|
Iran
The Domination of the Islamic Republican Party
Created in February 1979 by clergy who had been students of Khomeini
before his exile from the country in 1964, the IRP emerged as
the country's dominant political force. Core members included
ayatollahs Beheshti, Abdol-Karim Musavi-Ardabili, and Mohammad
Reza Mahdavi-Kani and hojjatoleslams Khamenehi, Rafsanjani, and
Bahonar. All had been active in mobilizing large crowds for the
mass demonstrations during the Revolution. Following the overthrow
of the shah, the IRP leaders continued to use their extensive
contacts with religious leaders throughout the country to mobilize
popular support. The IRP leaders perceived the secular, leftist,
and more liberal Islamic parties as threats to their own political
goals. As early as the summer of 1979, the IRP encouraged its
supporters to attack political rallies and offices of these other
parties.
Although Khomeini himself never became a member of the IRP, the
party leaders exploited their close association with him to project
a popular image of the IRP as the party following the line of
the imam Khomeini. This implicit identification helped IRP candidates
win a majority of seats in the elections for the Assembly of Experts
that drafted the Constitution. During the 1980 elections for the
first Majlis, IRP candidates and independents sympathetic with
most IRP positions again won a majority of the seats. The party's
effective control of the Majlis emboldened the IRP in its harassment
of opponents. Throughout 1980 IRP-organized gangs of hezbollahis
used intimidation tactics against supporters of other political
parties, and consequently, most of the secular parties were cowed
into silence as their leaders fled to foreign exile.
By 1981 the only political party that could seriously challenge
the IRP was the Mojahedin. This Islamic organization had grown
rapidly in two years from a few hundred supporters to a membership
of 150,000, mostly educated young men and women in the cities,
who were attracted by the Mojahedin's liberal, even radical, interpretations
of traditional Shia concepts. The ideological conflict between
the Mojahedin and the IRP was serious because the former rejected
the IRP argument of a religious basis for the political principle
of velayat-e faqih. In fact, in June 1980 Khomeini denounced
the Mojahedin on account of the organization's insistence that
laymen were as qualified as clergy to interpret religious doctrines.
Although the Mojahedin closed most of its branch offices following
this verbal assault, unlike the secular political parties it was
not easily intimidated by IRP-organized political violence. On
the contrary, Mojahedin members engaged in armed clashes with
hezbollahis. Tensions between Mojahedin and IRP partisans
intensified during the political conflict between Bani Sadr and
the IRP leaders. The Mojahedin lent its support to the beleaguered
president; after Bani Sadr was impeached, the organization rose
in armed rebellion against the IRP-dominated government.
Several of the small leftist parties joined the Mojahedin uprising.
These included the Paykar, a prerevolutionary Marxist splinter
from the Mojahedin, and the Fadayan Minority. The latter had split
from the main Fadayan (thereafter referred to as the Fadayan Majority)
in 1980 after a majority of the party's Central Committee had
voted to support the government. Both the Paykar and the Fadayan
Minority shared the view of the Mojahedin that the IRP was "merely
a group of fascist clerics blocking a true revolution." The Mojahedin
had a much broader base of support than did either of its allies,
but the combined strength of all the parties could not match the
capabilities of the IRP in terms of mobilizing masses of committed
supporters. Thus, the government eventually was able to break
the back of the armed opposition. The Mojahedin survived largely
because its leader, Masud Rajavi, escaped to France, where he
reorganized the party while in exile.
Not all of the leftist parties supported the Mojahedin's call
to arms. Significantly, both the Tudeh and the Fadayan Majority
condemned the insurrection and proclaimed their loyalty to the
constitutional process. Even though these parties were permitted
to function within narrowly circumscribed limits, the IRP leaders
remained deeply suspicious of them. Both parties were distrusted
because of their espousal of Marxist ideas. In addition, a widespread
perception prevailed that the Tudeh was subservient to the Soviet
Union, an attitude derived from the Tudeh's historic practice
of basing its own foreign policy stances upon the line of the
Soviet Union. In the autumn of 1982, toleration for the Tudeh
dissipated quickly once the party began to criticize the decision
to take the Iran-Iraq War into Iraqi territory. In February 1983,
the government simultaneously arrested thirty top leaders of the
Tudeh and accused them of treason. The party was outlawed, its
offices closed, and members rounded up. Subsequently, Tudeh leaders
were presented on television, where they confessed to being spies
for the Soviet Union.
After the spring of 1983, the only nonreligious political party
that continued to operate with legal sanction was the IFM. Prominent
members included the former prime minister, Bazargan, and the
former foreign minister, Ibrahim Yazdi, both of whom were elected
to the first Majlis in 1980. The IFM opposed most of the policies
of the IRP. Whenever Bazargan or another IFM member dared to speak
out against IRP excesses, however, gangs of hezbollahis
ransacked party offices. Bazargan was subjected to verbal abuse
and even physical assault. He was powerless to protect one of
his closest associates from being tried and convicted of treason
for actions performed as an aide in the provisional government.
Although Bazargan was reelected to the Majlis in 1984, he was
barred from being a candidate in the 1985 presidential elections.
In practice, the IFM has been intimidated into silence, and thus
its role as a loyal opposition party has been largely symbolic.
The IRP's success in silencing or eliminating organized opposition
was directed not only at political parties but also was extended
to other independent organizations. Even religious associations
were not exempt from being forcibly disbanded if they advocated
policies that conflicted with IRP goals. Although it emerged as
the dominant political party, the IRP leadership failed to institutionalize
procedures for developing the IRP into a genuine mass party. IRP
offices were set up throughout the country, but in practice these
did not function to recruit members. Rather, the offices served
as headquarters for local clergy who performed a variety of political
roles distinct from purely party functions. At both the national
and the local levels, the IRP's clerical leaders perceived themselves
as responsible for enforcing uniform Islamic behavior and thought.
Thus, they generally viewed the party as a means of achieving
this goal and not as a means of articulating the political views
of the masses. In actuality, therefore, the IRP remained essentially
an elitist party.
The debate within the political elite on power distribution and
economic policy also adversely affected the IRP. Intensified dissent
over economic programs, beginning in 1986, virtually paralyzed
the party. Consequently, President Khamenehi, who had become the
IRP's secretary general in 1981 following the death of Beheshti
and several other key party leaders, decided it would be politically
expedient to disband the IRP. Khamenehi and Rafsanjani jointly
signed a letter to Khomeini in June 1987, in which they notified
him of the party's polarization and requested his consent to dissolve
the party. The faqih agreed, and the political party
that had played such an important role during the first eight
years of the Republic ceased to exist.
Data as of December 1987
|
