KHATAMI ENTERS PRESIDENTIAL RACE, SAYS WOULD PRESENT NEW PROJECTS, CONTINUE REFORMS
By Safa Haeri, IPS Editor
TEHRAN 4 May (IPS) As Iranian embattled President Mohammad Khatami registered
on Friday as a candidate in the coming presidential elections due 8 June, ending
months of speculations and hesitations, analysts were puzzled how, under present
conditions, he could fulfill engagements he was not able to do in the past four
years, due primarily to the allergy of the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i,
to any democratic reform.
Speaking to Iranian and foreign correspondents at the Interior Ministry after having signed in his name, an emotionally overwhelmed Khatami acknowledged he was not sure to run for another mandate, "but pressures from the people and my friend changed my mind".
"There was talk that I doubted whether to stand, and it is true. The origin of my doubts was the future, and concern about the future, of the revolution and the nation, and I am still concerned. I would have preferred to serve the nation and the people outside of the presidency", he said.
With tears in his eyes, Hojjatoleslam Khatami repeated the majority of the of the problems he has been confronted with in the past four years were "outside the scope of the government and the president and were imposed on us from outside", but, as he had done before, he failed to identify the trouble-makers, saying: "The alert conscience of our people needs no explanation of that. They know".
"They rule the country for 1400 days and nights and right at the end, here they come and says one can not solve all the problems in one nights. Is it not funny", wrote the conservative weekly "Shoma" (You), the official organ of the League of Islamic Associations, a hard line organisation that controls the influential bazaar and is reported to have also the ear of Mr. Khameneh’i, quoting Mr. Hamidreza Tarraqi, one his members.
Mr. Khatami, now 57, said he would continue to go forward with his reform programs, promising to present his projects in the near future, based on "new conditions, situation and priorities", which he did not elaborated.
In one of his first anti-Khatami speeches, Mr. Mohsen Reza’i, the former Commander of the Revolutionary Guards had advised Mr. Khatami that if he wants to achieve anything during his second term, he must change his projects and program
"I have always tried to keep my promises. We have made some major gains, but have also had some major difficulties. Many have suffered and there is a still a risk that others will be abandoned to their fates. I must admit that we were not up to the task, and I will not forget the obstacles, the difficulties and the suffering. But for the future we must have long-term projects to make up for these weaknesses", he observed.
Mr. Khatami was referring to the tens of influential journalists, prominent personalities, ministers, intellectuals, scholars, some of them among his closest friends, who are languishing behind bars for having worked hard to implement wide-range reforms he had promised during his electoral campaign four years ago.
"Just like the people, what I have always wanted is democracy. I think that democracy has taken root in Iran thanks to the (Islamic) revolution. But this new experience must conform to the culture and the religion of our country", the President said, adding: "It is natural that there are problems both inside and outside the country. To reach our goal -- the reign of democracy in Iran -- we must deploy major cultural means".
But analysts said this is exactly where Mr. Khatami, and most of Iranian reformists are wrong. "Khatami wants to reconcile water and fire, shade and light, day and night. He does not want to admit that these elements are irreconcilable. It is the same with democracy and Islam. They are not compatible with each other and Mr. Khatami does not has the courage to choose one", noted Mr. Hooshang Vaziri, the Editor of the London-based Persian weekly newspaper "Keyhan".
"It's only as a religious democracy in our country that our society will be saved and preserved. In our country there is a link missing, because of the separation between the people and power. A revolutionary must try to fill that lack, and it is in doing so that we will serve the republican character of our regime. It is with that desire as well as great hope that I came to the presidency four years ago", he further said.
While the long-awaited decision of Mr. Khatami was broadcast immediately by all the world’s radio and televisions and the evening dailies, the leader-controlled "Voice and Visage of the Islamic Republic" (Iranian RTV) remained silent, as nothing has happened.
So far, more than 200 people, including for the first time three women, have registered, with most them expected to be rejected by the Council of Guardians, a twelve-member watchdog appointed by the leader to wet all candidates whether they conform with Islamic standards.
In the 1997 elections, where Mr. Khatami was elected with a landslide majority, receiving more than 20 millions of the 30 million voters, the CG had retained only four names out of 200, including the young, but relatively unknown Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami.
