The political behavior of some reformers recently is clearly in conflict with their goal of securing a victory in the upcoming presidential elections.
Three reformists have already officially announced their candidacy for the presidential race in June 2009 (Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karubi, and Mohammad Khatami) and the addition of a fourth one (Abdollah Nouri) is still not ruled out.
While it is still too early to talk about the outcome of the battle between reformers and conservatists, one thing is already clear: The intense battling by the supporters of these reformist candidates - and the other potential ones - against each other, using the few media outlets that are available to them. It is instructive to note that this race includes all the possible confrontations among the candidates’ supporters, i.e. Nouri vs. Khatami, Khatami vs. Karubi, Mousavi vs. Khatami, Nouri vs. Karubi, Mousavi vs. Nouri, etc.
The latest example of these confrontations came when Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the former Iran’s prime minister, entered the race after a 20-year lapse in political activity. The reactions by some reformers to Mousavi’s candidacy were so intense that they gave the impression that these individuals needed immediate assurance that the supporters of the latest competitor would immediately engage in factional infighting. Of course it is only normal to desire to have clear and specific information about the goals and intentions of a new competitor in a presidential race. But for some Khatami supporters to begin questioning the political integrity of Mousavi as soon as they sensed that his return was a serious matter (despite their own protracted calls for him to re-enter politics) is clearly very immature behavior. Specifically, those who until yesterday loudly called for Mousavi to re-enter politics but now repeatedly claim - after he officially signed on - that he does not enjoy “wide public support”, or that he has come to merely step aside later in favor of Khatami, is to completely negate the lessons of the past: particularly to refrain from “promoting avoidable conflict” in a battlefield that is clearly unequal and biased.
Another example is the repeated remarks that expressly or implicitly negate the possibility that Abdollah Nouri may enter the race merely because of the feeling of a “strong possibility that he will be officially disqualified by the conservative Guardian Council”. These individuals do not take into account the consequences of these remarks, which foremost are that they decrease the costs to the government for officially disqualifying Nouri (of course in that event the authorities will argue that his disqualification was a natural outcome that everybody expected). Furthermore, such remarks give the candidate himself and his supporters the impression that there is a consensus against him to run in the race, and thus entering the race and campaigning a useless endeavor. One must not forget that the decision to run or not run, made by someone of Nouri’s caliber - even if his candidacy is disqualified by the regime - can be very consequential in the election and campaign calculations. Even then, whether he decides to run or not run, or who he decides to support and not support, etc will have an important impact on the elections. One cannot ignore the fact that should his supporters turn hopeless, they will revert back to boycotting the elections altogether, as they did in the past.
In this regard, Mehdi Karubi’s position and situation are critical, too. Even his staunchest critics cannot deny the surprise of most political groups caused by the number of votes that he received in the first run of the 2005 elections. It would be irrational to believe that Karubi’s voters may never once again surprise political observers. If reformers believe that the last presidential elections were fair and just, then that is a different story. But if do not, then they cannot ignore that the biggest loser in the 2005 presidential race was Mehdi Karubi, who until just a few hours before the polling stations closed was accepted as the candidate with the second highest votes and who in a matter of just a few hours dropped to the third position with a difference of only 600,000 votes. This eliminated him from moving up to the runoff stage, and we cannot deny that had he gone there, he had a good chance of becoming the president. So one should not expect a candidate who came within a few inches of becoming the next president, but was eliminated by fraud, to simply leave the race today in favor of others without putting up a fight. Even regardless of all of these arguments, but in view of the aggressive campaigning by the supporters of the current administration against reformers, it is really not inconceivable that Karubi may be the only reformist candidate who would be approved (qualified) by the conservative Guardian Council to face the incumbent president.
Of course Khatami’s story is a passionate one as well. The different groups and strands of reformers have a right to be critical of Khatami’s previous record as president. But if they wish to participate in the elections, they probably know that to defeat Ahmadinejad, who enjoys the covert and overt support of executive agencies, key state institutions, elections operators, and Ayatollah Khamenei, they will need a significant lead in the number of votes - sufficient to upset the rigging of millions of votes by the government. So if it is really concluded that Khatami, who has won the highest and second highest votes (1997 and 2001) in the history of Iranian elections, has a potential to win the presidency, then reformers must decide whether they want him to win or lose against Ahmadinejad, and if they believe it is possible to defeat the incumbent president without a significant lead in votes. And finally, they must decide whether it is prudent and wise to defeat the reformist candidate who enjoys the highest votes vis-à-vis Ahmadinejad.
Reformers have hopefully not forgotten how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad found his way into the second round during the last presidential elections, and finally won the race. Under these circumstances and with what we know about the way the state operates, it will be over optimistic towards the current administration to believe that reformers will be victorious in the unequal forthcoming elections, if they continue to engage in their own internal factional battles.
In the current state of affairs, even if all reformist candidates unite and cooperate with each other against the election violations and fraud, they will have an uphill battle, let alone if they are busy battling each other at the same time.
