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Iran / Michael Field. - [Electronic ed.]. - Bonn, 1999. - 16 S. =3D 55 Kb, = Text . - (FES-Analyse)
Electronic ed.: Bonn : FES Library, 2000

=A9 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung

=3D"INHALT"

[Essentials]

The demonstrations of July 1999

Policies of President Khatami

Prospects for Political Change

A Change in Atmosphere

Economic Weakness

The Government=92s Response

Hoping for Foreign Investment

[Essentia= ls]

The student demonstrations in Tehran in July showed how frustrated t= he young generation has become with the slow pace of reform under President= Khatami. The episode was embarrassing for the President. He sympathised wi= th the students but could do little to help them because their confrontatio= nal approach was the opposite of his own careful methods.
Khatami, who won the presidential election of May 1997 by a lan= dslide, stands for the creation of a freer, more open society. He appeals t= o the urban young and the middle classes. He is restricted in the changes h= e can introduce by the conservatives in government, the judiciary and the c= urrent Majlis (parliament). To help his cause he has encouraged the develop= ment of a free press. In fighting the conservatives he has been scrupulous = in seeing that the law is properly applied. He has not won all his battles,= but even when he has lost the result has generally been to increase his po= pularity.
The recent demonstrations alarmed the conservatives and it may = encourage the judges who are responsible for vetting candidates before elec= tions to try to prevent the return of a reformist majority in the Majlis el= ections early next year. It seems more likely the judges will act with rest= raint =96 partly because in the present climate they will have to give reas= ons for barring candidates.
In a social sense Iran has already become much more liberal und= er Khatami. The country has a freer, happier feel. Iranians have become mor= e friendly towards foreigners. The rules for women=92s dress have not been = relaxed, but they are being less rigorously enforced.
The area in which there has been little change under Khatami is= the management of the economy. This is an issue which does not greatly int= erest the President. The principal cause of Iran=92s economic problems is a= huge budget deficit, caused mainly by the government having too many emplo= yees and giving its people a wide range of subsidies. It finances the defic= it by printing money. Capital projects that require foreign currency have t= o be financed by foreign borrowing. In its budgets the government publishes= the sums of new borrowing it will be prepared to guarantee in the coming t= hree years.
The job market is about to be flooded by a wave of youth =96 th= e result of the post-revolution population explosion. Iran faces a huge inc= rease in unemployment. The government=92s response has been to try to incre= ase its oil revenues by inviting foreign companies into "buy-back" deals. I= t is hoping that it will be helped by foreign investment in other sectors, = but companies are being put off by ambiguities in the Constitution and quar= rels between the ministries.

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The demonstrat= ions of July 1999

The second week of July this year saw the most serious violence ther= e has been in Tehran since the years after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. = Some ten thousand students held demonstrations to call for greater freedom = for the press and freer, more open government. They were confronted by the = police and hard-line vigilantes recruited from the bazaar. Several students= were killed and many more wounded or arrested. Although the students re= ceived little material support from other members of the public, they had t= he moral backing of most other young Iranians and of most of the middle cla= sses of all ages. The episode was seen, in Iran and abroad, as showing how = frustrated young Iranians had become with the incompetence, corruption and = repressive social attitude of their government.

The build up to the confrontations can be traced back to the autumn = of last year, when reforming elements in the administration of the relative= ly liberal President, Mohammad Khatami, proposed that the bonyads, t= he "charities" established with assets confiscated from the Shah and other = members of the old r=E9gime, should be supervised more carefully by central= government. The bonyads, or their directors, had become extremely rich, th= ey were answerable to nobody and they were known to be very corrupt. The pr= oposal was that they should be properly audited.

Soon after this issue was raised six writers, of secular or liberal = Islamic views, were murdered, and it was speculated that the killings had b= een ordered by the bonyads themselves, or more likely by some other "dark e= lement" in the r=E9gime that had links with them. It was suggested that som= ebody wanted to give a warning to reformers against further interference. I= nvestigations into the crimes moved slowly, but in February 1999 four membe= rs of the secret police were arrested, and the Information Ministry, which = runs this body admitted that some "misguided people" had taken it upon them= selves to do the killings. In June the most important of the four suspects,= Saeed Emami, a former deputy Minister of Information, died in prison. It w= as said he committed suicide by drinking an arsenic-based cleaning fluid wh= en his jailers allowed him to take a bath alone.

The Information Ministry accompanied news of the death with the rele= ase of the other three suspects=92 names and the announcement that a total = of 20 other people had been linked to the killings. Then the radical newspa= per, Salaam, published documents prepared by Mr. Emami which seemed to sugg= est that orders for the murders had come from the top of the Ministry. The = newspaper named a former Minister of Information, Ali Fallahian. This led t= he Ministry to insist that Salaam be closed, and the Special Clerical Court= obliged. At the same time the parliament, the Majlis, gave a majority to a= first reading of a new restrictive press censorship bill. Out of 270 membe= rs, 125 voted in favour, 90 against and 55 abstained. The bill is due to ha= ve a second reading before the end of this year.

