Iran: From Westernization to Theocracy – 2024-03-01 20:59:52

For the first time since the mass protests that took place in September 2022, following the killing of Mahsha Amini by police for not wearing her headscarf properly, the citizens of Iran are invited to go to the polls.

These elections concern the selection of the 290 representatives of the Iranian people in the legislative body called the Islamic Consultative Assembly, whose history goes back a long way, namely in 1906 when it was founded, to acquire its current form in 1980, a year after Islamic revolution that overthrew the Shah’s reign and established the country’s current theocratic regime.

In its current form, the body of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, whose last election took place in 2020, consists of 227 deputies of the conservative coalition, while only 20 are the deputies of the so-called reformist faction. In addition to these, 38 are independent members, while there are also 5 positions which are shared among the country’s religious minorities. Specifically, two positions are provided for the Armenians and one each for the Assyrians, the Jews and the followers of Zoroastrianism.

The political history of Iran

But how did Iran go from a completely secular regime in the 1960s and 70s to the deeply theocratic country we know today? The history of the country is very rich and is lost in the depths of the centuries. Regarding the first decades of the 20th century, however, Iran was marked by the rise to power of the Pahlavi dynasty. It was in 1925 that Reza Shah overthrew the Qajar dynasty in a coup d’état and was named shah, to be succeeded, after his abdication in 1941, by his son, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi.

But after the intervention of foreign powers and the overthrow of the popularly elected prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in 1953, Pahlavi’s rule became highly authoritarian. Through the demonstrations against the dynasty, which it should be noted was promoting the westernization of the country, with a series of modernizing reforms, such as the right to vote and be elected to women in 1963, the figure of Ayatollah Khomeini emerged.

In a series of his texts, Khomeini proposed a new form of government, transforming Iran into a theocratic Islamic state and power in the hands of the clergy. Through the events of the Islamic revolution of 1979, Khomeini, as a pioneer and head of the Shiite clergy, emerged as supreme ruler of Iran, simultaneously possessing religious qualities based on the new Iranian Constitution. The Revolutionary Council imposed a regime based on a strict interpretation of the Koran, which exists to this day.

The situation today

With the theocratic regime established, in fact the ruling faction is that of the conservatives, who do not desire any kind of modernization and insist on the strict enforcement of the principles of Muslim law. Opposite them are the reformers, who support a range of liberal values, such as Democracy, Human Rights, Freedom of the Press and the Rule of Law.

But with the exception of the period 1997-2005, when the reformist Mohammad Khatami was also in the presidency of Iran, the conservatives have absolute control of the country, which has led many times to Iran’s relationship with the US and the Western world in general at an extreme point. In fact, Iran was the most sanctioned country in the world until it was overtaken by Russia after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Nothing is expected to change in Friday’s election. The conservatives are expected to retain control of the vast majority of seats in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, largely because of the obstacles the regime continues to place on opposition candidates who want to contest a seat. The Iranian people, however, are expected to give their own thunderous message, in memory of Mahsa Amini and in favor of democratic reforms, by abstaining from the elections. In fact, according to international analysts, abstinence is very likely to reach record levels.