Elections and the Poverty of Iran’s Political Elite
The events and debates surrounding the presidential election, the arrangement of candidates by the Guardian Council, their programs, and television debates all point to the poverty that afflicts Iran’s political world.
The political poverty of Iran, which reveals itself more with each election, stems from a vicious cycle in which political cadres and elites are trained, develop, and climb the ladder of power.
Three Schools for Training Political Elites and Cadres
In many countries around the world, political elites and cadres are primarily trained through three important experiences or within three types of political schools.
Specialized higher education institutions and elite-oriented academies are the principal centers for the initial and foundational training of political cadres. Elites and cadres undergo their primary academic learning in major fields such as history, philosophy, law, political science, economics, public administration, and sociology within an open university setting without restrictions. Research-based instruction enables students to become acquainted in an open manner with different schools of thought, political models and experiences, and to participate in various scientific and theoretical discussions.
The existence of research centers and specialized institutions, international conferences and scientific seminars, and scientific relations with similar centers in other countries enhance the educational enrichment that should teach students fundamental knowledge and skills, as well as understanding and perspective for dealing with the complex phenomena of today’s world.
Political, professional, and civil organizations constitute another school for learning politics and management at the macro or regional level. Parties and civil groups produce and regenerate their activists and elites during the course of political life. Competition between parties and civil organizations, the necessity of having programs and solutions to society’s problems and challenges, the existence of opposition parties and anti-government forces in society, and think tanks aid in the training, development, and maturation of cadres through practical struggle.
The third school is the practical learning of politics and participation in the political and social life of an open and competitive society. The democratic rotation of power and real participation in the mechanisms of a pluralist democratic society brings forth a network of political cadres from various elections to political management at local, regional, and national levels, cadres who must compete with rivals in the open field of politics and management and test the credibility of their programs and intellectual and practical skills in the field of political action and before public opinion.
Alongside these three main schools, free and independent media also play a continuous educational role. The great advantage of an open and democratic society is the absence of red lines and forbidden subjects, combined with the existence of a real arena for the confrontation and feedback of programs, ideas, and opinions. Political cadres and elites must have practical solutions to discuss and answers to society’s problems and challenges so they can gain the upper hand in the judgment of public opinion.
They must demonstrate in practice that they understand social transformations, emerging phenomena, social demands, international conditions, economic mechanisms, and environmental issues, and that they have thoughts and plans for every field. Aside from rare incidents in the political world of democratic countries, the main body of political cadres gradually develop in this arena of open and intense competition, prove themselves, and carve out a place for themselves in the political world.
In authoritarian countries, these three political schools lose their organic effectiveness and dynamism, and political cadres and elites do not have the opportunity to enjoy open, research-based education and free, competitive development. They do not rise through processes of open and democratic competition but climb the ladder of advancement through ideological relations or through corrupt connections with political rent-seeking. In this way, ideological dependence, non-transparent relations, and bureaucratic mechanisms replace competence, expertise, managerial ability, creativity, programs, and political legitimacy.
It is no accident that fewer thinkers and outstanding political figures emerge in non-democratic countries and society suffers from a type of general political poverty. A poverty that spreads to other areas of human resources and management because when power and management are to be passed exclusively among obedient politicians and administrators, little room remains for creativity, genius, innovation, and development. Despotism fears independent and courageous figures and criticism, and values obedience and submissiveness above expertise, genius, and creativity. The way to survive and advance in a closed political system is through self-humiliation, being humiliated, and being dominated by the “system’s grandees.”
The Vicious Cycle of Training Political Elites
The experience of over three decades of the Islamic Republic exemplifies the pathological training and development of political cadres and elites in Iran. The imposition of a religious order and the absence of a free and democratic space have caused the cycle of training and regenerating political elites to be defective and highly ineffective.
Compared to open and democratic countries, universities in Iran, particularly in the fields of humanities and social sciences, do not function conventionally. Since 1979, despite the imposition of the Cultural Revolution and ideological and political control, the Islamic Republic has remained distrustful of the university system and has pursued the establishment of institutions such as Imam Jafar Sadiq University, Malik Ashtar University, Tarbiat Modarres University, and Imam Hussain University with the goal of training committed and doctrinal political, technical, and scientific cadres.