It was the banning of Salaam and the Majlis vote that brought the= students onto the streets. They were disappointed by the slowness of refor= m by President Khatami=92s government, by the President=92s reluctance to c= onfront his hard-line opponents, and by a general feeling that in the previ= ous few weeks hard-line elements had been getting the upper hand in the lon= g running battle between conservatives and reformers within the government.= They were particularly unhappy about Khatami=92s failure to speak strongly= against the press censorship bill or demand to know why 55 members had abs= tained from voting on it.

On the first day of demonstrations police stormed dormitories at Teh= ran University and killed as many as eight students, according to student l= eaders. The official figure for deaths was one. There followed a further fi= ve days of demonstrations, in Tehran and ten other cities. Eventually the p= rotests were broken by police and various vigilante groups =96 particularly= the Ansar e Hizbollah (Supporters of the Party of God), which was no more = than a party of paid thugs, hired for the occasion. The last of the week=92= s events was a massive demonstration in support of the r=E9gime, in which t= housands of loyalists, reportedly including soldiers in plain clothes, were= bussed into central Tehran, to carry Iranian flags and pictures of the lat= e Ayatollah Khomeini, shout "death to America", which was blamed for having= instigated the student protests, and listen to a speech by Hassan Rowhani,= the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. Rowhani declared t= hat those arrested during the riots would be tried and punished as mohar= eb (those fighting God) and mofsed (those spreading corruption),= which would make them liable for the death penalty.

Both the moderate faction in the government, including the Presid= ent, and the conservatives backed the restoration of order and the final de= monstration. For Khatami the whole affair was an embarrassment. He could no= t openly support the students because, though he sympathised with them, the= ir confrontational approach was the opposite of his own careful step by ste= p policies. Yet it was difficult for him to condemn them. It was annoying f= or him that the protests had happened as soon as they did, some nine months= before the next Majlis elections, which were expected to bring a reformist= majority.

For the conservatives the week=92s events were only advantageous = in a short term, tactical sense. For the longer term they were a reminder, = to the more intelligent, that the youth of Iran wants change. The count= ry=92s leader, the Imam, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the successor of Kh= omeini and the nation=92s supreme spiritual guide and commander of the arme= d forces, was not wholly on the side of the reactionaries during the crisis= . He criticised the police attack on the student dormitories; he is a membe= r of the Supreme National Security Council that ordered the dismissal of th= e two police chiefs responsible. Twice in the weeks before the demonstratio= ns he had made speeches saying that the judiciary must be seen to have the = support of the people.

The Imam and Khatami are not quite at opposite political poles, a= s they are sometimes represented as being. They both see a need for change,= and from time to time on particular issues they work together. Where they = are different is in the constituencies they represent, and in their ideas o= n what sorts of changes are needed and how quickly they should be introduce= d.

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Policies of Pr= esident Khatami

The change in Iranian politics, which has led to the battle betwe= en reformers and conservatives, began when Mohammad Khatami, a former Minis= ter of Islamic Guidance, was elected President two years ago. Khatami won t= he presidential election of May 1997 unexpectedly and by a landslide =96 he= took 69 per cent of the vote. He appealed particularly to the urban young = and the better educated members of the middle class. He stood for the relat= ively left wing, socially liberal, popular face of the revolution, whose ba= ckers believe that within a basically Islamic context the government should= be helping the people build the freer, more open society they appear to wa= nt. Many of those who hold this view were once quite hard-line revolutionar= ies. They have now realised that the clergy, which has dominated the govern= ment since 1979, has not been particularly competent and has come to be see= n by the people as an oligarchy, out of touch with the population, preoccup= ied with its own interests, and in parts corrupt. One hears it said amo= ng Khatami supporters that if the Islamic Republic is to survive and if the= religious establishment is to retain any influence at all over government,= the clerics must move back to the mosques and seminaries. It appears that = many of the people who hold this view are influenced by their children, bor= n around the time of the Revolution and now in their late teens and early t= wenties. One of the ironies of the July demonstrations is that many of the = students involved were the sons and daughters of clerics. It has been the g= overnment=92s policy to favour these young people in awarding university pl= aces.

Khatami as President has not embarked on any major legislative pr= ogramme of social reform, nor has he been able to introduce changes by decr= ee. He does not have the unfettered authority that presidents in other Midd= le Eastern states have, because Iran is a democracy (albeit in a limited se= nse) and he has to contend with other centres of power. Chief among these i= s the Imam, whose office has an independent budget drawn directly from the = state=92s oil revenues. It is the Imam=92s Office, rather than the Mini= stry of the Interior =96 a relatively liberal body =96 which controls the p= olice. Other conservative centres of power are the current Majlis, the Coun= cil of Guardians, a body which vets legislation for its conformity with Isl= am, and the judiciary.

