One of the oddities in Iranian elections over the years is the dwindling presence of clerics in parliament, while the regime shifts towards greater ideological rigidity and less tolerance.
When questioned about the absence of clerics on his candidate list for Tehran, Ali Motahhari, a former deputy speaker of the Majles (parliament) and current candidate, responded candidly. He explained, "There was no deliberate exclusion of clerics from our list. However, among the nominated clerics, we couldn't find anyone who would add more depth or interest to our lineup."
Motahhari, the son of Morteza Motahhari, a prominent ideologue of the Islamic Republic and a cleric himself, has long been known as a staunch defender of the regime's policies, including obligatory hijab. However, he has recognized a notable shift in the preferences of voters participating in the sham elections, indicating a declining demand for clerical representation in parliament.
The diminishing support for clerics as parliamentary representatives has been a persistent trend in the Islamic Republic over the years. In the early years of the regime, during the first Majles (1980-1984), over 50 percent of the seats were occupied by clerics.
However, this proportion dwindled significantly to just 5.5% (16 out of 290 seats) in the tenth Majles (2016-2020). This decline has been evident irrespective of whether the majority voted for the reformist or principlist camp or how the Guardian Council handled candidate disqualifications.
Why is this phenomenon occurring in a regime where clerics hold significant sway in politics and are pervasive throughout society? Several social trends may shed light on the declining representation of clerics in parliament.
Firstly, government incompetence plays a significant role. Across various facets of life, public services and infrastructure development have faltered and deteriorated. According to a confidential survey conducted by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture in 2023, a staggering 73 percent of Iranians, in a confidential survey conducted by the government, expressed the view that clerics should retreat to their mosques and relinquish their involvement in government affairs.
This marked a notable increase from about 31 percent recorded in 2015. This shift in public sentiment has been a gradual trend within Iranian society spanning over four decades.
Another trend is the de-Islamization of society. Despite the regime's efforts to enforce Islamic practices through incentives and penalties, society has moved in the opposite direction.
The Mahsa Movement of 2022 can be seen as a national and social response to the stringent imposition of Sharia law in the public sphere. Iranians are holding Shia clerics accountable for these stringent regulations and oppressions, and as a result, they advocate for reduced clerical influence in the government.
The third trend involves the gradual erosion of public trust in Shia clerics. Prior to the 1979 Revolution, clerics enjoyed some of the highest levels of public trust compared to other societal groups. However, according to the same confidential survey, approximately 56 percent of respondents now express little to no trust in the clergy, while about 25 percent still hold some level of trust in them. Another 18 percent fall somewhere in the middle of the spectrum. Even in Qom, the primary base of Shia clerics, 51 percent of individuals exhibit limited or very limited trust in this group. This marks a significant decline.
On the top of the list for public trust now are physicians by 73 percent and public school teachers by 60 percent.
The fourth trend pertains to an increasing disillusionment with government propaganda permeating every aspect of life. The religious establishment spearheads the government's indoctrination efforts across various sectors including sports, arts, public education, universities, media, and governance. This propaganda campaign, funded by billions of dollars annually allocated to the Shia clergy, has left the public weary of being force-fed such rhetoric.
In response, wherever possible, the public vehemently expresses its disdain for this manipulation. During election periods, this sentiment manifests in two distinct ways: a significant portion of the population opts to abstain from voting altogether, while those who do participate tend to favor non-clerical candidates. Unfortunately, the regime has yet to heed this message.
However, the composition of the Majles, whether predominantly clerical or not, holds little sway over its function within the system governed by the Guardian Jurist. With its oversight powers effectively neutered, the Majles has been relegated to a ceremonial role, while authority lies with 15 councils such as the Expediency Council and Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, which regularly legislate.
Consequently, the dwindling presence of clerics in the Majles has negligible impact on the performance of this beleaguered institution. What truly matters is the shift in public sentiment: not only are people disillusioned with clerics' ability to improve their lives, but they also harbor a conviction that their influence may exacerbate their circumstances.
The confidential correspondence from Mohammad Mohammadi-Golpaygani, Khamenei’s chief of staff, to Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, dated January 31, 2023, reveals dissatisfaction with the stagnant budget allocation for Khamenei's affiliated entities and organizations in the 2022-2023 budget.
The letter, unveiled by the hackers' group "Ghiyam ta Sarnegouni" (Uprising till Overthrow), a hackers group linked to the opposition People's Mojahedin Khalq Organization (MEK), appeared on their Instagram account last week.
Golpaygani urged parliament to amend and augment the budget for these entities and organizations, such as the Social Security Center of Seminaries, in the upcoming fiscal year (March 21, 2023, to March 20, 2024), citing the need for adjustments in line with inflation, which has been hovering above 40 percent for the past five years. The center oversees payment of benefits and health insurance to unemployed seminary students.
The document is part of a collection the group claims to have obtained by breaching 600 of the parliament's main servers through its Khaneh Mellat (Nation’s Home) News Agency.
In his letter, Golpaygani also called for a separate budget allocation to support a center responsible for addressing accommodation issues among foreign students at Al-Mustafa International University in Qom.
Al-Mustafa International University, a state-funded Shiite seminary under Khamenei's authority, has branches in over fifty countries and annually sponsors hundreds of foreign students from various regions, enabling them to pursue studies in Iran.
