“Freedom is not a commodity in the West”: The struggle for change in Iran’s reformers

Political activist Hossein Yazdi has been campaigning for the Iranian presidential election for more than two decades, deciding to bring about change in the conservative theocratic situation.

Now, however, Yazdi, 42, who was born a few months before the revolution that founded the Islamic republic in 1979, has given up. This time, he will not put up a poster or knock on the door to explain the merits of the candidate he prefers. He won’t even vote.

Like many younger activists, he has been disillusioned with politics and the line of candidates for the June 18 election has only strengthened his sense of hope. The main moderate candidates they have been banned and the two candidates for reform have not yet taken force. Leaving office after centrist President Hassan Rouhani after two terms in office, hardline leader Ebrahim Raisi and the judiciary should easily win if participation is low, according to analysts.

“The reform movement has had its full impact and since the last unrest we have realized that this system cannot be renewed,” Yazdi said in a video call from the city of Isfahan. widespread protests in 2019 hundreds of protesters were killed against rising fuel prices.

The sense of deflation began when then-President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. in 2018 from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers and imposed heavy sanctions. A year earlier, more than 70% of registered voters showed up in hopes of rejoining Rouhanik west. But Trump’s move weakened the reformists and made them tougher, proving that Iran could never trust the Western powers.

While the social media campaign is calling for people not to vote, many analysts predict that the election will have one of the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic republic – a blow to a regime that bases its legitimacy on large turnout. For many, refusing to vote is an important challenging act.

“We need to put civil resistance on our agenda by boycotting these elections, for example, to show our power and tell the regime: ‘We do not give you legitimacy when you do not join the world to speak on our behalf. Our minimum demands are like free and fair elections,” Yazdi said .

It is time to calculate these elections for the reformers, who won for the first time in the 1980s after the deadly war with Iraq. In the decade following the 1979 revolution, repression against dissidents left more and more disillusionment and the desire to push for reform to ensure the survival of the theocratic state.

The culmination of the reformist movement was the appointment of Mohammad Khatami as president in 1997. Among the reformist achievements was the relaxation of the duty to make women the hijab public, as well as the successful protests by workers and pensioners to improve their rights. But since Khatami’s tenure, tougher ones have repeatedly blocked attempts at reform, and younger politicians have questioned whether the Conservatives in the elite Revolutionary Guard and the judiciary will allow more reforms.

Analysts say Khatami has warned of a threat to democracy by the authorities ’willingness to allow low participation. They aim to influence the regions of Iran and expand the ballistic missile program.

Although previous generations of reformists helped consolidate the theocratic state and had high business interests, this generation is different, Mehdi Mahmoudian said. The 44-year-old political activist has spent more than 10 years in prison for activities contrary to the alleged regime. Iran was recently sentenced to five years in prison for organizing protests against the downing of a Ukrainian plane last year.

“The second and third generations are looking for more structural changes and are less tied to the ideologies of the Islamic republic,” Mahmoudian said.

Young activists say there is no way to change the interior of the republic, but they want a peaceful push to establish a democratic system.

“We need to capitalize on social movements,” Mahmoudian said. “We should find ways to convince people that freedom is not a luxury western commodity, but that there is an urgent need for better living conditions, better housing and more bread,” he said.

Eftekhar Barzegarian, a 39-year-old reformist in the conservative city of Mashhad, said in the face of the “crisis of legitimacy” that Republican authorities would have “no choice but to carry out internal reforms in domestic and foreign policy”.

“The change in the reformist movement may not happen in this election, but it will be based on the pursuit of democracy and the future of social justice and freedom,” he said.

For many reformers, the only candidate they actually represented was Mostafa Tajzadeh. A former reformist interior minister and political prisoner for seven years, Tajzadeh called for “normalization of ties” with the United States, among other things. But Tajzadeh was disqualified by Iran’s tough Guard Council, constitutional watchdog.

Young reformers have already paid dearly for their resistance. Many of them have lost their jobs and have been in prison. “The problem, however, is our economic situation, as most of us are struggling and have confidence in our families to survive. Many activists remain anonymous to keep jobs and prevent regimes from kidnapping their families,” Mahmoudian said.

It helps for some to take a long view, seeing their struggle in the context of the Iranian struggle, including the battle to overthrow the Shah dynasty that ruled the country until the revolution.

“Iranians have been fighting for democracy for 100 years. I learned democracy from my father and my 17-year-old daughter learned it from me, ”Yazdi said.

“We are aware that the struggle is long and difficult, but we have no choice but to break the endless path of the present. And the system must choose whether to swallow democracy or fall from within.”