What the President has done is appoint liberals to many of the impor= tant posts in his cabinet and as much as possible pursue liberal policies. = Helped by the Minister of Islamic Guidance he has allowed the emergence of = a very free press, based on the 1979 Constitution=92s provision that the pr= ess should be free but not affront Islam =96 a vague proposition lending it= self to different interpretations. His government has licensed some hundred= s of new magazines and newspapers. In the last two years the circulation= of newspapers has increased from 1.2 million daily to 2.7 million. The pre= ss has become so outspoken that opposition papers abroad have taken to copy= ing its stories.

The conservatives have steadily opposed Khatami. The struggle for in= fluence has been most visible in battles over the press. The spring of 1999= saw conservatives in the judiciary ordering the closure of newspapers and = the arrest of journalists. One paper, edited by Faezeh Hashemi, the daughte= r of the former President, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, was suspended for = publishing a message for the New Year (in March) to the Iranian people from= the former Empress, Farah Diba. After the ban the paper, Zan, tried to con= tinue publishing, but was shut down.

Other papers received warnings for publishing photographs of unveile= d women, mostly foreign film stars, for articles deemed to be "pro-Zionist"= or too critical of factions within Iran=92s domestic politics, and in one = case for covering a controversial meeting at Tehran university. Typically i= n these cases the journalists would be arrested for a day or so and the new= spapers=92 editors summoned before a court. Then the paper might be ordered= to fire the journalist but be allowed to continue publication =96 or it mi= ght be suspended for a limited period. None of these actions seemed to have= much effect on the behaviour of the press, though they certainly made the = conservatives less popular.

In May impeachment proceedings were brought in the Majlis against th= e Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Ataollah Mohajerani. The motion= was narrowly defeated =96 after giving Khatami and his minister opportunit= ies to explain their cultural policies and further embarrass the conservati= ves. Some hard-line members of the judiciary were more successful in securi= ng the conviction of Mohajerani=92s brother-in-law, Hojatolislam Dr. Mohsen= Kadivar, a cleric who had begun research into jurisprudential sources to s= ee if the Iranian system of government was working properly. He had announc= ed that his initial conclusion was that it was oppressive. On being convict= ed he was sentenced to 18 months in prison.

A similar battle was fought over the new Tehran municipal council, e= lected at the end of February. Twelve of the 15 Tehran seats were won by Kh= atami supporters, and none of the other three councillors returned could be= regarded as a conservative. The acknowledged leader of the councillors was= Abdullah Nouri, whom conservatives forced Khatami to replace as Minister o= f the Interior last year. Immediately after the election it was suggested b= y a member of the Council of Guardians, which has a r=F4le in vetting elect= ion candidates, that five of the 15 did not have proper Islamic credentials= . In this case the councillors got the support not only of the President, b= ut also of the Imam and other conservatives, and they were allowed to keep = their seats. The episode was one of the events that prompted a group of lef= tist students to write a long open letter to the Imam, criticising the Coun= cil of Guardians and the rest of the judiciary for acting against the inter= ests of the people. Long passages of the letter were reprinted in the newsp= apers.

Another trial of strength involving the Tehran local government conc= erned the case against General Gholamreza Naqdi, who is the head of the Sec= urity and Intelligence Department of the Police. Naqdi was arrested after c= harges were brought against him by a number of managers in the Tehran munic= ipality, who said they were tortured when they were taken into custody last= year. Their detention was linked to investigations into the corruption of = the extremely effective former mayor of Tehran, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, an= d their claim is that they were tortured to get them to make confessions. B= efore the trial began Abdullah Nouri wrote to the then chief of the judicia= ry, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, to ask him to confirm that the trial would be= held in open court. Yazdi replied that it was being held "in accordance wi= th the law" and should be allowed to "run its course".

As all these episodes show, Khatami=92s methods in dealing with h= is hard-line adversaries are to use the law and public opinion. He places e= mphasis on the rule of law and the proper enforcement of the Constitution, = and on the whole process being transparent. The Iranian Constitution, like = many other Middle Eastern constitutions, guarantees its people most normal = human rights and in so far as these rights are not respected this is the fa= ult of politicians, the police and the judiciary. Khatami reasons that if t= he law can be properly applied, and be seen to be applied by a free press, = his supporters will win most of their battles. The main pro-Khatami cas= ualties associated with this policy have been people who have been corrupt,= notably Gholamhossein Karbaschi, who was sent to prison in April.

Khatami=92s use of public opinion relies on his insistence that t= he press be allowed to operate freely. If people can see what is going on h= e knows they will back him and not the conservatives. And the more they are= told about government, the more liberalising pressure they will bring to b= ear =96 through votes for their local and national representatives, through= letters and petitions and through buying more newspapers. The conservative= s do not have a ready response to this strategy =96 other than to try to im= pose censorship on the press. The idea that public opinion is important nev= er occurred to them before Khatami became President.

It seems also to be Khatami=92s hope that his open approach will = gradually undermine the more sinister elements in the government. There are= still many people in the ministries and other state agencies who are poorl= y educated, suspicious and aggressive. They inhabit a world of their own wh= ich is distrustful of anything which looks like foreign influence or which = they think might damage the positions of relative power and security they h= ave achieved since the revolution. Any foreigner who goes to Iran on busine= ss sooner or later discovers such people behind the urbane, Western educate= d characters who front for their ministries in dealings with the outside wo= rld.

