Hardliners Say a "Servant of the Leader" Must Replace the President

The Islamic Republic of Iran features a Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and a President, Hassan Rouhani, which brings to mind an old proverb, that two kings do not fit in one kingdom. In Iran the proverb is confirmed by the constant conflict between the Supreme Leader – who is elected by religious experts, who serves for life, and who oversees the executive, legislature and judiciary, and who also wields huge influence and direct control over security and other matters – and the popularly elected president. 

Ten months before the 2021 presidential election, an old debate has sprung up in Iran, in which supporters of the Supreme Leader are calling for the office of the President to be turned into an “executive deputy” of the Leadership rather than an independently elected office. The Supreme Leader would, as a result, gain the authority to directly appoint and remove the president.

Proponents of the idea, of whom there are many among the Islamic fundamentalists known as Principlists, believe that the president, like the head of the judiciary, should be appointed directly by the Leader and carry out the Leader's orders.

Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri Abyaneh, a Principlist political activist, defended the idea in an interview with Nameh News on August 5, saying: "I agree with the idea of the Supreme Leader being the head of the executive in the country, only on condition that, just like the head of the judiciary, he also [appoints] the president and has the authority to dismiss him."

"Some may argue that this is against the spirit of the Republic, but in many countries, the president and prime minister are not directly elected by the people, and even in the United States, where the electoral college is formed, the elected representatives of the states are decisive in appointing the first person in the country, that is, the president," Ghadiri Abyaneh added. "It should be noted that when people elect the chief of the executive body, with all his authorities, they are responsible for their own good or bad choices."

This view has been expressed many times in different ways among the Principlists and the more ardent supporters of the Supreme Leader – who believe that all Iranians should directly serve the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.

Principlists also believe that Iranians and their government owe their allegiance and obedience to the Supreme Leader – that this fealty makes the Republic become Islamic. The idea of fealty on the one hand, and the republican principle of freely electing the executive on the other, is a contradiction that defines the Islamic Republic system of governance. And it is this commitment to the Supreme Leadership – the Islamic term for the office translates as “guardianship of the Islamic jurist” – which moves its supporters to argue that any presidency should only serve the Islamic jurist and his vision.

Samsam al-Din Ghavami, the Friday prayer leader of the town of Pardisan in Qom, had previously said during a recent Friday prayers that: "For the 2021 elections, the Guardian Council [which approves candidates for political office] should present [to the people] a revolutionary president. We do not want ten people to stand. We do not want Larijani, Jalili, and Jahangiri. Two people [only] should stand. This is a religious democracy, not a Western democracy. We do not want a president who has an ideology of his own. We want an agent under the command of [Supreme Leader] Imam Khamenei.”

The idea may be against the spirit of republicanism but it has one advantage – which is why so far it has been rejected by both the Supreme Leader and the president. Tying the presidency to the will of the Supreme Leader opens the Leader to questions of responsibility and accountability. Today the Supreme Leader can blame the president for mistakes; the president, in turn, can accuse the Supreme Leader of interference. But when both roles become one there is no way to escape accountability.

Turning the presidency into an “executive deputy” to the Supreme Leader, a form of executive vice president, or accepting the responsibility for appointing and removing the president, would make the Supreme Leader more directly and personally responsible for Iran's executive functioning and affairs. Experience over the last 40 years has shown that the Supreme Leader is directly involved in all such major decisions; but since responsibility for this lies with the president, the Supreme Leader does not consider himself accountable for the decisions or actions taken by the executive.

Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic and its first Supreme Leader, was skilled at this political sleight of hand. Khomeini used his religious charisma and political skill to play factions off against each other and to avoid accountability for mistakes and atrocities. Today’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been less adept at manipulating Iran’s various factions – he has clashed in some measure with each of the presidents serving under his leadership.

Preserving Khamenei’s political capital and furthering his vision for Iran is why his supporters raise the idea of transforming the president into a mere deputy. And other officials or government bodies also criticize the president and his cabinet by spreading the notion that the presidency does not listen to the Supreme Leader.

There will be no constitutional reform or popular referendum addressing the nature of the presidency in Iran before the 2021 presidential election. But it now seems clear that, in the long-term, transforming the presidency into an agent of the Leadership is an unstated part of the Supreme Leader’s agenda as well as the agenda of Iran’s supervisory Guardianship Council. And for 2021, this may be achieved in a softer way; the Guardianship Council, which approves all candidates for elections in Iran, will only approve candidates that it believes can be mere agents of the Supreme Leader.

Two kings can fit in a single kingdom if one of the kings pulls all the strings.