Who Will Be Iran’s Next Speaker of Parliament?

Two days after Iran’s parliamentary runoff elections on Friday, April 29, political factions are busy playing with numbers to prove that they have won the elections for the 10^th Parliament.

The new parliament has 290 representatives. In the first round of voting, 222 members were elected. The second round on Friday decided who would occupy 68 remaining seats.

One seat, which was won by Minoo Khaleghi, a reformist candidate from Isfahan, remains unoccupied. The Guardian Council, which decides who can run in Iran’s elections, disqualified her after her win in an unpreceded move. President Hassan Rouhani has publicly opposed her disqualification, and the rogue MP Ali Motahari has asked Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to intervene.

At this moment, both reformists and principlists claim they have won a majority. The reason behind these claims and counter-claims is the high number of so-called independents who neither side supported during the campaign. They either have no clear political position or, in some cases may have a tendency to act against the agenda of their perceived faction.

The principlists claim that they have at least 110 seats, and can count on the support of 40 independents. If true, this would give them the magic number of 150, meaning the majority of seats in parliament. The reformists say they have 129 seats and can count on the support of 80 independents.

But these competing claims are little more than propaganda. As has been the case before, certain individuals are bound to change course after the elections. Some might support Rouhani’s government while others might ally themselves with institutions close to the Supreme Leader. The election for speaker of parliament on May 27 will, in any case, test their allegiences.

There are two top candidates for the speakership: Ali Larijani, the speaker of the outgoing parliament, and Mohammad Reza Aref, who topped the reformists’ list of candidates during parliamentary elections and won the highest number of votes in Tehran.

During the 2013 presidential elections, Aref withdrew from the race to clear the field for Hassan Rouhani. Some reformists and supporters of President Rouhani expect him to do the same for Larijani, but he hasn’t done so yet.

A Patchwork Parliament

In recent weeks, several media outlets close to the Rouhani government have supported Larijani’s speakership even though they had supported Aref and the reformists during elections. These outlets argue that Aref lacks the parliamentary record and the political character necessary to be speaker. They also say that the next parliament will be made up of five groups: hardline principlists, moderate principlists, reformists, supporters of the government, and independents. In their view, Larijani would be able to work with all five groups, whereas Aref lacks relations with any of the principlists, and would not be able to control parliament.

Many of Rouhani’s supporters also worry that if a reformist becomes speaker, hardline figures and institutions outside parliament will react aggressively. Rouhani’s government must prepare for presidential elections in 2017, and is wary of such an outcome.

Some of Rouhani’ supporters also say that Larijani could be an effective intermediary between the government and the principlists and hardliners, giving the government the ability to bargain with the latter factions. They point to the nuclear agreement as an example, since both reformists and hardliners believe that it would not have been passed in parliament but for Larijani’s support.

According to the reformist paper Etemad, of the 80 MPs who signed a bill to reject the nuclear agreement in the 9^th Parliament, only 11 have been reelected to the new parliament. This will ease government’s worries about implementing the agreement, but some of Rouhani’s supporters still argue that Larijani will be needed to help counter continued pressure from hardliners on the nuclear front.

Mohammad Ali Abtahi, who worked as former reformist President Mohammad Khatami’s chief of staff (1997-2001) and vice president (2001-2004), said yesterday that reformists have won the highest number of votes in parliamentary elections, and therefore, the speaker should be a reformist. He also said that the Rouhani government ca trust Aref more than Larijani.

One of the important issues for both the government and its reformist supporters is the campaign to end the extra-judicial house arrest of Green Movement leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and Zahra Rahnavard, who have been confined to their homes since 2011. As speaker of parliament, Aref would have greater influence with which to pursue their release. In the past three years, Rouhani’s supporters have asked his government to end the house arrests, but his government has said that it lacks the authority. As speaker, Aref would be able to add pressure on Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority over the opposition leaders’ fate, and has strongly opposed releasing them or giving them a trial.

Buying the “Independents”

The so-called independent representatives will prove to be another deciding factor in Iran's political makeup. Historically, Iranian presidents have been able to wield leverage over independents, since most of them represent small towns, and the government can buy them off with promises of economic development and other perks.

A similar situation existed when the 8^th Parliament was about to elect a speaker. President Ahmadinejad’s supporters were unhappy with Gholamali Haddad-Adel, who had been the speaker of the previous parliament. They supported Ali Larijani, made promises to the MPs, and succeeded in preventing Haddad-Adel from continuing as speaker. Now Rouhani’s government -- in theory at least -- has the same power to help or hinder Larijani.

But so far, President Rouhani has been silent on this issue, and politicians and media outlets close to him have clearly favored Larijani.