More  than four years ago, this author correctly predicted that veteran Iranian politician and former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi would run for the presidency in 2009. [1]

The elections in just over two weeks promise to be the most competitive in the 30-year history of the Islamic Republic. While predicting the outcome of Iranian elections is futile – given the country’s peculiar constitutional arrangements and the volatility of the electorate – nonetheless there are numerous indications that the event will be a closely contested race between President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Mousavi.

According to the best-informed journalists in Iran, Ahmadinejad is expected to lose, thus becoming the first president in the history of the republic not to secure a second term. But this should not be taken as a given, especially in light of Ahmadinejad’s superior campaigning skills and energetic style.

A Mousavi victory will not significantly alter Iran’s relations with the West (at least not in the short term), but it will likely trigger significant internal changes. Mousavi may yet become the Islamic Republic’s first truly reformist leader.

A failed presidency
Ahmadinejad has not only been the most controversial Iranian president to date, but he has also proven to be the most spectacularly unsuccessful. In 2005, Ahmadinejad focused his election campaign on three issues in particular: first, he championed the cause of the poor; second, he promised to fight corruption and improve government efficiency; third, he vowed to reverse the foreign policy “retreats” of the Mohammad Khatami years. He has only been successful in the foreign policy sphere, but even on that front the successes have been undermined by needless rhetorical excess and inability to consolidate gains.

While the Ahmadinejad government has taken measures to reverse some of the economic liberalization policies of the Hashemi Rafsanjani years (which hit the poor badly), these have come at the expense of the broader economy, and consequently left almost the entire Iranian middle classes scathing. Officially, inflation is running at 25%, but it is almost certainly higher than that. The volatility in the price index of essential goods over the past four years has been unprecedented, which speaks volumes about Ahmadinejad’s economic mismanagement.

The economic mismanagement is partly rooted in Ahmadinejad’s cavalier presidential style, characterized by extreme populism and a disregard for protocol. The behavior of Ahmadinejad in his countless visits to the provinces is a case in point, whereby he promises all sorts of dividends and incentives to local people, without consulting local officials or even his own ministers. Numerous reports have surfaced over the past four years indicating that members of Ahmadinejad’s delegation have distributed cash to local people (during provincial visits), thereby overriding the most basic protocols.

The much-heralded fight against corruption has been mired by the same cavalier approach and heavy gesture politics. While no one can doubt the sincerity of Ahmadinejad when it comes to combating corruption – his own simple appearance and demeanor is enough indication of his priorities – some of the president’s constituencies and his political alliances have prevented him from pursuing this objective in a systematic manner.

While it is too simplistic to place Ahmadinejad in the conservative camp, there is no denying that it is the conservatives (with their vast economic and political clout) who have helped sustain him domestically. Ahmadinejad belongs to the ideological right of the regime, the so-called “Osoolgerayan” (which roughly translates into principlists), a loose set of political groupings that are not thought to be deeply linked to the conservatives’ enormous and complex web of economic and commercial interests. Nevertheless, political and ideological expediency ties the Osoolgerayan (and other forces on the ideological right) to the conservatives.

This network of connectivity, coupled with the Islamic Republic’s peculiar constitutional and institutional arrangements, makes it very difficult for the ideological right to carry through with its sincere promises to fight corruption. While corruption is a serious issue in Iran, the ideological right tends to exaggerate it, which in turn makes a real and concerted effort against the phenomenon even more difficult. To be fair, mid-level management in Iranian ministries and other governmental bodies is surprisingly efficient and clean. And the problem of overt bribery in Iran is nowhere near as bad as other countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
But there is no doubting the corruption of some senior clerics (who pull important strings from a safe distance) and their dependents. The corruption also encompasses some senior managers in government and municipalities. The problem of corruption in Iran would not be perceived so gravely, were it not for the regime’s puritanical pretensions and its existential need to project austerity. If left unchecked, the widespread and deep-rooted corruption associated with some senior clerics, their children and their dependents could potentially cause a catastrophic loss of confidence amongst the Islamic regime’s core supporters, with all the dire consequences that entails.

Despite the obvious constraints, Ahmadinejad could still have done more to combat corruption. His firing of senior managers (especially in the banking and financial sector) did little to combat corruption; instead it deprived the country of experienced managers. More damningly, Ahmadinejad failed to identify the real source of corruption, namely in the closed circles of unelected senior clerics and their extensions in the bazaar and the modern economy.

In the foreign policy sphere, Ahmadinejad has scored some successes. There is no doubt that his handling of the sensitive nuclear issue has been better than the previous administration. Under Khatami, Iran seemed to be making one retreat after another, without extracting any meaningful concessions from either the Europeans or the Americans. More broadly, Ahmadinejad adopted a tougher tone with the West, at a time when Iran badly needed to project strength in order to deter potential American aggression.

But the president’s successes in foreign policy have been balanced by a series of mistakes and under-achievements. While no patriotic Iranian can fault his government for wanting to make inroads in Latin America (if only to antagonize the Americans), this should not come at the expense of cementing relations with countries nearer to home. At a time when so-called moderate Arab regimes have been alarmed by Iran’s relentless progress in Iraq, and the Islamic Republic’s enhanced involvement in the Palestinian arena, more should have been done to alleviate these fears, and thereby obstruct American and Israeli mischief in the Middle East.

More worryingly perhaps, Ahmadinejad’s persona, coupled with his quixotic and inappropriate pronouncements in some international forums, has inflicted grave damage on the prestige of the Islamic Republic. On the international stage, Ahmadinejad risks being perceived as out of his depth, especially when he resorts to gesture politics and grandiose pronouncements. His presidential style overall – but especially in the international sphere – runs contrary to the highest standards in ethics and general behavior expected from the leaders of the Islamic Republic.