Iranian election battle is a nuclear-free zone

By Andrew Beatty

Date: 16/06/05

With days to go before the first round of voting in Iran's presidential elections, the issue that has defined Iran to the outside world in the last year, the country's nuclear programme, is nowhere to be seen.

But what impact will the result have on the EU's efforts to ensure Iran does not acquire nuclear weapons? On Friday (17 June) an estimated 45 million eligible Iranians will be asked to vote in the first round of presidential elections.

After two terms in office Mohammed Khatami, a moderate, will give way. Those who do vote will choose his successor from eight main candidates - thanks to the conservative Council of Guardians who whittled the field down from more than 1,000.

Still, voters in the Islamic Republic's ninth presidential vote will have a choice between a range of reformers, possible-reformers and hard-line conservatives.

Yet none of the candidates are talking about 'the nuclear question', perhaps Iran's biggest foreign policy challenge since the Iran-Iraq war and one which could define its place in the world.

Anoush Ehteshami, an Iran expert at the University of Durham says that discussion of the issue is "minimal", likening it to the debate on the EU constitution in the recent UK elections.

"Candidates have stayed away from it because it is controversial," he says, adding that the issues of corruption, reform and economics have more resonance with voters.

According to a poll conduced last month for the Washington-based InterMedia consultancy, 55% of Iranians support their country's development of nuclear weapons technology.

Of the 2,001 Iranians InterMedia asked by telephone, 46% strongly supported the nuclear programme.

As in Pakistan or India, national pride is providing an important backdrop for what debate there is on going nuclear.

"It is amazing, it is the unifying force for Iran," says Heidi Huuhtanen of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

The near radio silence on the subject appears to have more to do with wrangling between Iran's plethora of policymaking institutions.

After eight years in power with the perceptibly ineffectual Khatami struggling to pass even modest reforms, the office of the president has been weakened.

Little of the discussions on Iran's nuclear programme have passed through the president's office or the government. The minister of foreign affairs has been overtaken in the talks by the more conservative National Security Council.

Most candidates, except the reformist Mustafa Moin, have been careful not to burn their bridges with the establishment and in particular with the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who still holds the levers of power.

A dramatic reversal after the elections, with Iran renouncing uranium enrichment permanently, is unlikely, according to Huuhtanen.

The US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq have turned the nuclear question into one of security, she says.

And Huuhtanen believes that no matter who comes to power, security calculations mean "the EU option is over". Some Brussels experts agree, pointing out that the amount of time and money Iran has spent developing nuclear facilities are unlikely to be traded away as a bargaining chip.

The EU's support for World Trade Organization membership and a smattering of trade deals will not offer the security guarantees that Iran is looking for and which could protect the regime from a fate similar to that of Saddam Hussein.

"They [the EU] just have to be positive for diplomatic reasons, everybody knows it is not going anywhere."

But Ehteshami points out that the presidential candidates' avoidance of the nuclear question may be instructive. The favourite in the race, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, could be independent enough, if he becomes president, to pursue a deal with Europe and limit Iran's nuclear ambitions, Ehteshami believes.

"Because of his background, because of his personal wealth, he has the ability to take risks, this is what differentiates him from the other contenders, he is the only one who could wrestle this away [from the current policymakers]," Ehteshami says.

This is clearly the hope of European politicians.

Preview of the Presidential Elections in Iran, 17 June 2005.