The year of 2009 was a tumultuous year in Iranian politics. It all started when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected in the country’s 10th presidential election held on 12 June. The election results were contested by all three defeated candidates, two of whom, former Prime Minister Mir Hussein Mousavi and the former speaker of parliament and senior cleric Mehdi Karroubi, became leaders of the nationwide opposition movement. Clashes took place between opposition supporters with the security forces and pro-government militia on Quds (Jerusalem) Day in September 2009, and violent anti-government protests in late December were triggered by the death of Grand Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri, a dissident cleric and opponent of the government. The size and intensity of anti-government demonstrations in the second half of 2009 reached significant levels unprecedented since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Iranians had had enough of government repression, and the fraudulent June elections results were the last straw.

The Interior Ministry reported that a total of 39 million votes were cast, which represented about 85 per cent of the Iranian electorate eligible to vote. This is an unprecedented turnout of voters in either parliamentary or presidential elections in Iran. In the 2005 presidential election Ahmadinejad won 17 million votes and in 2009 he won a huge 24 million. It is not entirely clear where all those extra votes came from. There is also a lack of regional variation of support for any one candidate. For instance, the official election data states that Ahmadinejad did surprisingly well in both urban areas (including Tehran, where he is thought to be highly unpopular) and rural areas, which represents a sudden shift in support for Ahmadinejad across the provinces in comparison to the 2005 election. Moreover, even in the native province of the opposition candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi, East-Azerbaijan, Ahmadinejad won the majority of votes.

It is quite difficult to evaluate exactly how and to what extent the June elections were violated because no international observers had monitored the elections. External election observation and analysis was further impeded by the fact that the authorities had expelled most of the foreign journalists from Iran and restricted mobile and Internet communication in the country around the election time. However, the results of the elections triggered a massive response. Tens of thousands of opposition supporters took to the streets on Quds (Jerusalem) Day in September, the 30th anniversary of the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran in November, and on National Students Day in early December. According to the opposition movement more than 70 of its supporters were killed since June. This figure is obviously disputed by the Iranian authorities. By the government’s own estimation, 15 people were killed (surprisingly, this figure was later reduced to eight) and more than 1,000 protesters were arrested during the December riots. According to the opposition, there were numerous cases of illegitimate arrests. There were reports of fierce repression by the authorities towards the protesters, including senior opposition figures, prominent dissidents, and intellectuals.

We fast forward nine years and not much has changed. Iran has remained authoritarian and corrupt. Fraud and embezzlement costs the economy over $34 billion a year. Despite oil revenues going up sevenfold between 1979 and 2011, a larger proportion of Iranians are living in poverty than before the 1979 revolution. Efforts by civil society groups and regime soft-liners within the regime to expand democratic freedoms and enforce the rule of law have been blocked by regime hard-liners. Not long after the Green Wave movement began, the movement lost its momentum and all attempts to reform were harshly repressed. Scholars were noting that democratization in Iran, if it were to take place, would likely require a revolution (Parsa, 2016).

Not surprisingly more protests rocked Iran starting in December 2017 and continuing into 2018. The protests initially focused on the economic policies of the government, but later expanded to centre on regime change and removal of its long-time Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. At least 21 protesters and two security force members were killed, while another 3,700 demonstrators were arrested.

In spite of the lack of democratic reform, the protests indicate that Iran is suffering from legitimacy problems. Mass mobilization and demands for more civil and political freedoms and, hence, more democracy, are considered by scholars of democratization as crucial factors accounting for collapse of authoritarian regimes and establishment of democracy (see Chapter 2). In fact, the recent democratization literature maintains that in most cases democracy is achieved when ordinary people struggle for it against reluctant undemocratic elites and mobilize in such numbers and so universally that the state authorities cannot suppress them easily. Pro-democratic mass beliefs and people’s valuation of democratic freedoms, known as emancipative values, provide a powerful motivational force for the mobilization of mass opposition in authoritarian regimes (see Chapter 9). Therefore, as actor-based theories of democratization suggest, even the most outright authoritarian regimes with sophisticated repression apparatus are not immune to the emergence of mass opposition with strong desire for democratic freedoms and belief in the illegitimacy of the existing regime.

Can one be optimistic about recent protests in Iran and hypothesize the change in mass beliefs of average Iranians in favour of democratic rights and freedoms? Could this then lead to further liberalization of the regime and its subsequent democratization? In the most optimistic scenario this could definitely be a possibility. The problem, however, is that it is very difficult to collect public opinion data in Iran. Due to severe restrictions of civil and political rights, much of the population is understandably afraid of answering any questions directly and refuses to participate in opinion polls, whereas more indirect ways of polling, such as via telephone and the Internet, risk collecting unreliable and unrepresentative data. In any case, a lot will depend on what the opposition will do next: will it continue to mobilize and increase its support basis, or will it side with the government in one form or another? The former strategy is more likely to lead to further loss of legitimacy and instability of Iran’s authoritarian regime, which in turn would open certain opportunities for democratization of the country. The latter strategy will, unfortunately, represent a step backwards in Iran’s aspirations to democratize.

Reference

Parsa, M., 2016. Democracy in Iran. Harvard University Press.

Critical thinking questions

• What do recent anti-governmental protests in Iran tell us about the nature and dynamics of undemocratic states?
• How can an authoritarian regime be undermined internally? Discuss by looking at the Iranian case.
• What is the role of mass mobilization and opposition in democratization processes? Explain why in some cases mass mobilization and opposition are not sufficient factors to bring down an authoritarian regime.
• Why can the rise of emancipative values in the Iranian society be beneficial for future liberalization and democratization of the Iranian regime?
• Imagine that you are a member of an opposition movement in Iran. What should you do in order to mobilize more people into your movement? Should you negotiate with the authorities? Why?