{"id":32401,"date":"2019-02-09T00:23:27","date_gmt":"2019-02-09T00:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32401"},"modified":"2019-02-09T00:23:27","modified_gmt":"2019-02-09T00:23:27","slug":"tough-times-for-political-parties-as-revolution-turns-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=32401","title":{"rendered":"Tough times for political parties as revolution turns 40"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTEHRAN: Iran\u2019s main political parties are on rocky ground as the Islamic republic marks its 40th birthday, with reformists in disarray and conservatives seeking a new identity.<\/p>\n

\nEven though key reformist leaders have been forcibly sidelined, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former reformist vice president in the 1990s, still believes gradual change is the only option for his country.<\/p>\n

\nSince mass protests against alleged election-rigging in 2009, his former boss, ex-President Mohammad Khatami, is barred from appearing in the media, and presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi have been under house arrest for the last eight years.<\/p>\n

\nThere are also few signs of a new generation emerging to succeed them, not least because Iran\u2019s influential Guardian Council has the power to reject any election candidates it deems unqualified, Abtahi told AFP.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe candidates that can pass the Guardian Council\u2019s vetting are low-level,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t expect much from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe reformists instead pinned their hopes on President Hassan Rouhani, a political moderate who sought conciliation with the West through a landmark nuclear deal in 2015.<\/p>\n

\nYet their hopes have proven ill-founded. Since the US unilaterally withdrew from that deal last year, Iran\u2019s economy has been in a tailspin, adding to popular anger that burst onto the streets in violent protests across dozens of towns and cities a year ago.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWhen the demonstrators shouted \u2018Reformists, conservatives: The game is over,\u2019 they were not wrong,\u201d said conservative analyst and politician Amir Mohebbian. \u201cThe fact is the (political) game has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cUntil now, voters would go for the candidate they thought would do the least harm … but now they have taken as much as they can stand. Now the people want someone who can actually solve their problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nMohebbian did not elaborate on potential candidates as jockeying for the next presidential elections, due to take place in 2021, has not yet started. But the decision to back Rouhani has \u201cbankrupted\u201d the reformists, he claimed.<\/p>\n

\nJournalist and activist Ahmad Zeidabadi, who has been arrested several times, goes further, saying the reformists\u2019 plans to try to change the very nature of the state \u201creached a dead end\u201d some time ago because of the system\u2019s lack of \u201cflexibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nAnd it is not just mainstream political factions who are demanding change.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nArdent supporters of the revolution believe its original values \u2014 such as policies in favor of the poor \u2014 have been largely forgotten, pointing to widespread allegations of corruption to back their claims.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nFor decades, the conservatives have been closely associated with the establishment, many of them holding key unelected positions.<\/p>\n

\nBut for them to survive the changing political environment, they \u201cmust move closer to the people\u201d since the people \u201cdon\u2019t trust\u201d them now, Mohebbian said.<\/p>\n

\nConcern over corruption by successive governments has become a \u201cpowderkeg,\u201d believes Nader Talebzadeh, a film-maker who advised Ebrahim Raisi, the preferred candidate of ultraconservatives in the 2017 presidential election.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TEHRAN: Iran\u2019s main political parties are on rocky ground as the Islamic republic marks its 40th birthday, with reformists in disarray and conservatives seeking a new identity. Even though key reformist leaders have been forcibly sidelined, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former reformist vice president in the 1990s, still believes gradual change is the only option…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32401\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}