow for more liberal readings of Islam. But there are strong dictatorial currents among the arch conservatives who control much of the religious side of the state, and these leaders argue that they -- and all Iranians -- are accountable only to God.

When parliament objected to the way the judiciary trampled on the rights of the press, for instance, Tehran's top judge, Abbas Ali Alizadeh, said the body had no right to interfere in judicial affairs.

"Why do you raise questions about legal proceedings for the sake of a bunch of so-called reformers and newspapers?" he asked, adding that the media had a duty not to publish articles "that might weaken or insult the judiciary." Two weeks ago, he attacked some reformers as "valets of the United States" and "ignoramuses . . . who shout about why this or that paper was closed."

Another influential hard-line cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, said the government should regulate the content of the news "just as it checks the distribution of adulterated or contaminated foodstuff." There are signs, however, that the conservative strongholds are gradually yielding to public demands for moderation. In the past two weeks, high courts overturned the death sentence of a leading liberal cleric and reduced to six months the 10-year prison sentence of Akbar Ganji, Iran's top investigative journalist, who exposed the government's role in the killing of political dissidents.

And in a surprise move, the Guardian Council reversed a decision by its chief electoral board that had disqualified almost all of the reformist candidates running for 16 open seats in parliament.

"The game has started, and this is a very positive phenomenon in our society," said Nouri, the reformist member of parliament. "In the end, public opinion will impose its demands, and they will gradually spread over all of the country's institutions."