The Sunni Vote in Iran's Election Who Would Iranian Sunnis Vote for?
By
Fathi al-Maraghy Expert - Iranian Politics
The four presidential candidates – Mehdi Karroubi, Mirhossein Mousavi, Mohsen Rezaei, and Ahmadinejad – have been competing for the Sunni vote in the election set for next Friday in an unprecedented way. Each candidate has made a big number of promises to Iran’s Sunni minority; however, the candidate who has been most active in this regard is Mehdi Karroubi.
Karroubi has come to be known as the protector of Sunnis after the big number of visits he made to governorates that have a majority of Sunni residents, such as Sistan, Kurdistan, and Kermanshah. Also, he has made a special statement about the rights of ethnic and religious minorities.
Although the Iranian society is a demographic mosaic that consists of religious minorities, such as Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Baha’is, sectarian minorities, such as Sunnis, Isma’ili Shiites, Zaidi Shiites, and ethnic minorities, such as Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens. And there are also the Persian ethnic majority and the Twelver Shiite religious majority.
However, Sunnis in Iran can be considered an oppressed minority.
The Persecution of Sunnis
There are various types of persecution practiced against Sunnis, the most continuous and severe of which is the one arising from the theory upon which the Iranian political system is based. Those who do not believe in the Guardianship of the Jurist theory are not allowed to assume any political or governmental position or to be part of the intellectual elite in Iran.
And since the Guardianship of the Jurist theory is a product Shiite thought, it is unlikely that any Sunni embraces it. As a result, since the Islamic Revolution, there has been an obstacle in the way of the integration of the Sunni minority in the Iranian society.
Iran’s Sunnis benefitted from the relatively liberal political environment under Khatami.
The four presidential candidates – Mehdi Karroubi, Mirhossein Mousavi, Mohsen Rezaei, and Ahmadinejad – have been competing for the Sunni vote in the election set for next Friday in an unprecedented way. Each candidate has made a big number of promises to Iran’s Sunni minority; however, the candidate who has been most active in this regard is Mehdi Karroubi.
Karroubi has come to be known as the protector of Sunnis after the big number of visits he made to governorates that have a majority of Sunni residents, such as Sistan, Kurdistan, and Kermanshah. Also, he has made a special statement about the rights of ethnic and religious minorities.
Although the Iranian society is a demographic mosaic that consists of religious minorities, such as Christians, Jews, Zoroastrians, and Baha’is, sectarian minorities, such as Sunnis, Isma’ili Shiites, Zaidi Shiites, and ethnic minorities, such as Azeris, Baluchis, Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmens. And there are also the Persian ethnic majority and the Twelver Shiite religious majority.
However, Sunnis in Iran can be considered an oppressed minority.
The Persecution of Sunnis
There are various types of persecution practiced against Sunnis, the most continuous and severe of which is the one arising from the theory upon which the Iranian political system is based. Those who do not believe in the Guardianship of the Jurist theory are not allowed to assume any political or governmental position or to be part of the intellectual elite in Iran.
And since the Guardianship of the Jurist theory is a product Shiite thought, it is unlikely that any Sunni embraces it. As a result, since the Islamic Revolution, there has been an obstacle in the way of the integration of the Sunni minority in the Iranian society.
Such political persecution is stated explicitly in the constitution of the Islamic Republic, which states that the president must be a Shiite Iranian who believes in the Guardianship of the Jurist theory. Consequently, throughout the past 30 years, Iran has witnessed neither a Sunni candidate running for president, nor a single Sunni minister. Moreover, no Sunni has been appointed as a governor of any of the governorates with Sunni majorities.
Thus, the persecution of Sunnis in Iran has been associated with the articles of the constitution.
The persecution of the Sunni minority in Iran can be found at the heart of Shiite rituals; Sunnis are weekly humiliated during what is known as Shiite prayers that are recited in collective rituals. These prayers contain curses of both contemporary and ancient Sunnis. Such explicit expression of hatred has put the Sunni minority in Iran in an inferior status.
Sunnis constitute around 20 percent of Iran’s 70 million residents, and they belong to different ethnic groups, such as Kurds, Balushis, Turkemans, Arabs, and Talishis.