However, the highly ideological atmosphere governing these institutions and the selection of students based on narrow-minded political and religious criteria have in practice meant that despite the allocation of considerable resources, their performance, particularly in training political and administrative cadres, is very weak. Graduates of these Iranian centers, who should have formed the main body of trained government and administrative elites, in practice do not possess much effectiveness compared with students from the country’s main universities or those who studied abroad. The “elite” products of this group trained in an ideological environment are people like Saeed Jalili.
The absence of stable and independent political parties and organizations and the closure of the democratic space have caused political cadres to be more present in unclear and non-competitive relations in the political arena, and the regeneration of elites to proceed very slowly. In Iran, instead of independent parties and civil organizations, hidden networks of power, godfathers, and non-elected institutions manage the shuffling of political pieces and cadres. Non-elected institutions, from military forces to the “leader’s household,” unelected assemblies of Friday prayer leaders, religious chanters, and religious leaders have effectively taken the place of parties and civil organizations and have made it impossible for cadre formation and the training of elites within a conventional cycle.
Finally, the engineered political space, highly limited democracy, and security approaches greatly reduce the possibility of constructive and creative competition among tendencies and cadres and learning through political action. Electoral competitions face structural limitations that stem from the role of the leadership institution, the Guardian Council, the judiciary, and the limited open media space.
The religious order and government red lines, the unquestionable nature of the doctrine of guardianship of the jurist, its custodians and godfathers, and non-elected institutions impose a kind of ideological ceiling on the political space. The existence of forbidden subjects and red lines paralyzes society in thought and even creates a kind of schizophrenia in political behavior among cadres and elites because they cannot say everything or must not raise certain realities, and sometimes must even speak and act contrary to their actual beliefs. This ideological ceiling, restrictions, and fear result in political cadres having little room for creative development and learning.
For the Guardian Council, the principal criterion in filtering electoral candidates is not credibility and transparent legal mechanisms and the legitimacy of discourse and political projects, but rather the degree of obedience to the doctrine of guardianship of the jurist and the absence of intellectual independence. In such a political system, those who proceed so far in self-deprecation and the denial of individual personality that they consider themselves “dissolved in guardianship” become slaves to those in power.
Even those who want merely to “obey” the doctrine of guardianship of the jurist do not enjoy complete trust, and the sword of Damocles of censorship and elimination constantly hangs over their heads. Those outside the system have no place in political life as “counter-revolutionaries,” “anti-doctrinal,” “deviant,” “liberal,” “seditious,” “short-sighted,” “opposed to the doctrine of guardianship of the jurist.” Thus, over the past three decades, many political cadres and elites have become homebound, imprisoned, or emigrated, and the sphere of politics in Iran has become progressively poorer with the continuous loss of cadres and elites.
The Display of Political Poverty
This shocking political poverty in Iran can be clearly observed in the political competitions and debates of recent weeks among candidates. Which of society’s fundamental issues are raised openly and critically? Major problems such as economic stagnation, environmental crisis, widespread corruption in the economic sector and administrative and judicial apparatus, political limitations and the performance of the Guardian Council, human rights violations, the state of education and youth, the critical conditions of minorities and the existence of various forms of discrimination, women’s issues, the extensive involvement of the Revolutionary Guards in the economy and smuggling, foreign policy in the region, the intricacies of capital flow and the policies of vast foundations, and the interference of the leader’s representatives in all executive affairs have rarely become matters of open and transparent discussion.
Electoral candidates mostly create an environment through metaphorical, insinuating, and veiled language, insinuation and vague promises, or general and even threatening approaches in which determining facts, the credibility of a critique, or a project is very difficult.
The poverty of cadres and political elites, the poverty of political action and thought, underdevelopment, the poverty of credible projects for changing Iran’s situation, are the consequences. Iranian society has paid a heavy price over the past decades for this paralytic political poverty. If elections in democratic countries are a fundamental opportunity for reviewing and criticizing the past and the emergence of new figures and programs, in Iran the closed circle of power, attempts to engineer elections, unwillingness to accept the rules of democratic play, and the structural limitations of elections increasingly transform elections into a display of political poverty.
Source: Radio Farda
