"Crocodile v the Shark" - Iranian elections

I thought this would be a good read for, and give a little insight to, people who view Iran's government as a monolithic institution. It puts the power structures and struggles into perspective.

Some highlights:

"Rafsanjani, aka "the shark", remains the chairman of the Expediency Council and virtually the regime's No 2, behind Supreme Leader Ali al-Khamenei and ahead of Ahmadinejad. Iranian pop culture, with a tinge of Discovery Channel, delighted in describing this as the battle between the crocodile and the shark."

"Yazdi is also the spiritual mentor of the Hojjatieh, a sort of ultra-fundamentalist sect whose literal interpretation of Shi'ite tradition holds that chaos in mankind is a necessary precondition for the imminent arrival of the Mahdi - the 12th hidden (since AD 941) Shi'ite imam who will come to save the world from injustice and widespread corruption. Ahmadinejad may not be a Hojjatieh himself, but he understands where they are coming from. "

(scary stuff, reminds me of the psychotic apocolyptic, Zionist supporting, Christians in America. It seems that the Neo-Cons, both in Iran and the US share a common interest: Chaos, death and destruction for the creation of a new world order.)


"Yazdi has been trying a different strategy - to take over the Council of Experts from the inside and then overwhelm Khamenei. It's fair to argue that Khamenei has played a very deft hand. He firmly supported Yazdi before the 2005 presidential election, but lately has rallied his followers - and the full machinery of the system - to keep Yazdi and his protege, Ahmadinejad, under control."    

Full article: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HL19Ak04.html

I don't see Iran as a dictatorship, per se. It is a theocratic democracy. Seems somewhat oxymoronic, I know, but at the end of the day people do have some capacity in forging direction, domestically.

I really hope this Yazdi nutjob and his followers and protege's are dealt with soon.

--

"The world isn�t Florida and the U.S. isn�t its Supreme Leader
On municipal elections in Iran"

Author: "Behrooz Ghamari is a professor of history and sociology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He can be reached at bghamari@uiuc.edu. He is the author of the forthcoming book Islam and Dissent in Postrevolutionary Iran."

http://www.iranian.com/Ghamari/2006/December/Elections120/index.html




I think you will like this article Hugo.

Thanks for the article, Zagros. It is an interesting insight into Iran.


So, how much liberty do opposition candidates have in Iran? How does the theocratic democracy works?

Here is an official illustration of the power structure:

I read that piece. It was good.

So let me see if I understand correctly: the unelected institutions functions as a check on the elected institutions.

The power of the supreme leader is not direct, then, but inderect, through his power of veto against candidates. But once the candidates have been approve, their election runs as a democracy, right?

Does the supreme leader can draft legislation, or can it only veto it?

Thanks! So the supreme leader is really not that different from earlier version of the US president: elected indirectly through a small group of electors, commander in chief of the military forces, and with veto power. The main difference is that it seems that the supreme leader can potentially have the job for the rest of his life, and that it cannot create legislation directly.