In 2020, the university received a budget of nearly 5 trillion rials, approximately $100 million based on the official exchange rate at that time, surpassing the budget of any other university in Iran.
In June 2023, the same hackers' group leaked a document obtained by hacking the presidential office, indicating a 96 percent increase in the previous year's budget for the same center, amidst a significant budget deficit faced by the government.
The budget allocated to a host of religious and propaganda entities under Khamenei’s control as well as the military is often augmented with “contributions” from government bodies, which obscures the total money put at their disposal and their expenditure is usually very untransparent.
The budget bill proposed by the government of President Ebrahim Raisi for the next fiscal year starting March 21, for instance, obligates government banks and companies to allocate one percent of their spendings to “promote the Islamic culture, the [ideology of] martyrdom, [encouragement to] having more children, Quranic affairs, and the media”. The parliament is unlikely to contest or scrape proposed budget.
Salaries and pensions of civil servants and workers and the minimum wage, however, have not increased in tandem with an inflation of over 40 percent in the past few years, leading to great dissatisfaction among ordinary people. Monthly wages for workers and government employees hovers around $120-200, while a family of three needs at least $450 a month to survive.
For the next fiscal year, for instance, the parliament has so far approved an increase of 20 percent in minimum wage against the backdrop of an alarming annual inflation rate nearing 50 percent, the rising US dollar rate which hugely affects prices and consumers’ purchasing power, and the threat of further depreciation in the upcoming fiscal year, starting March 21.
The State Department said that “Iran continues to deny al-Qaeda’s presence in the country, despite their knowledge of al-Qaeda leadership figures’ activities there," the relationship dating back to as early as 2009.
The State Department also confirmed remarks by James Rubin, the US special coordinator for the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, who recently talked of “a new partnership between Iran and al-Qaeda" in a briefing in London, saying that Iran is harboring al-Qaeda leaders inside its soil.
The department also emphasized that “Iran is the leading state sponsor of terrorism, facilitating a wide range of terrorist activities and other illicit activities around the world -- in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, through militant groups and terrorists such as Hezbollah and Hamas.”
They branded Iran "a primary driver of instability across the Middle East" since the Islamic regime was established in 1979.
Late in January, the United Nations released a report disclosing eight new al-Qaeda training camps and other infrastructure inside Afghanistan as well as five madrasas, or religious schools to teach jihadi ideology. An al-Qaeda leader known as Hakim al-Masri “is responsible for the training camps and conducting suicide bomber training for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan,” the Pakistani branch of the outfit. Al Qaeda has also established a new base “to stockpile weaponry” in the central province of Panjshir.
The report cited several UN Security Council member states as saying that the key al-Qaeda figures are travelling to provide liaison between the terrorist group’s de facto leader, Saif al-Adel, who resides in Iran, and senior al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan, including Abdul Rahman al-Ghamdi. Al-Ghamdi is one of the suspects in the September 11 attacks, who was unable to participate for unknown reasons.
Seif al-Adel, a former Egyptian special forces officer and a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda with a $10 million US bounty on his head, became the "uncontested" leader of the militant group following the July 2022 death of Ayman al-Zawahiri in a US missile strike in Kabul.
The Taliban has not formally declared him "emir" because of sensitivity to the concerns of the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, who haven't wanted to acknowledge that Zawahiri was killed by a US rocket in a home in Kabul, another big blow to the group since its founder Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011. Another UN report said that the Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda is also sensitive to the issue of Adel residing in largely Shiite Iran.
The latest UN report highlighted that “The group maintains safe houses to facilitate the movement between Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran in the Provinces of Herat, Farah and Helmand, with additional safe house locations in Kabul.”
In February 2023, then State Department spokesperson Ned Price said, “Our assessment aligns with that of the UN… offering safe haven to al-Qaeda is another example of Iran’s wide-ranging support for terrorism, its destabilizing activities in the Middle East and beyond.”
A day after Washington aligned itself with the UN statement locating Adel in Iran, the regime’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, denied he is based in the country. "I advise the officials of the White House to stop the failed game of Iran-phobia, making news about the leader of al-Qaeda and linking him to Iran is laughable," he said.
According to the US State Department’s Rewards for Justice program, Adel moved to southeastern Iran after bomb attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed 224 civilians and wounded more than 5,000 others in 1998. He reportedly lived under the protection of Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), but in April 2003, Iran placed him and other al-Qaeda leaders under house arrest. In September 2015, Adel and four other senior al-Qaeda leaders were released from Iranian custody in exchange for an Iranian diplomat kidnapped by al-Qaeda in Yemen. They stayed in Iran after their release.
The UN report also confirmed that “the relationship between the Taliban and al-Qaeda remains close, and the latter maintains a holding pattern in Afghanistan under Taliban patronage.” Expressing concerns about the presence of al-Qaeda senior figures in Afghanistan, the UN team said, “the group continues to pose a threat in the region, and potentially beyond.” The report noted that Taliban tries to “reduce the visibility” of its ties with al-Qaeda.
In addition to harboring al-Qaeda leaders, Tehran is also bolstering its relations with Taliban, which agreed not to allow al-Qaeda to operate in areas under their control days after the takeover of Kabul in August 2021. Al-Qaeda is bound to the Taliban by a pledge of allegiance first offered in the 1990s by Osama Bin Laden to his Taliban counterpart Mullah Omar. The pledge has been renewed several times since, although it has not always been publicly acknowledged by the Taliban.