Iran, India and Lebanon

A New York Times Op-ed looks at the issues surrounding the elections in Iran. It notes that there has been an Iranian-American journalist jailed and makes the point that this is likely related to the elections. Also, this column notes that the conservative party in Iran is fractured and that Ahmadinejad has been unable to the deal with domestic policy in that country and that he faces both external opposition (from countries like the United States) and internal opposition (in his election and from some elites). The reformist actually look like they have a decent chance of unseating the conservatives in Iran and Iran has been isolated because of it’s rhetoric. The elites among the conservatives are feuding with one another with pragmatic conservatives and hard-liner conservatives fighting, particularly pragmatic conservatives trying to undermine Ahmadinejad. While Iran’s presidential elections are not until June 12, as has been mentioned before, they are having effects on the things going on now. The reformist have two different candidates they are vying for president: Mir Hossein Mousavi, a popular 1980s prime minister and Mahdi Karroubi the former speaker of Iran’s Parliament. Conservatives are split between the pragmatist who want to pick a moderate candidate and who support détente with Obama and the hard-liners who want to continue supporting Ahmadinejad and who distrust Obama and do not want to negotiate with him in any way. Those who support Ahmadinejad include the intelligence apparatus, some of the Revolutionary Guard, and hard-line clerics (like Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi) and their followers. The Op-ed columnist argues that Iran’s hard-liners are afraid of talking to the US because they are that relations with strength reformist and democratic groups in Iran and that could led to a velvet revolution. Also, he argues they fear that improved relations mean a removal of sanctions which would break up some of the economic power they have and also expose the corruption they have been a part of.

Forbes is also looking at the elections coming up in India. They note that it is possible that the small caste-based and regional parties will be successful at winning seats over the two larger parties the Congress Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leading to no party having a clear majority and post-election negotiations will have to be done to determine who is in control of India. The opinion polls seem to suggest that the two major parties will win about 200 seats each with third parties winning about 150 seats so that nobody has the required 272 out of 573 seats. In 1996, the leader of the BJP Atal Behari Vajpayee became prime minister but was ultimately unable to build a winning coalition and so resigned. Then the third parties joined into a Third Front and before failing had two prime ministers. Either of which seems like it is possible in this situations. The party with the most seats gets the first chance to form a government but it will have trouble forming a government since it is possible their allies on the Left Front (a group of four Marxist parties) will not join them because of their nuclear deal with the US last session. Without them, they might need to depend on Mayawati of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) who leads the dalits (a group who consist of the bottom of India's caste ladder). If the BJP gains power it is likely that they will need the Mayawati in order to maintain power as well. However, Mayawati has stated that the price of her support is gaining the position of Prime Minister. This may led to a rotating Prime Ministership. Still, the coalition government, while though to possible cause bad economic policy has not done so in the past and in fact have produce important economic reforms. Since this is the case, India will likely continue on its same path of careful liberalization. Also, until the recession is over, economic liberalism of finance and retail will not go far but after the recession there should be a movement in that direction. Still, there are two problems that author notes. The first is that all the parties are promising large amounts of spending and this could be bad for the country economically. Second, Mayawait wants a job quota for dalits and tribals in the private sector (they already exist in the public sector) and she may get it in order for other parties to get her support. They could hurt India’s competitiveness. Finally, there could be increases in wealth and capital gains taxes if the Left Front dominates a third party government. This article argues the best case is a stable BJP government as they are liberalizers and support outright privatization and the worst case a government led by third party groups with the Left Front at the top and Mayawati’s job quotas. This article looks at India from a liberal perspective with its focus on leaders (though that’s all elections coverage really) and it’s concern with the economic prospects of the election, implicitly showing it to be an area of significant concern.

The Washington Times reports that another country with elections coming up is Lebanon. What is more, Hezbollah is working to build support and has a good chance of winning the elections there. They are working on putting a more moderate face. This could be problematic of the US since Lebanon is a pro-US country and if Hezbollah won, a very anti-US group (and Iranian and Syrian proxy) would have control of Lebanon. Hezbollah is considered a terrorist group by both the United States and Israel. Hezbollah has tried to make the case that they would not be a radical change if they won. Their leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has stated they will work with opponents and build a national unity government to make sure the country continues to be stable. They have talked about things like dealing with government corruption, making government more efficient and and government by consensus. Also, Britain has said it is willing to talk to the political wing of Hezbollah. Hezbollah is being careful because it does not want the same fate as it’s militant ally Hamas that won election but was then crippled by Western boycotts and Israeli actions. Still a Hezbollah win means at the least less pressure on Hezbollah and it’s ability to use rocket attacks on Israel, attempts to solidify Shiite power and the possibility of adding Lebanon to the Iran and Syria block. Lebanon is has a highly sectarian system a 128-member legislature that has to be half-Christian and half-Muslim. Then Christians are divided among Orthodox and Catholic parties and Muslims among Shi'ite, Sunni, Druse and Alawite sects. Also, in any of the governments, the prime minister must be a Sunni, so Hezbollah would needs there help. All Hezbollah’s candidates will likely win and it’s coalition that consist of pro-Syrian, Shiite and Christian parties currently has 58 seats. A win by this coalition would likely see a end to the sectarian distribution of parliamentary seats and a mandate for opposition to the US’s Middle East policy and strong opposition to Israel.