The 2009 Elections and Iran ’ s Changing Political Landscape

Iran’s June 2009 elections set into motion four processes that are central to the operations of the Islamic Republic regime. They include: the growing gap between large sections of Iranian society from the Islamic Republican state; the steady militarization of the political system; the unprecedented degree to which the Supreme Leader has become an active partisan in the increasingly bitter political infighting among regime insiders, and—most significantly—the violent disruption of an emerging set of ‘‘rules of the game,’’ that previously served as a safety check against excessive factional infighting. This last consequence of the election and its aftermath is likely to leave its most enduring imprint on the State. Specifically, the elections have taken Iran from manageable factionalism to the brink of complete political paralysis. As such, given the untenability of the State’s present predicament, far-reaching changes are almost certain to come. I t is no exaggeration to argue that the June 2009 presidential elections in Iran marked a significant watershed in the political history of the Islamic Republic. Although the elections’ consequences are not fully understood, it is clear that the elections have forever changed the nature of the Islamic Republic’s political system and its relationship with Iranians politically and socially. The personal consequences of the election and its aftermath, no doubt, have been traumatic for countless Iranians, many long supportive of the Islamic Republic, and yet many also victimized by the brutal clampdown that followed the elections. Equally profound are the institutional and ideological consequences of what transpired, following the elections, for the political system itself, having forever changed the internal assumptions that had become its modus operandi since the late 1980s. In this article, I argue that the June 2009 elections have set into motion four processes that are central to the regime’s operations. Three of them are # 2010 Published by Elsevier Limited on behalf of Foreign Policy Research Institute.