On the extremist fringes of these cadres there are various "black el= ements" who will resort to violence to frustrate government policies of whi= ch they disapprove. In 1991 they wrecked a rapprochement between France and= Iran by organising the assassination in Paris of the Shah=92s last Prime M= inister, Shahpour Bakhtiar. During the 1990s, led by a body known as the Bo= nyad of 15^th Khordad, they have hindered an improvement in relat= ions between Iran and the world in general by issuing calls for the impleme= ntation of the death sentence on the author Salman Rushdi. Last year it was= such elements in the intelligence service who killed the six writers. And = in June this year it seems to have been some similar people in the intellig= ence service or judiciary who arranged the arrest in the southern city of S= hiraz of 13 Jews, whom they charged with spying for Israel. If tried and fo= und guilty the accused could be executed. The arrests put Khatami in an ext= remely difficult position. He could not be seen to intervene too vigorously= of behalf of alleged Israeli spies before they were put on trial, but he a= nd his supporters know that nothing would damage Iran=92s improving interna= tional image more than the execution of the 13 men. That would have a catas= trophic effect on relations between Iran and America. It was accepted in Ir= an that the arrests were made precisely because they could be very damaging= to Khatami.=20

Prospects for = Political Change

Since the spring of this year the political struggles in Iran hav= e been conducted with all participants having an eye on the Majlis election= s due early next year. The popular expectation has been that these will pro= duce a big increase in the numbers of liberal reforming deputies, probably = giving them a parliamentary majority.

The options for the conservatives in trying to stop a liberal lan= dslide are limited. They can continue to obstruct the press =96 though they= know this can be counter productive. The extremists can play "dirty tricks= ". In theory they have the option of bringing their own "supporters" onto t= he streets, but they know the public will realise their people are being pa= id to demonstrate.

The conservatives=92 best and most constitutional ploy might be t= o encourage the Council of Guardians to eliminate most liberals from the li= sts of candidates next year. This has become a particular concern of th= e reformers since the July demonstrations. How actively the Council should = be able to intervene has been the subject of heated debate for several mont= hs. The Imam is saying that the Council=92s authority should be unrestricte= d, the liberals that, whatever its powers might be in theory, intervention = to eliminate candidates is undemocratic and shows contempt for the will of = the people. It is possible that the Council will follow the instincts of it= s own members (six clerics and six lawyers) and their conservative friends = and intervene heavily to eliminate candidates, but it seems more likely it = will act with restraint. There will be pressure on it to say why it refuses= to let a person stand for election, which it has never had to do before.

At some point after the election there may be further change at t= he top of the government. Since he left the presidency early in 1997, Ali A= kbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has remained an important presence in the backgroun= d of Iranian politics. The base of his power has been the Expediency Co= uncil, which is supposed to mediate in disputes between the Majlis and the = Council of Guardians or other branches of government, but he has friends an= d supporters in many important bodies, including the Office of the Imam. It may well be that, in spite of his image having been somewhat tarnished = by the corruption and nepotism that was associated with him during his two = terms in office, Rafsanjani would like to return to top level politics. He = could do this by running against Khatami in the presidential elections in 2= 001, or, more shrewdly, he might be waiting to see if he can replace the Im= am, Ali Khamenei. The current Imam enjoys nothing like the prestige of his = predecessor, Ayatollah Khomeini. He is hardly learned enough to be acce= pted as an ayatollah and during his time as the ultimate arbiter of Iranian= politics the people=92s disenchantment with their government has grown. Fo= r some time it has been being suggested that the r=F4les of the Imam might = be split, with somebody better religiously qualified taking over the r=F4le= of the nation=92s spiritual leader, possibly from the holy city of Qom, an= d another person being the supreme political leader. That person might be R= afsanjani.

With or without a change at the top, the election of a new Majlis= early next year could lead to a period of very fast change in Iranian poli= tics. The country wants change and for most of the last two years the conse= rvative clergy has been on the defensive. Until the suppression of the demo= nstrations in July, a reformist majority in the Majlis next spring was bein= g taken almost for granted =96 and if this is what was going to emerge it w= as not difficult to think of scenarios which would have Iran evolving rapid= ly in a liberal and secular direction. This would affect particularly t= he r=F4le of women in society. Now the outcome of the elections is a bit mo= re difficult to predict. In the two weeks after the demonstrations the refo= rmers, in government, the press and elsewhere, regained much of their confi= dence, but it still seemed possible that the conservatives would find some = way of preventing them winning the elections. If that were to happen the po= wer struggle of the last two years might continue for a few years more.

But for the long term a demographic revolution is making the tide= of change look unstoppable. In the early years of the Islamic Republic the= re was an explosion of the birth-rate in Iran, and there are huge numbers o= f children and young teenagers who will become politically conscious in the= next few years. It is assumed that these people will have much the same at= titudes as the young people now aged around 20, and they will exert an ever= greater pressure for reform.

