The Woman Who Wanted to be President of Iran

Rafat Bayat was born 1958 in Zanjan, 300 kilometers northwest of Tehran. In 1974, she went to the United States to study sociology. In 1978, after Saddam Hussein expelled Ayatollah Khomeini from Iraq under pressure from the shah, Bayat flew to France to meet the future founder of the Islamic Republic in Neauphle-le-Château, a suburb of Paris. On February 1, 1979 when Khomeini returned to Iran, she was on the same plane as the ayatollah and his entourage.

From the very start of the revolution, the conservative Bayat has been fully engaged in Iranian politics in various ways. In 1985, during the Iran-Iraq War, she was put in charge of the Women’s Basij, a paramilitary organization responsible for organizing women in the war effort. In 1990, under President Hashemi Rafsanjani, she was appointed advisor on women’s affairs to his vice president.

In 2004, Bayat was elected to represent Zanjan in Iran’s parliament. In both the 2005 and 2009 presidential elections, she registered as a candidate, but both times, the body that formally approves candidates, the Guardian Council, refused to endorse her. “Let's face it: the decision makers are all men,” she told TIME Magazine in an interview in 2009.

With the 2017 presidential election approaching, IranWire asked Bayat her view on women’s opportunities to put themselves forward as presidential candidates in Iran, and about what obstacles stand in their way.

Guardian Council Spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodaei has announced that women are entitled to register as candidates for the presidential election. You have registered twice to run in the past. How do you see the chances for women this time around?

There are no obstacles for women to register as presidential candidates. I registered twice myself. What’s important is for the Guardian Council to decide that a woman candidate satisfies Article 115 of the constitution, and that it is not limited to men. What Mr. Kadkhodaei said is nothing new. Women could register, even before now.

So, in your opinion, how the Guardian Council interprets parts of the constitution, including the word “statesman,” is part of what prevents women from running for president? It depends whether the council interprets the word “statesman” as meaning a public figure, either man or woman, or whether they view the word as referring to men only? 

Up to a point. Perhaps some members of the Guardian Council believe that “statesmen” does not apply to women.

How hopeful are you that women will be able to put themselves forward as presidential candidates?

Women are not banned from running.

But you were only able to register. You were disqualified and were not approved as a candidate, so you could not properly run for president.

No. I was not disqualified — I was just not declared as being qualified. These are different things. Imagine that 100 individuals register to take part in a presidential election but only two of them are declared as qualified. This does not mean that all of the other 98 are necessarily disqualified. It’s more accurate to say that my qualification was not fully established. I was not told that this was because I am a woman. I was treated like men whose qualifications were not established.

You went to Paris when Ayatollah Khomeini was in Neauphle-le-Château and you were active during the revolution. How did Ayatollah Khomeini view women’s role in politics?

I myself asked Imam [Khomeini] about it and so did the others. He said that nothing prohibits women from holding political positions. He only insisted on the issue of [women wearing] hijab.

You heard this personally from Ayatollah Khomeini?

Yes, Imam’s thinking was progressive, and he had nothing against women being in political positions.

So perhaps there are views among the higher political echelons of the Islamic Republic today that have prevented women from running for president, and will continue to do so.

No, I do not agree. Aside from Imam — who nobody ever heard speak against women in political positions — even when it was proposed in the constituent assembly that the president must be a man, it didn’t get the votes. Instead they included the term “statesmen” [in the constitution) so that if one day a woman is qualified, society will not be deprived of her services. The martyr Beheshti [Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini Beheshti, the chief architect of the constitution of the Islamic Republic], who led the discussions, had a progressive way of thinking. Look! If one day society is ready for a woman president and people accept this view then the Guardian Council will accept it as well.

So are you saying that the Guardian Council follows what society demands, and if it learns that Iranian society wants it, it will qualify women to run for president?

Yes, this is one of the conditions. Society must want it and show that it wants it. Our society must be ready for it.

Iran had woman cabinet ministers and senators before the revolution. After the revolution we have had woman members of parliament and as vice presidents. There was even a female minister in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet. What will it take for the Guardian Council to conclude that society is ready for woman candidates to take part in presidential elections?

Before the revolution it was a different situation. This is not relevant now. But the conditions after the revolution have been encouraging and continue to be so. Well, women have to move, too, and show some solidarity. As I said, society must accept women running as candidates in presidential elections, and there is no doubt that the Guardian Council will respond to their demand. The presence of a woman minister in Mr. Ahmadinejad’s cabinet was a response to demands by society. Mr. Ahmadinejad could have ignored it but he did not. Issues like this are multifaceted.

You were a member of Iran’s seventh parliament and interacted with the higher echelons of political power in Iran. Is there a positive attitude among them — whether they are conservative principlists or reformists — toward the idea of a woman president?

This is not a question of party politics. Some principlist men have a positive attitude and some don’t. The same is true among the left. This is even true among women themselves. Some are for it and some are against it.

Are you saying that among Iranian female politicians there are those who are against a woman becoming president?

Exactly. Yes, it has always been like that. 

What would be their reasons for opposing it?

Well, they have more faith in the leadership of men.

You mean there are women who believe that a woman is not capable of being president even though they themselves are members of parliament?

Yes, there are women in parliament who think like that. Even in society at large, there are many women who think this same way. This question must go through its own process to get solved. This is a multifaceted sociological issue.

Let us assume that you could become a presidential candidate and win the popular vote as well. Iran discriminates against women, for example in law, economy and employment. Do you believe that a woman president, acting within the framework of the Islamic Republic, can help relieve these discriminations?

I don’t agree with you at all. How are women discriminated against in Iran? In Iran men and women have equal rights like nowhere else in the world. There are no legal barriers against women in economy or employment. We can see how the world is. We have our own studies of the world. I don’t see any discrimination against women in Iran that a president needs to do away with. There is no such issue. There might be difficult jobs, like mining, that women cannot do, but that is something different. There is no discrimination against women.

You deny discrimination exists in Iran, but women have problems even when it comes to riding a bicycle.

No, says who? Women have no problem riding bicycles. I have seen many women riding bicycles.

A couple of months ago, police retaliated against female cyclists.

This is in no way an important issue. We must talk about more important issues. You talk about employment, but end up with bicycling. I don’t see any discrimination in those areas.

It was an example to show how wide-ranging the discriminations are.

Look! In no way does the law discriminate between men and women. It is possible that in an office or at home a man might do injustice to a woman, but we don’t see any discrimination in the overall legal framework of Iran.

In what respect might a female president be better than a male president? 

You never see the fingerprints of a woman in corruption cases.They are more wholesome and more persistent. They have an emotional view towards society so they engage with problems more strongly. They have an all-encompassing view of the issues. I always say that women’s perception is like a multivariable equation, whereas men have a linear view of questions. This, of course, is separate from knowledge, experience and other necessary assets as well.