Update #12

On Saturday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's supporters were the chief beneficiaries of the parliamentary elections held in Iran. The current president's faction, known as the Principalists, maintain a strong majority in Tehran.

This victory, however, does not obscure the fact that the elections which took place were anything but free and fair. While Iranian citizens were indeed allowed to cast their votes for candidates running for office, their choices were severely constrained by the mullahs, or religious leaders of Iran. Though somewhat removed from the day-to-day politics, the Revolutionary Council, headed by the Supreme Ayatollah Ali Khameni, is the ultimate power in Iran. The Guardian Council, an arm of the government under the mullahs, has veto power over the slate of candidates in national elections.

Anyone wishing to run for public office in Iran must first be vetted by the Council for loyalty to the current regime.[i]

As one might imagine, this makes internal political change a near impossibility; the system is set up to sideline politicians interested in reform and reward hard-liners who favor keeping Iran isolated from the outside world.

A similar system is in place for presidential elections, which has been characterized as A chance for voters to choose between a hard-liner, a radical hard-liner, and an extremely radical hard-liner.

Under this system, the mullah-guided Guardian Council stripped hundreds of reform-minded candidates from the parliamentary ballot. Aside from Ahmadinejad supporters, the only factions which benefited from the elections were other hard-line politicians.

Despite the corrupt and authoritarian system, over sixty percent of Iranians--millions of people--participated in the elections, a testament to the Iranian people's desire to govern themselves. Unfortunately, while the people desire participatory democracy, their leaders are unwilling to relinquish their hold on power.

At this point, the stage has been set for a power struggle between Ahmadinejad and other hard-line factions in Tehran. Despite increasing criticism over his tendency to direct oil revenues towards public projects in an attempt to direct attention away from the Iranian economy, the anti-American demagogue remains in power.

Meanwhile, the reformists have once again, been marginalized by the very system they are attempting to overhaul. While reform-minded politicians vow to continue the "struggle toward a further open society," [ii] for now it seems that once again, the mullahs have succeeded in sealing the regime off from outside influences--most especially the influences of its citizens.