Moin and Machiavelli: Supreme Leader's Intervention Poses a Dilemma for the Reformists

                                          

The current debate amongst some Iranian webloggers (here and here), which is in perhaps pursuant to the remarks made by the minister of Interior, Mr. Mousavi Lari, indicates that some believe that the Supreme Leader's order to the Guardians to review Moin's candidacy was not "the Sovereign's Decree".

I think such debates have arisen because most of the discussants are not well-versed in the theory of the Supremacy of the Clergy, Velayet-Faqih, as stipulated by Ayatollah Khomeini.

First, according to this theory, the absolute supremacy of the competent Shiite juris-theologian requires obedience without question.

Second, the Supreme Clergy, in absolute disregard to all the fundamental principles of the religion and the constitution, is allowed to "disallow" or "allow" any practice or forbearance that is contrary to the law and the Shari'a. In so doing, the Supreme Clergy can decree as such if he so considers that the survival of the regime, in the long term or in the short term, is at stake.

I concede that the conceptualisation of the concept of "Sovereign's Decree" is still to be discussed in the literature by the Shiite juris-theologians. However, in order to understand the present situation, I  think we should pay attention to the way the Parliament's Speaker made his request, the way the Supreme Leader decreed it, and the way the Guardian Council accepted it.

The Parliament's Speaker made his request based upon "expediency/exigency", that is, he implied that the regime's legitimacy would be questioned domestically and internationally, if there is a low voter-turnout as a result of Moin's disqualification.

In responding to the Parliament's Speaker, the Supreme Leader did not order the Guardian Council to treat everybody equally and revise its criteria to be as inclusive as possible. He ordered that the Guardians, in the interest of expediency and exigency of the regime, have to reconsider the qualification of the candidates that he had explicitly mentioned in his letter: Mehr-alizadeh and Moin. Indeed, the Supreme Leader made no mention as to whether he believed the Guardians could have made a mistake, but he asked them to make an exception in the interest of the regime.

The Guardian Council accepted the decree of the Supreme Leader based upon his stated concern, but "in compliance with the principle of the Supremacy of the Clergy, Velatyate-Faqih", not based upon the fact that it had made a mistake! In fact, Janati, the Council's Secretary, mentioned that the Guardians had declared the results after exhausting all the jurisprudential, Shari'a-based, and legal venuse.

Finally, we still do not know why these candidates, and hundreds of others, were rejected. We do not know what criteria was exactly used by the Guardians to accept the Conservative candidates and reject other candidates.

It appears that the missing link is the principle of the Supremacy of the Clergy as stated by the Guardians as "the primary reason"; that is why they have accepted the decree of the Supreme Leader.

The reformists have always declared that they oppose this principle. If Moin accepts this result, he has violated the same principle that he and his allies had rejected before. Indeed, if he is a true democrat, he has to call for the acceptance of everybody else who has been rejected based upon the principle of equality before the law.

In the end, perhaps Moin should remind everybody that section 107 of the Constitution stipulates that the leader is equal with other individuals before the law. According to this constitutional criteria, Moin should call the Guardians to treat everybody equally before the law regardless of one's social, religious, and political position, and regardless of any expediency. Equality should be the supreme concern of any society, Islamic or otherwise.