A man for nearly all seasons
The Economist
June 03, 2000
Tehran
HE WAS resigning from parliament, said Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
on May 25th, "to save the revolution". In fact, Mr Rafsanjani,
who was Iran's president between 1989 and 1997 and had hoped to be speaker,
had become such a liability to his supporters that he had to quit to save
the Servants of Construction, Iran's first pro-reform faction, which he
helped to create in 1996. With his popularity at an all-time low, he could
have discredited other faction members, such as Tehran's ex-mayor, Gholam-Hossein
Karbaschi, who had drafted Mr Rafsanjani's resignation speech some weeks
earlier.
The election in February had left Mr Rafsanjani fighting for the last
of Tehran's 30 seats. Blatant jiggery-pokery by his conservative backers
in the Council of Guardians, a body charged with supervising the election,
resulted in the announcement on May 20th that he had somehow finished in
20th place. Mr Rafsanjani's candidacy became a joke. He was lampooned in
the conservative press. Reformers ridculed him in public. At a Tehran University
rally, two days before his resignation, students chanted: "Down with
the shah! Which shah? Akbar Shah!"
Mr Rafsanjani's failure to loosen social restrictions while he was president
lost him a lot of support. His frail, and always ambiguous, reformist credentials
were further dented. People have chipped away at his legacy, exposing financial
corruption within his family and drawing attention to his complacent response
to the murder, by rogue agents in the intelligence ministry, of several
secular intellectuals during his presidency.
But Mr Rafsanjani should not be written off. He is a consummate insider
in a country where personality politics and behind-the-scenes dealing still
predominate. He will continue to hold the powerful post of the head of
the Expediency Council, a body charged with settling disputes over legislation
between parliament and the Council of Guardians. In addition, several important
conservatives, including Iran's supreme leader, remain at least outwardly
loyal to him.
Five years ago, during a three-hour televised press conference, Mr Rafsanjani
was asked by a woman journalist why Iranian women's veils have to be black,
a depressing colour. Mr Rafsanjani, the quintessential pragmatist, replied
that they could wear the shade of their choice. The next day, headlines
in the state-run newspapers declared that the president had granted women
the right to change the official dress code. But black still remains the
primary colour on the streets. Mr Rafsanjani's retreat from politics may
be as fleeting as a pink chador.
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