All Country For Old Men

Iran's oldest Parliament ever is weighing a vote of confidence this week for the oldest cabinet ever. Why is Iran stuck with old politicians?

Iran's MPs are busy this week reviewing the qualifications of the ministers nominated by President Hassan Rouhani, who is clearly in a rush to start defusing the country's economic crisis and easing the diplomatic isolation brought about by its nuclear programme. 

Amongst the myriad criticism his proposed cabinet has faced, however, one charge stands out: being too old. ‘This looks like of a government of the elderly,’ Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a hard-line lawmaker said in protest, noting that the cabinet's average age is a ripe 63.

But some MPs have defended the cabinet, stressing that hard times require established track records, which are accumulated over time. Kazem Jalali, a Conservative MP argued that age is a subjective measure, and that calling a 60-year-old an old man ‘is unfair... These people are experienced.’

This cabinet, if approved by parliament, will be the oldest in the history of Iran, proposed by the oldest president that the Islamic Republic of Iran has ever had elected at the age of 65.

Iran's youngest presidents have been Khamenei, Banisadr, Rajaei and Ahmadinejad, respectively, all elected in their 40s; the oldest were Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, who took office in their mid-50s. In other words, the newest president of Iran is 15 years older than an average Iranian president.

But does age even matter in Iranian politics, in a country that is ruled for life by its Supreme Leader? After the 1979 revolution, the first who occupied this powerful seat was Ayatollah Khomeini, at the advanced age of 79.

Ageism

Iranian society has long discriminated against individuals on the basis of age. But as in many other traditional societies, ‘ageism’ in Iran involves prejudice towards the young rather than the old. Being older is considered as being wiser, with a seniority demands respect by simple virtue of advance age.

Ageism is deeply rooted in the mentality of the Iranian politicians. Five years ago when Azam Taleghani, a former Iranian MP, criticised president Ahmadinejad for being self-centred and not heeding the advice of policy experts, she used age rather than substance as her reasoning: ‘Ahmadinejad should show some respect to people’s opinions. This young man [Ahmadinejad] has still a long way to become old.’

Even when President Rouhani started defending the old age of his cabinet on Monday, he said his cabinet ‘is not a place for trial and error,’ implying that elders are more reliable, beyond the age of fault.

Given how entrenched ageism is Iranian culture, are there any prospects that MPs can move beyond this mentality, as Rouhani's greying cabinet will at the end require their vote of confidence?  Let’s not get overly excited. Each of Iran's parliaments has successively become older than the last, a pattern that has been repeated in all nine parliaments after the Islamic Revolution.

Javad Jahangirzadeh, an Orumiyeh MP, defended the age of Rouhani’s cabinet on Monday by saying that nominating a young cabinet is like throwing away 34 years of experience after the Revolution, and that Iran, facing a grave political and economic crisis, cannot afford such a risk.

‘If being old is a bad thing, why it is only bad for the cabinet, not for the parliament?’ he said. ‘It is the same parliament that decided the minimum age of MPs should increase from 25 to 30.’

In Iran, you can easily be disqualified for a political position if you are young, and worse than that, if you are young and beautiful. (Click here)

Monopoly of Power

But ageism is just one side of the story. What shadows this cabinet more than age is the monopoly over power.  It reflects, the enduring dominance of the first generation that gained governmental positions after the 1979 revolution and clings to power still today.

At the outset of the revolution, Iran's politicians were amongst the youngest in the world. During the Iran-Iraq war the head of the Army of the Guardians of the Revolution was Mohsen Rezaee, at the tender age of 27. But after three decades the demography of Iran’s political sphere has clearly changed. Mr Rezaee still runs for president nearly every four years and as a secretary of the Expediency Council doesn’t seem retirement in mind.

Rezaee, now 60, is one of the youngest members of this powerful council. The head of the Expediency Council, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, is now 79.

This year when former President Rafsanjani was disqualified from running for the presidency again, almost none of his supporters accepted that he was too old for this position by any standard. Some of his supporters even raised the point that Churchill ran the United Kingdom in his 70s and saved the country during the war.  But they didn’t mention the fact that the UK is now run by one of its youngest Prime Ministers in history.

Opposite direction

Many of Rouhani’s members of cabinet are seasoned technocrats who served under Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami, and even if they were young that time, they are now mostly in their 60s. 

This is particularly jarring in the context of Rouhani's election campaign, which focused on young people, who in turned voted for him in droves and supplied the majority that led to his victory.

The world experienced so many unexpected changes in leadership in 2013. Beatrix, Queen of Netherland, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, Albert II of Belgium and even Pope Benedict XVI all abdicated power due to their old age and transferred leadership to younger successors.

But it seems Iran has decided to take the opposite direction. The nation might have attributed the failure of Ahmadinejad’s government to the former president's youth. Perhaps that is why the Iranians decided to choose the oldest candidate of the 2013 election as their new president.

In a country that considers young people as reckless, extreme idealists, Iranians are now hopeful that this old president and his old cabinet can bring moderation and pragmatism to the country.

Andisheh Azad is an Iranian journalist based abroad, with extensive experience reporting on the country and its politics.