Iranians protest the election results

Iranians took to the streets again today to protest Friday's contested election results, while defeated reformist candidate Mirhossein Mousavi continued to level accusations of electoral fraud. Critics of the regime, however, continue to stress that presidential elections are of little consequence since real power in the Islamic Republic is held by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"On the nuclear question, it's very clear that the ultimate decision maker is Ayatollah Khamenei," said Mahsen Milani, an Iranian expert at the University of South Florida, in an interview with Fox News. "The central question of security or war and peace is not in [Ahmadinejad's] domain. It's unambiguously in the domain of the supreme leader."

This is because Iran has a unique quasi-democratic system of government. While the country does hold presidential and parliamentary elections, all of the candidates have to be specifically approved by the Guardian Council. The council is composed of 12 members, six of whom are appointed by the supreme leader, while the other six are nominated by the head of the judicial system of Iran, who is appointed by the supreme leader as well. The supreme leader has many other powers:

The quasi-democratic nature of Iran's government has led many to question the legitimacy of the system itself. "They try to keep people occupied with this fake political system on the outside while they run a corrupt government in the background, and to entertain this system is to just indulge in their corruption," said Iranian-American Keyvan Mehrabi in an interview with FrontPage Magazine. "Iran is not a democracy. Don't forget that."

Despite the fact that Iran may not be considered a true democracy, it does appear to fit the definition of a republic. The word "republic" is often used to describe a state that is not led by a monarch. Political philosopher Nicolo Machiavelli argued that there are really only two types of states. "All states, all powers, that have held and hold rule over men have been and are either republics or principalities," wrote Machiavelli in The Prince. Yet, the term is often used in political science to describe a system of government similar to the Roman Republic. One that is a combination of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy.

In the Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, Machiavelli advocated a republican form of government and he uses the Roman Republic as his example of the ideal form of government. Machiavelli admired the Roman style of government for a number of reasons. First, it's what led Rome to become a flourishing empire that withstood the test of time. If un-contained political conflict often results in a change in the state's system of government, then systems that have endured a long time must clearly do a good job of containing said conflict. Secondly, republics are designed to divide power between various groups within society. For example, the Roman Republic divided power between the one, represented by the Consul, the few, represented by the Senate, and the many, represented by the Tribunes and Assemblies.

Similarly, the Iranian constitution shares power between the supreme leader, the aristocracy (represented by the Guardian Council and other appointed bodies), as well as the people (represented by parliament and the president). The American presidential system was also designed in a similar manner with the president, Senate, and House of Representatives representing the three centers of power respectively. In fact, while the U.S. constitution guarantees "every State in this Union a Republican form of Government," it does not guarantee democracy. Yet, the seventeenth amendment to the U.S. constitution transformed the Senate into an elected body and the distinction between those who reflect the interests of the aristocracy and those who represent the people has become increasingly blurred.

The American system of government makes it difficult for small parties and independents to get elected and a high percentage of seats in congress see very little turnover. In effect, the political elite have become the new aristocracy, leaving one to wonder who's left to defend the interests of the people. Does this make Iran more republican than the U.S.?

Not if the accusations of electoral fraud are true. The supreme leader already has a tremendous amount of control over who is able to run in elections. If he has used his power to determine the outcome of the election as well, then the people are left without representation and the entire system is exposed as a sham.

Cross-posted on The Shotgun Blog

Share Link:

• Add New
• Search
• RSS

Comments (0)

Write comment

Your Contact Details:

Name:

Email: do not notifynotify

Website:

Comment:

Title:

UBBCode:         -color-aquablackbluefuchsiagraygreenlimemaroonnavyolivepurpleredsilvertealwhiteyellow -size-tinysmallmediumlargehuge

Message:

Security

Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

Joomla components by Compojoom