A Change in At= mosphere

Whatever may be its short term political prospects, Iran under Kh= atami has been a much freer, happier place than it was in the early 1990s. = It has also looked more prosperous. The change is noticed particularly by f= oreigners. The Iranians themselves agree that the atmosphere is different b= ut say it is hard to pin down the exact reasons. Certainly the statistics s= how the country is not richer. Much of the impression of prosperity in = Tehran and Esfahan comes from the two cities having had energetic mayors wh= o have pushed through cleaning and repair programmes. Tehran=92s streets an= d parks are now carefully swept, the sidewalks have been repaired and lawns= and flower-beds full of roses have been planted on patches of waste ground= .

In northern Tehran a number of new, smart, tall buildings have recen= tly been finished or are nearing completion. Some are financed by capital b= rought back from Europe and America by Iranians who left after the revoluti= on. The high rise building and the beautification of the city have gone tog= ether, because the former mayor, Karbaschi, made developers pay the local g= overnment for permission to add extra storeys to their buildings. Some of t= he Iranian returnees have opened "consultancy" businesses aimed at helping = foreign companies install themselves in Iran. These give the foreigner t= he impression of activity, but they have injected little capital into socie= ty. Not much money has been put into new industries providing jobs.

The social change is more real. Iranians are smiling more, it= is now the fashion =96 as well as being in everybody=92s economic interest= =96 to be friendly to foreigners. People say they feel freer. Much of the = change is related to the way the r=E9gime treats women. There has been no o= fficial relaxation of the Islamic dress code =96 women are still required t= o cover their hair, arms and legs, and not wear make-up =96 but the rules a= re being less rigorously enforced. Many women are wearing more colourful cl= othes, and make-up =96 sometimes quite heavy =96 and are letting their scar= ves slip well back on their heads. It is still possible for them to be arre= sted for this behaviour, and when they are arrested, though they may be det= ained for only 24 hours or so, the conditions in which they are held are un= pleasant. They may find themselves in overcrowded cells with drug addicts a= nd prostitutes and no access to toilet facilities. Men can be held in simil= ar conditions if they have been arrested at parties where there have been m= usic, alcohol, women and dancing.

The difference in the last year or so is that the chance of anyone b= eing arrested is now small. The vigilante committees which used to make the= arrests have been integrated into the regular police force. Part of the re= ason is that this makes them less visible, and therefore less vulnerable to= attacks by citizens who resent their interference; but one of the conseque= nces is that their self-righteous zeal has been moderated by the fairly sec= ular minded police. They have become more tolerant.

It is not only in the matter of dress that life for women is easier.= Women now find that men are more likely to address them directly and openl= y in public. In taxis drivers and fellow passengers laugh and joke with wom= en; in shops assistants look at women they are serving. In the 1980s it use= d to be the Islamically correct fashion in some establishments for shopkeep= ers and their staffs to avert their eyes when dealing with female customers= .

The treatment of women is an important issue because in Iran and = elsewhere it has become one of the ways in which an Islamic state defines i= tself. An Islamic state =96 revolutionary or conservative =96 that wants to= create the sort of society that is recommended in the Koran has difficulty= in finding precepts that it can translate into solid policies. It cannot s= imply tell people to be "good" or "Godly", nor can it easily install Islami= c systems of government or economic management, because the Koran does not = offer precise instructions on these matters. It tends instead to focus its = attention on four limited areas: the criminal provisions of the Shariah, wh= ich it introduces into the legal system, alcohol, which it bans, bank inter= est, which with some difficulty can be replaced by an Islamic system of ris= k sharing, and women. In Iran from the beginning of the revolution wome= n have been allowed to work (which they are restricted in doing in Saudi Ar= abia), drive, vote, take seats in the Majlis and play other r=F4les in poli= tics. Where they have been "Islamised" has been in their being obliged to d= ress "properly" and separate themselves from men as much as possible =96 pa= rticularly in buses and at parties. Any liberalisation in these customs rep= resents a major change of policy in an Islamic society.

What most reminds a foreign visitor that Iran is still supposed to b= e a revolutionary Islamic state are the huge paintings he sees on the sides= of buildings. These depict "martyrs", political leaders or particularly br= ave or politically zealous soldiers, who were killed in the 1980s, either i= n the war with Iraq or in bombings by the revolutionary left-wing Mojaheddi= n e Khalq Organisation. The captions with the pictures contain verses from = the Koran; the scenery in the background often represents an Islamic view o= f Paradise with gardens, waterfalls and fields of flowers. The paintings, m= ostly well executed but very sentimental, are kept clean and in good condit= ion because they form a link between the government and the families of the= martyrs, most of whom come from the class of the mostazafin, the di= spossessed. These were the people whom the revolutionaries of 1979 and the = early 1980s claimed to represent, and it is they whom the government is now= unable to reward with a higher standard of living. The best it has been ab= le to do is continue to promote the dead martyrs, as they would have been p= romoted if they had remained in the army alive, and pay their families smal= l increases in their pitiful military pensions. In effect the paintings, wh= ich are a form of war memorial, are telling the families of the martyrs tha= t their sons and brothers have not been forgotten. Nowadays other Iranians,= particularly members of the middle classes, hardly notice them. They are r= egarded as something of a quaint revolutionary relic.

