Two Years after Purple Promises: Rohani’s rhetoric still rosy?
Rouhani has invested his political capital largely on nuclear negotiations’ strategy. This has brought him fierce opposition among the Principlist camp, yet support from the pro-Reformist voters. The winner of this battle will most likely win the next presidential election.
By: Ali Attaran
In his press conference on 12th of June 16, 2015, President Rouhani assured that his administration will stand by every promise that it has made. What were these promises? Saving Iran’s economy, morality and interaction with the world according to Rouhani, although a significant portion of those who voted for him in the 2013 presidential election may remember him with other promises.
Among the Iranian presidents, Rouhani holds the narrowest margin of victory. But looking at his path towards Pasteur, the presidential residence, this may not be regarded as a weakness. Polls reported of a very low popularity for Hassan Rouhani in the Spring of 2013, and his formal nomination for the post was not even certain.
Yet, developments all turned out in his favor in the next two months. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was banned from entering the contest. Qalibaf, among the most hopeful to win the election, missed his chance with a series of political gaffes, and Saeed Jalili, then chief nuclear negotiator, unexpectedly decided to joing the race, helping Rouhani to polarize the election over nuclear negotiations. Finally, the only openly Reformist candidate, Mohammad Reza Aref, withdrew from the election and reluctantly lent his weight to the 64-year old cleric. Rouhani gained 50.7 percent of the votes and was announced the winner of election.
For a politician who was known within the higher echelons of power more than among the common people, the first months of governance bore significant popularity. The modern, quasi-secular urban population who were traumatized by the 2009 presidential election and the ensuing turmoil were happy to see anyone but Ahmadinejad in power; thus, the “Thank you Rouhani” memes that circulated around early weeks after Rouhani’s presidency. Five months after his victory, an interim agreement with P5+1, five permanent members of the UN plus Germany, on Iran’s nuclear program also created a promising image of the administration.
Nonetheless, Principlist elements that were one step away from ousting all the Reformist and quasi-Reformist rivals from Iran’s political scene after 2009 have clearly been not happy. Hopes for them, arguably the kernel of the Islamic Republic, to finally control the executive (Ahmadinejad was never a comfortable partner) was dashed with the election of a centrist, pro-détente president. Unlike the surprise election of Khatami in 1997, the Principlists were not shocked this time and their media started their relentless criticism of the government soon after Rouhani entered Pasteur.
Against these tough opponents, Rouhani seems to practice defiance with different levels of intensity. Although his rhetoric has been unprecedentedly strong and harsh, like the time he asked his critiques to ‘go to hell’, he seems to be less resistant in domestic politics then in foreign diplomacy. His minister of higher education Reza Faraji Dana, one of the few Reformists of his cabinet, was impeached and removed by the parliament, particularly on charges of easing the return of Green elements to public universities. The Damocles sword of impeachment has been hanging over the heads of several ministers of Rouhani, who have to regularly attend the parliament and justify their conduct. Calls for ‘conquering’ the parliament by pro-president and reformist forces just make the situation tense.
The major battle between Rouhani and opponents is over his key electoral promise, and Iran’s toughest diplomatic undertaking since 1979, the nuclear talks. Calculated or not, Rouhani has allowed the nuclear talks hog his political agenda. This is where he shows his mettle and where rivals have also mustered the larger share of their force in order to counter what they see as his faulty negotiation policy. Principlists believe that Rouhani, once Iran’s top nuclear negotiator himself, and his foreign minister Javad Zarif, are making excessive concessions and compromising Iran’s security by agreeing to allow for an unprecedented regime of inspections. Both sides see victory in this battle as the trump card to ensure victory in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections.
The nuclear issue is also the site where Rouhani has tried to cover one of his biggest vulnerabilities, lack of a popular base. As much as he is established as a seasoned politician in the higher levels of Iran’s politics, the Iranian president lacks a clear-cut social base. A significant part of his success in the presidential election owed to his alliance with Reformist and Green caucus, but his failure to fulfill promises catering to this group, release of Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi from house arrest the most important of them, has led to some level of disillusionment. However, it seems unlikely that pro-Reformist voters abandon Rouhani in the upcoming elections, since looming threat of the return of Ahmadinejad’s is enough for them to stand by Rouhani.