IRAN’S MOST prominent moderate politician will throw his hat into the ring for his country’s upcoming presidential elections, a former aide has predicted.
Former president Mohammad Khatami, who reached out to the West during his term with a call for a “Dialogue of Civilisations”, has been toying for months with the possibility of competing against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the June 12th elections.
Now, says former aide Mohammad Ali Abtahi, Mr Khatami almost certainly will run because another prominent moderate appears to have backed out.
“My prediction is that within a few days president Khatami will announce his candidacy,” Mr Abtahi said. “Khatami cannot afford not to run. He has to run now.”
Mr Khatami (65), has been quoted as saying that either he or former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi would run as a candidate for the “reformists”, as those within Iran’s establishment who hope to broaden democracy and moderate the country’s policies call themselves. News reports over the last few days have indicated that Mr Mousavi might not run.
Conservatives within the country’s ruling elite publicly hold the reformists in contempt but appear to fear Mr Khatami, who is remembered fondly by many Iranians and is respected by diplomats worldwide. He heads a Tehran-based think tank called the International Institute of Dialogue among Cultures and Civilisations.
“If Khatami does not run, there will be no chance for reformists to win,” Fazel Maybodi, a reformist cleric, said late last month.
The Obama administration has wanted to reach out diplomatically to Iran as a way of resolving disputes between the two countries over a number of issues, especially Tehran’s controversial nuclear programme. But analysts say he should refrain from doing so with Mr Ahmadinejad as the country’s figurehead, lest it be seen as rewarding his militancy and belligerent rhetoric against Israel and the West.
Mr Khatami, a soft-spoken former culture minister, sought to ease Iran’s strict restrictions on public life and calm tensions between the Islamic republic and the West. He frequently talks about the benefits of democracy, recently calling it “the least costly, most beneficial way to rule”.
Both Mr Khatami and Mr Abtahi, his former aide, are Shia Muslim clerics who are being politically eclipsed in Iran by a new generation of men with backgrounds in the military or the Revolutionary Guards, an elite branch of Iran’s armed forces.
The ranks of the emerging leaders include Mr Ahmadinejad, who already has announced his decision to run again.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been Iran’s highest political and religious authority for nearly 20 years. The ayatollah ultimately calls the shots on major foreign policy and security decisions and generally sets the parameters of domestic public debate.
Analysts say a decision by Mr Khatami to run would show that he had enough confidence in the system to grant him the possibility of winning.
Mr Khatami won 1997 and 2001 elections by huge margins, and his allies in parliament trounced conservatives in 2000.
But many of his attempts to moderate Iran's foreign and domestic policies were thwarted by hard-line conservatives who controlled other branches of government, and conservatives returned to power. Mr Khatami was constitutionally barred from running for a third consecutive term in the 2005 presidential election. – ( LA Times-Washington Postservice)