Economic Weakn= ess

The area in which there has been rather little change under Khata= mi =96 disappointingly little =96 is the management of the economy. The pre= sident admits he is not particularly interested in economic matters. He has= said he was elected to correct a social, not an economic, malaise. His inc= lination against steering his government towards economic reform is reinfor= ced by his having around him several advisers with leftish ideas. Since the= revolution there has been a division in Iranian politics between those who= have said that a true Islamic society should respect private property and = the right of the traders to make a profit =96 as they were doing in Mecca a= nd Medina at the time God revealed the Koran to Mohammad =96 and those who = have said it demands social justice. The result has been that for 20 years = Iranian economic policies have been neither free enterprise nor socialist, = but an awkward mixture in which the emphasis has swung between the extremes= . Not surprisingly, many of the social reformers in modern Iran are peo= ple who favour egalitarian economic policies. Khatami supporters have gone = on record with such statements as "privatisation has come to a dead end", t= hough in reality serious privatisation =96 as opposed to granting state com= panies and their subsidiaries a greater degree of independence =96 has hard= ly begun.

To complicate matters, there is no clear division between social = reformers and economic leftists on one side, and conservative free marketer= s on the other. Khatami=92s supporters include quite a large number of econ= omic reformers, and many of the conservatives are not so much genuine econo= mic liberals as people associated with the bazaar merchant classes who like= the status quo. The most solidly pro-economic reform group =96 in a countr= y where there are no formal political parties =96 are the Executives of Con= struction. These are the middle of the road backers of the ever pragmatic M= r. Rafsanjani.

The basic economic problem of the Iranian government is that it c= annot balance its budget =96 by a wide margin. This is mainly because it ha= s far too many employees in its civil service and its loss making commercia= l enterprises, and because it gives its people a huge array of subsidies, c= overing basic foodstuffs, fuel, cleaning materials and medicines. For y= ears there has been talk of its cutting subsidies. There have been several = long battles in the Majlis over the price of fuel, and in the last few mont= hs there has been a sharp increase =96 though by international standards th= e prices of both gasoline and heating oil remain extremely low. Last year t= here were some small reductions in the subsidies on meat, bread and milk.

Currently subsidies, many of which apply to imported goods, are t= hought to be absorbing the equivalent of $6/8bn and raw materials for state= industries a further $2bn. These two items together take a major proportio= n of the government=92s oil revenues, which are by far its biggest single s= ource of income. The government does not release very accurate or detailed = figures for its income, but it implies it has about 2.4m barrels a day of o= il exports, which might give it oil revenues this year of $12=9613bn.

The government is further burdened by debts. According to the= Central Bank, which is believed to publish fairly accurate figures, the go= vernment=92s total external obligations in January this year were $20.6bn. = This figure was not in itself very serious for a country of Iran=92s size; = it amounted to no more than 21 per cent of GDP and 150 per cent of annual o= il revenues. But the debt had an awkward pattern of maturity, being divided= roughly equally between medium term loans and unconsigned letters of credi= t. The government had very heavy immediate debt service commitments and was= being obliged to reschedule. In early 1999 it concluded rescheduling agree= ments with the governments of Germany, Japan and France, which are its main= creditors. It would like to have some help from the International Monetary= Fund, which would open its way to some long term borrowing, but if it make= s a formal approach it is assumed it will be blocked =96 until there is an = improvement in its relations with the United States.

Being unable to reduce its spending on salaries and subsidies, un= able rapidly to privatise its industries and unable to increase its foreign= borrowing =96 in every case for political reasons =96 the government=92s r= esponse has been to print money. It does this by borrowing whatever it = needs from the domestic banks, which are state owned. This has caused infla= tion to run for several years at around 20 per cent, and this year it is ex= pected to reach at least 30 per cent. Ordinary Iranians, who are living on = extremely small incomes =96 per capita GDP is only $1,660 =96 are suffering= badly.

The government, of course, has no funds to invest in capital proj= ects that require foreign currency. For this purpose it is looking to forei= gn contractors, suppliers and (in theory) investors to provide project fina= nce, which it will guarantee. There is now great emphasis on the promotion = of economic sectors in which it is felt the country has a real advantage = =96 oil and gas, petrochemicals, mining, metals and agriculture. What t= he government is doing to encourage investment is to specify sums of new bo= rrowing it will guarantee in each sector. Its budgets give figures for what= it will authorise and guarantee in the coming three years. This process ha= s become a central part of its budgeting. Most of the guarantees are being = allocated to state corporations, such as the National Iranian Oil Company (= NIOC) and the National Petrochemical Company (NPC), but some small sums are= being earmarked for the private sector.

The state corporations, particularly in petrochemicals, have been= moving ahead with some projects, but private Iranian investors have not be= en active. There is still much more emphasis on deal making, trading and pa= rticularly cornering the local market in particular products, than there is= on long term investment. It seems there is still as much private capital l= eaving the country as there is coming back.