Some prominent candidates so far registered are the former intelligence minister Hojjatoleslam Ali Fallahian, who is under an international warrant, Chancellor of the Islamic "Azad (Free) University Abdollah Jasbi, Mrs. Farah Khosravi who is the first woman to stand for president in the history of the Islamic Revolution, Mr. Qasem Sh’leh Sa’di, a lawyer and a former MM (Member of the Majles) rejected by the CG at the last Legislative elections and Mr. Sa’id Raja’i Khorasani, a former Envoy to the UN in New York.
Though most analysts agree that Mr. Khatami would be okayed anew by the CG, yet some said it was "wiser to wait and see", as the councilmen, all leader’s "yes men", have a record of rejecting candidates they had wetted before.
Khatami's intention to stand for president will clear the ground for a more lively race, placing the conservatives in front of a difficult choice, political analysts said, observing that the faction has until Sunday to present its nominee.
"Conservatives, unhappy with the decision of Mr. Khatami, have now but two choices left: To call on the Council of Guardians to reject Khatami and approve one of the candidates they will present instead, a choice that has a very high cost, or to try to scatter the votes that might to go to Khatami in order to deprive him from a democratic legitimacy", commented Mr. Mehdi Khalaji, an independent political analyst based in Paris.
In his view, the most threatening danger to Khatami’s position as number one winner comes more from the reformist camp than the conservatives.
"If a reformist like Mr. Ebrahim Asqarzadeh is to enter the race and is said to have also the blessing of Mr. Sa’id Hajjarian, considered as the architect of the victory of Mr. Khatami in 1997 elections, he might attract a good number of the voters, mostly the students, women and the young ones, all very unhappy withMr. Khatami’s passive record", Mr. Khalaji argued.
During his tenure, Khatami has suffered myriads of setbacks.
The Islamic Judiciary has shut more than 40 newspapers, mostly pro-reform, in the past year on orders from Ayatollah Khameneh’i.
Asked why Khatami had accepted to seek a new mandate, Mr. Khalaji said in the last review of their situation, the reformists had reached the conclusion that if Khatami does not run, it would be interpreted as the Second Khordad Coalition has stepped back, an interpretation that not only would wipe out all the reformists had achieved in the past four years, but also flush them out of the nation’s political scene, while the presence of Mr. Khatami in the arena would mean hopes to see one day a vistas open to the horizon are not fully dead.
For Mr. Farhad Khosrowkhavar, a Professor at the Ecole Superieur des Sciences Sociales of Paris, the blows the conservatives have dealt the reforms, manipulation of the bills and laws passed by the Majles, interjection of the Judiciary in the political life of the country and the leader’s interferences in running the affairs of the government etc. have all "emptied the reforms contents, knocked out the reform project".
Noting that the legitimacy of the ruling theocracy has been destroyed, that the Islamic regime has lost all credit, but, on the other hand, the people’s mind and sould have been wide opened, Mr. Khosrokhavar joins other experts, saying the conservatives, after having lost their last chance that was Mr. Khatami and the reformists, must expect a "dangerous crisis, a clash that would place the regime and the society in direct collusion course".
Approved candidates are to start their election campaigns on May 19 up to June 6, that is, a total period of 19 days. The campaign period ends two days before the Election Day.
Under the country's elections law, a bona-fide candidate must be "a political figure, of Iranian origin, of the official state religion (Shi’a Islam), faithful to the cause of the Islamic Republic and the concept of velayat faqih, or the rule of the religious leader."
Some 42 million Iranians are eligible to vote out of a population of 62 million.
Born in the southern desert city of Ardakan in central Yazd province, the 57-year-old cleric holds a master of art in philosophy. He achieved his academic degree on the eve of the 1979-Islamic Revolution.
Following the triumph of the revolution, led by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Khatami was installed as the head of Islamic Center in Hamburg, Germany.
In 1980, he was elected to the first Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) to represent Ardakan. A year later, Mr. Khomeini appointed him as the managing-director of the evening daily "Kayhan", now a mouthpiece of the hard-line intelligence and security agents.
Khatami served as the minister of culture and Islamic orientation in the cabinet of then Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and then former president Ali Akbar Hashsemi Rafsanjani since 1982 until 1992 when he resigned under conservative pressure.
Since then, he served as Head of National Library for four years and, on approval from Mr. Khameneh’i, also as a member of the Supreme National Security Council. ENDS KHATAMI CANDIDACY 4501