AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI, THE founder of the Islamic Republic, was essentially an anarchist. Having been persecuted by the shah’s secret police, he despised state structures. Yet after grabbing power he quickly realised that the gains of the revolution could be cemented only with the help of permanent institutions. So he set out to build them, lots of them, sometimes with the explicit intention that they should keep an eye on each other: the army held in check by the revolutionary guard, justice dispensed by clerics as well as by civilian judges in separate courts, militias performing some of the same functions as the police, an elected president facing an appointed supreme leader. Khomeini mimicked America’s Founding Fathers, creating checks and balances and occasional gridlock.

Three and a half decades later, Iran’s political system is neither a free-flowing democracy nor a monolithic dictatorship. As one dissident says, “We have freedom of expression, just not freedom after expression.” Public debates are fierce, but often amount to little more than shadow-boxing by an elite that makes decisions behind closed doors. What is remarkable is the size of this elite. Thousands of politicians, clerics, generals, judges, journalists, academics, businessmen and others participate in decision-making in one way or another, shaping government policy in endless and overlapping private meetings, conversations and conclaves, listening to and lobbying each other.

Often described as a constitutional theocracy, Iran also resembles a democratic oligarchy. No one man or group within the semi-representative elite holds anything more than a sliver of power. A coalition of naysayers can usually stop the executive from moving too far ahead. Big decisions require if not consensus then at least sizeable majorities. Assembling them takes time and stand-offs are common. But once made, decisions have a good chance of holding.

All this is achieved in the near-absence of political parties. Groupings and factions form for a time, but few have formal hierarchies and most fail to impose discipline. Compromise for the sake of a common agenda is rare.

This anarchic system just about works because at its centre sits a supreme leader (always a high cleric) who draws his authority from the revolution. Ali Khamenei, who was appointed for life in 1989, is only the second person to hold the job. His way of operating is to wait for consensus to form in debates and step in only when he has to in order to break a deadlock. He sees himself less as a decider than a referee. “He listens to his advisers and opponents, constantly weaving and tacking to stay in the mainstream,” says Gary Sick, an academic at New York’s Columbia University and doyen of America’s Iran-watchers.

Who might succeed the 75-year-old Mr Khamenei is the subject of endless speculation. No heir apparent has emerged, and some observers worry that when he dies a destructive power struggle could ensue. But the Islamic Republic’s system of governance, or nezam in Farsi, has a strong collective identity and seems quite capable of coming up with a successor. Even though members compete fiercely with one another, they acknowledge that without a supreme leader who is acceptable to all sides the nezam cannot survive.

Still, competition can get out of hand. In the late 1990s, after Mohammad Khatami, the first true reformist, was elected president, tensions rose to the point where competing power centres were in open revolt. Conservatives more or less declared war on their own government. The supreme leader feared the system might crash unless he curbed reformist ambitions. In 2005 Mr Ahmadinejad, a conservative provincial politician thought to be a loyal standard-bearer, succeeded to the presidency.

But the new president turned out to be very much his own man. He had no interest in unifying the system and instead built a separate power base for himself. He took on vested interests in much the same way his predecessor had done but offended reformists as well as conservatives. He won re-election in 2009 by rigging the vote. The supreme leader and other conservatives supported him in this, given that the likely winner was another reformist. The subsequent revolt by millions on the street, though quickly put down, again threatened the system’s survival. The plan to achieve greater coherence had failed.

A semi-democratic legitimacy

So for last year’s presidential election the system reverted to its old ways. Four conservatives and two moderate candidates, all carefully vetted, were given a more or less equal chance to win power. Before the vote the supreme leader said publicly that he was not supporting any one candidate, and that “all votes will be counted.”

That Mr Rohani won the election was part accident and part fallout from the previous election. In the complicated taxonomy of Iranian politics he might best be described as a centrist. During the campaign the reformist camp stood squarely behind one of their own, Mohammad Reza Aref, a former vice-president under Mr Khatami. But shortly before the vote Mr Aref’s supporters persuaded him to stand aside in favour of Mr Rohani, believing that only he had a chance of defeating the conservative candidates. Mr Rohani would probably have won in any case, but he also benefited from the conservatives’ failure to agree on a unity candidate.

Given the reformists’ previous intransigence, it was an extraordinary decision for them to unite behind Mr Rohani. One of the senior people involved in making it explains: “We went through a lengthy and painful process, but ultimately it led to a sort of success.” From wanting to challenge the system, the reformists moved towards working within it. Before the election their leaders had hotly debated whether to take part in it at all. Pragmatists led by Mr Khatami won. According to the senior reformist, “The hot-headed young learnt to play politics during the Ahmadinejad years. They saw that fielding candidates who are diehard reformists does not get results. They had to be more moderate, less ambitious. That’s the lesson from the many defeats of the past.”

Pick your battles

Many reformists had been broken by the protests in 2009. Given the size of the demonstrations, the number of people killed was not huge, perhaps a few hundred. But thousands endured periods of detention and abuse, saw their friends suffer and were harassed once released.

This seemed to work well for the regime. Many former protesters withdrew to protective cocoons from which they have still not emerged. They avoid the streets and take hashish at home. Others have left the country or thrown themselves into non-political careers. Those who remain active in the public sphere have become more pragmatic and cautious, picking battles carefully and advocating patience. As Mr Hadian, the academic and government adviser, puts it: “As a reformist I now know the limits of power. We know the other side much better and we know how to deal with them.”

Attitudes in the conservative camp have changed, too, although less conspicuously. The crackdown in 2009 was risky. Faced with a possible loss of power, the generals and clerics did what they thought was necessary to retain it. But many realised afterwards that they could not go back to the status quo. In a highly educated and well-informed society, only so much can be imposed from above. Quite a few conservatives supported Mr Rohani, seen as the candidate best placed to win popular support.

After the election the supreme leader made it clear that he stood behind the new president. His backing is not indefinite or unconditional, but it created enough breathing space for Mr Rohani to launch controversial initiatives such as engaging the West in nuclear talks. The hardliners are showing some restraint. Both sides unenthusiastically support a “central solution” (which generally means a political compromise) to relieve economic pressure and improve Iran’s international position. Kevan Harris, an academic at Princeton, reckons that “radicals on both sides are exhausted. They have run out of ideas. Neither ambitious reforms under Khatami nor hardline isolation under Ahmadinejad proved successful.”

This does not quite amount to a new equilibrium in Iranian politics. In the past year conservatives have impeached one of Mr Rohani’s ministers, dragged an adviser into court, tried to keep the president himself off state television and frustrated his attempts to free up the internet. And the conservatives retain plenty of power through the revolutionary guards.

Next in our special report on Iran:





The Hardliners: Goon squad

(4/8)