The government would like to encourage private investment. This, = and its need to draw more revenues from the private sector, has led it to t= alk of privatising some of the huge holdings it has in all parts of the Ira= nian economy. Some officials, and businessmen, talk of =84privatisation" as= if there is a programme already being implemented, but this is misleading.= It is part of their efforts to attract foreign companies to do business wi= th Iran. The government cannot launch real privatisation because of politic= al opposition to the principle, distrust of the private sector and a lack o= f understanding of the idea. All that has happened so far is that some = specialist companies, mainly in the oil and petrochemicals sectors, have be= en "spun off". Their managements have been made independent of the state ho= lding companies, and some of their shares have been sold or distributed to = senior managers, a few other private investors and the state companies=92 p= ension funds.

Unless there are some major changes in economic management, Iran= =92s situation seems bound to get worse. Immediately after the revoluti= on its population exploded. People were encouraged to have babies by the pr= omise of better conditions and the mullahs promoting traditional family val= ues, which emphasised the virtues of women staying at home, looking after t= heir husbands and having children. This type of behaviour, the mullahs knew= , would help perpetuate a society they understood, and which gave them poli= tical support. At the beginning of the 1990s it was realised that the incre= ase in population was running out of control and the government reversed it= s policy. It introduced campaigns to encourage birth control and sterilisat= ion, and pushed these quite ruthlessly. The result has been a very sharp dr= op in the birth-rate, but it has come too late.=20

The Government= =92s Response

If the government is to resolve its economic difficulties and pre= vent a continued deterioration in the standard of living of its people, it = will have to embark on a thorough programme of structural reform. This will= involve the sorts of changes that have been introduced by other countries = that have been in similar situations: privatisation, the opening of doors t= o foreign investment, greater transparency in government, and bringing comm= ercial law into line with international norms. For the moment these changes= are almost unthinkable, though demographic pressures will probably bring t= hem onto the government=92s agenda quite soon.

The government=92s current reform policies are concerned mainly w= ith bringing its budget more closely into balance. It is trying to incr= ease the sums it raises in domestic taxes. Last year it introduced a 2 per = cent sales and service tax, though in general it is not thinking of new tax= es or increasing the rates of existing taxes; the rates of income tax have = remained unchanged since 1988. The thrust of its policy is towards stricter= enforcement of the existing tax r=E9gime. It is aware that there is a h= uge black economy made up of traders and commission takers, and it is t= rying to identify these people and bring them into the tax net. It wants al= so to tax the bonyads. There has been talk of the government=92s campaign i= ncreasing domestic tax revenues by 60 per cent, but it is unlikely that thi= s figure will be achieved.

Another government stratagem is to increase, or at least maintain= , its oil revenues. Iran still has huge oil and gas reserves, but its major= fields are old and since the revolution have been neglected. The country h= as already had difficulty at times in recent years in maintaining its produ= ction at its OPEC quota level, which in 1998 was 3.9m barrels a day, and un= less there is considerable investment in pressure maintenance and secondary= recovery its output will soon start to decline. The government has not= only to avoid this, it has to increase production so it can meet the rise = in domestic demand, believed to be between 7 and 10 per cent a year, and ke= ep the volume of its exports stable. At present, under a r=E9gime of OPEC c= utbacks, it is consuming about 1.3=961.5m b/d and exporting up to 2m b/d. T= his would imply a certain amount of cheating on its OPEC quota of 3.3m b/d.= In the longer term it wants to increase its production capacity to 6m b/d,= which would not only give it a lot more revenue but would increase its bar= gaining power in OPEC and in regional diplomacy vis =E0 vis Saudi Arabia.

To achieve its targets the government has come up with the idea o= f Buy-Back. Under this system it will have foreign companies put their = capital into the development or redevelopment of fields, and then will repa= y them and give them an annual return of around 18 per cent by allowing the= m to take quantities of oil at reduced prices. The intention, initially, wa= s that the duration of the deals should be quite short, around three to fiv= e years. The government insists that it or the National Iranian Oil Company= (NIOC) should take the major management decisions, and should control the = production rate, sales and pricing. It promises that if for any reason prod= uction from a redeveloped field falls short of the volume needed to pay bac= k the foreign company, it will make it up from other fields.

The first round of buy-backs, involving eleven projects, was offered= in 1995. It led to only three deals, one with a Franco-Italian consortium = of Elf and ENI, one with Elf and Bow Valley of Canada, and one with the Fre= nch company, Total. Total signed an additional, separate, deal for the rede= velopment of the Sirri field, after the American company, Conoco, was force= d by the Iran Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 to abandon its own scheme for inv= esting in the field.

