By Geneive Abdo
Iran Analyst, The Century Foundation

Now that Iran’s presidential election has effectively boiled down to a close race between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reformist challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a struggle has emerged over whether a powerful outside force – the country’s militias, who primarily support Ahmadinejad – should be allowed to endorse a candidate and oversee the balloting on election day.

The debate intensified on May 4, when the chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Mohammad Ali Jafari, announced that the basij, a paramilitary group under the control of the IRGC, should not remain on the sidelines of electoral politics. He said the militia, estimated to have 12 million members, was free to play an active role in the presidential campaign because it is not technically part of the “official” armed forces.

The basij militia emerged onto the electoral scene in 2005 when Ahmadinejad – himself a former basij and member of the IRGC during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war – first ran for president. They mobilized thousands to vote for him and were accused of stuffing ballot boxes and intimidating voters. Their efforts are believed to be responsible for Ahmadinejad’s surprise victory over former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Now, it seems history is being repeated in this election. In addition to Jafari’s statement, the representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei within the IRGC claimed in some publications that Khamenei, in a hand-written note, privately endorsed Ahmadinejad. Khamenei, who directly controls the IRGC, has stated publicly that he will not endorse a candidate in the June 12 poll; however, it is a long tradition in Iranian politics for each side to claim the “secret” sympathies of the leader.

Not only have IRGC commanders made public statements in support of Ahmadinejad, but IRGC publications, such as Sobh-e Sadegh, have attacked reformist ideas while voicing approval of Ahmadinejad’s presidency. The website Ansar News, which is the IRGC’s Internet mouthpiece, published an article stating that Khamenei credited Ahmadinejad’s administration with having numerous advantages.

The IRGC has also staged rallies for Ahmadinejad. Women basij gathered in late May in the 12,000-seat Azadi stadium in Tehran to hear Ahmadinejad speak. In the end, the president did not attend because he was meeting the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan. But the event was interpreted as the most clear-cut evidence to date of organized IRGC support for Ahmadinejad.

The apparent campaign by the militias to boost Ahmadinejad’s candidacy has prompted outrage among Iran’s reformers, who have long-standing complaints about the increasing role of the military in Iranian life and politics. Not only has the IRGC come to play a vital role in Iran’s political involvement in Iraq, but at home, in its role as Iran’s morality police, the basij has been vital in enforcing Ahmadinejad’s conservative social policies. These include strict enforcement of the law requiring all women to wear headscarves and a ban on public interaction between couples who are not related by blood or marriage.

Mehdi Karroubi, a reformist presidential contender, has led the battle against the basij. In early May, as he registered to become a candidate, he said: “We are here to hold a free election without intervention of the basij, without intervention of the armed forces and without intervention of rogue forces.” Karroubi is adamant that the basij be forbidden from intervening because he blames them for losing in the first round to Ahmadinejad during the 2005 election. At the time, Karroubi said sarcastically that there had been a “divine intervention” in the race – a reference to the basij.

Some conservatives, even those in the military, agree with the reformers. Brigadier General Seyyed Masoud Jazayeri, the deputy head of Iran’s Armed Forces Headquarters, said the basij should not be used as a campaign tool. “We hear that certain individuals and political organizations are attempting to abuse the name of the basij for their own personal and political ends. … This is against the standing orders of the Volunteers Resistance Force of Basij,” he said, according to the state-owned English-language network PressTV.

Some conservatives argue that the military’s intervention in Iranian politics is against the revolutionary ideals of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who founded the Islamic republic in 1979. Khomeini established the Revolutionary Guards to defend the revolution from internal threats after the fall of the Shah. In 1988, he established basij forces on university campuses across Iran to ensure that students, long known for political dissent, would remain loyal to the republic.

Since then, the basij have served as an ideological police force, with varying degrees of influence depending upon who holds the Iranian presidency. Each year, Iran commemorates “Basij Week” to remind Iranians that the country is in a perpetual state of war against its enemies. Many argue, however, that Khomeini had never intended for either the basij or the IRGC to play a direct role in elections.

Under Khamenei’s leadership, the powers of the IRGC and basij have increased. In 1998, Khamenei gave his approval to a bill passed in parliament that called for a substantial increase in the numbers of basijis on college campuses to discourage political unrest. Last year during parliamentary elections, Khamenei appointed Alireza Afshar, a former IRGC commander and spokesman for the armed forces, to oversee the polls. And now, the basij are members of local election boards and, according to press reports, are coordinating their election activities with Ahmadinejad’s campaign staff.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Ahmadinejad’s main reformist rival and a veteran of Iranian politics, has adopted a different strategy from that of Karroubi. Rather than fight what seems to be the inevitable, Mousavi’s campaign is attempting to co-opt the basij to his side. On May 14, former Revolutionary Guard Commander Alireza Rashid, who is campaigning for Mousavi, announced that the presidential candidate welcomed the involvement of the basij in the election.

Still, this has not entirely immunized Mousavi from criticism and attack. Basirat website, which is affiliated with the IRGC’s political bureau, published a commentary in which it accused Mousavi of being a leader from a different, bygone era who “had been hurled into today’s political world.”  The article said the reformists were so desperate to find a candidate, after former president Mohammad Khatami withdrew from the race, that they brought back Mousavi, who had been on the sidelines of Iranian politics for the last 20 years.

Despite this heated debate, it seems unlikely that either angry reformers or wary conservatives can prevent the basij and IRGC from increasing their direct involvement in the 2009 presidential election. But public opposition could still limit the degree of their intervention and potential attempts to tamper with the election results. Historically, Iran’s clerical leadership has put great emphasis on presenting national elections as free and fair – whatever the actual facts on the ground. In the past, public unease has forced Khamenei and other senior clerics to declare vote tampering “un-Islamic.” A similar stance this time, whether in public or behind the scenes, could go a long way toward reducing the real impact of the basij and their masters in the IRGC.   

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Published on June 11, 2009