The Iranian government talks of its having been too generous in t= he first buy-back round =96 and it says it is now making its terms tougher.= It blames American pressure for the small number of contracts signed. Fore= ign companies say roughly the reverse =96 that at the beginning NIOC was in= flexible and is now becoming more accommodating to foreign companies. Whate= ver the truth may be, the government is now offering a second round of 42 b= uy-back projects. It is talking to Shell, ENI, Elf, Total, BP, the British = independent LASMO, Cepsa of Spain, Saga of Norway, and Atlantic Richfield, = which is in the process of being taken over by BP. It is understood that NI= OC may be willing to agree longer term sales contracts running up to ten ye= ars. This is to meet the companies=92 objections that being repaid over a t= hree to five year period made them little more than contractors. They were = arguing that they would prefer to have their capital free to invest longer = term, albeit at greater risk, elsewhere.

The Iranians would very much like to have some more major compani= es invest =96 initially Shell and BP. They want, first, to erode the alread= y weakened Iran-Libya Sanctions Act and they believe that once the two gian= t European companies invest, the American majors will increase the pressure= on their own government to let them invest as well. This would be conv= enient in re-opening Iran=92s relations with America, without the Iranian g= overnment having to make any formal concessions. The Iranians also see that= although the bigger companies bargain harder, they are easily able to prov= ide finance from their own resources. So far minor companies and Iranian co= nsortia interested in buy-back deals have found difficulty in getting finan= ce from international banks. The banks have been put off partly by the degr= ee of NIOC control of the projects. Changes in this and all other aspects o= f the buy-back deals are being delayed by fighting within NIOC. This is not= just a matter of ordinary corporate politics, but of officials=92 fears of= taking decisions and being branded by others as too pro-Western.

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Hoping for For= eign Investment

For the long term the Iranian government is pinning its faith on = attracting foreign investment, which it sees in rather vague and optimistic= terms. There is a feeling in both official and some business circles that = once the door is opened a little bit =96 which is what is happening =96 inv= estment will flow in. Talking to Westerners, Iranians still repeat the idea= that "you need us as much as we need you". They have been saying this, as = much to reassure themselves as encourage the foreigner, since the beginning= of the 1990s. They still believe, or very much want to believe, that their= oil and gas must be as important to the world as it was in the 1970s.

In fact, outside the oil buy back deals, very little investment i= s going into Iran. In spite of invitations by NPC, no foreign company has y= et put money into petrochemicals. There have been some small European i= nvestments in food processing. What other investment there has been has inv= olved projects that were begun in the Shah=92s day. Foreign companies are s= till involved in some of these and have recently been putting in capital to= expand or maintain their plant.

The simplest and probably most important reason for the lack of f= oreign investment is the ambiguity of the law on the subject. Article 4= 4 of the Islamic Republic=92s Constitution appears to reserve ownership of = all "large scale and mother industries" to the state, and Article 81 prohib= its the granting of "concessions" to foreign companies for the purposes of = "trade, industry, agriculture, mines and services". The latter article refe= rs to foreign companies not being allowed to establish themselves in Iran, = but it is vague as to whether this prohibits the ownership of shares or min= ority holdings, or the establishment of joint-ventures or branches. The = impression any foreign company would have from reading the Constitution is = that its investment in Iran would not be welcome. What complicates matt= ers is that in the early 1990s the government revived the Foreign Investmen= t Law of the Shah=92s day. Officials began to say that it was this document= , which encouraged but regulated foreign investment, that was the applicabl= e law =96 but they did nothing to define its relation to the Constitution, = let alone change the Constitution. Until something is done to clarify th= ese matters companies will continue to feel that Iran is at best lukewarm o= n foreign investment and that their assets in the country will not be secur= e.

Companies are further deterred by occasional reminders that there= are elements in the government very firmly opposed to their presence. = In the economy, as in social affairs, there are particular ministries and s= tate agencies that are known to be liberal or pro-reform and others that ar= e reactionary. The institutions, and the ministers who head them, may be co= mpletely opposed to each other=92s ideas and do all they can to frustrate e= ach others=92 policies. This is what happens in relations between the Centr= al Bank, which is liberal, and the Finance Ministry, which is hard left win= g. It was officials in the Finance Ministry who earlier this year announced= new regulations for the taxation of foreigners in the country. They announ= ced that personal taxation would be levied on the basis of what the Ministr= y estimated the foreigners were earning, rather than on what their companie= s declared, and that the taxation would be backdated three years. After the= announcement it was understood that a number of companies, including Japan= ese, Korean and Italian firms, which had established representative offices= in Iran were thinking of moving, possibly to the Gulf state of Dubai.

Neither the law nor the behaviour of hard-line elements in the go= vernment will change until the power struggles within the r=E9gime are reso= lved. And until this happens there will be no question of Iran overhauling = the rest of its commercial legislation, increasing the transparency of gove= rnment or introducing any of the other policies that make developing countr= ies attractive to foreign investors. Nor will there be much increase in inv= estment by the Iranian private sector, which is another pre-requisite for a= ttracting foreign companies. The lack of private sector investment in Iran = not only gives the country a low growth rate, it shows how much Iranians th= emselves are still nervous about their own government.

=A9 Friedrich Ebert Stiftung | t= echnical support | net edition=20 fes-library | September 2000

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