Iran’s Sunni minority has faced systematic oppression; its leaders, such Ahmed Mufti Zadeh and Sheikh Ali Dahwary, were jailed and assassinated. Also, the authorities have demolished a number of Sunni mosques as a form of collective punishment.
Sunni religious schools do not receive an official recognition, local TV stations in governorates with Sunni majorities are forced to air Shiite missionary programs, and Sunni azan (call for prayer) is not allowed to be made.
The abovementioned facts about the persecution of the Sunni minority in Iran is a systematic process that has been going on since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, but still it can be understood in the Middle Eastern context, in which most majorities oppress minorities.
However, the question that poses itself now is about the increasing importance of the Sunni vote in Iran.
Sunnis’ Electoral Weight
The increasing importance of the Sunni vote can be attributed to two factors: 1) the unity of Sunni voters under the leadership of religious scholars and Sunni MPs; and 2) the increasing regional and international pressure on the Iran, and the system’s need to quell the anger of the residents of border areas, the majority of which are Sunnis.
It has been widely known that Sunnis abstain from participating in elections because of their disbelief in the possibility of obtaining their rights through the elected political bodies. Nevertheless, such an attitude started to change with the ascendance of the Reformists to power. In 1997, Sunnis voted for Khatami in huge numbers, which resulted in a phenomenal turnout in the presidential election.
Also, the seventh and eighth parliamentary elections witnessed the highest turnouts in the history of the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s Sunnis benefitted from the relatively liberal political environment under Khatami; they revived the role of the Union of Iranian Sunni Scholars, they strengthened the ties between the various Sunni groups in the border areas, they established radio stations and newspapers, and they revived the role of student unions and women’s organizations.
Thus, the presidential hopefuls of the 2005 election realized the electoral weight of the Sunni vote, and the first to recognize such a change was Mustafa Moein, who competed with Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mehdi Karroubi, and Ahmadinejad.
If elected, Moein pledged to appoint the first Sunni minister in the history of the Islamic Republic. As a result, he won 874,000 votes, 479,000 of which were from the governorates of Sistan and Baluchistan. These two governorates are usually regarded as an indication of the electoral preferences of Sunnis because most of their residents belong to the Sunni minority.
Notably, Sunnis have more than two million votes divided among Kurdistan, Khorasan, West Azerbejan, Gilan, Gilstan, and Ahvaz. However, because those governorates are inhibited by both Sunnis and Shiites, it is difficult to know the electoral preferences of Sunnis in them.
The votes won by Mustafa Moein in the 2005 election made it clear that the Sunni social leadership was able to convince Sunnis to rally behind the candidate who addressed their problems.
Furthermore, the Sunni masses showed an increasing tendency to follow their leadership when Moein lost the presidential race and a second round was held between Ahmadinejad and Rafsanjani. Although Rafsanjani is unpopular among Sunnis, particularly those living in coastal areas because they were harmed by his investment projects, 155,000 voters from Sistan voted for Rafsanjani.
External Pressure
The other reason behind the increasing significance of the Sunni vote is the regional and international pressure on the Iranian system, and the government’s need to pacify the mainly Sunni residents of border areas. It is important to note that Sunnis in Iran are concentrated in the border areas while the Shiite Persian majority lives in the big cities.
The emergence of a self-governed region in Iraqi Kurdistan, the independent state of Turkmenistan, and Baluchi armed groups in Pakistan that cooperate with Al-Qaeda next to Iran’s border areas have struck fear into the Islamic Republic’s leadership, urging it to reconsider the way treated the Sunni minority. Thus, need for an increased space for maneuvering with regard to regional developments and external pressure has urged the system to adopt a more lenient approach towards Sunnis.
The ascendance of Obama to power and the changing international political environment necessitates stabilizing the situation in the Sunni Baluchi areas because the international silence about the government’s oppression will not last for long. So, each presidential hopeful has been attempting to attract the biggest number of Sunni votes.
During his visit to the city of Zahedan, Mehdi Karroubi met with Molavi Abdul-Hamid – one of the most prominent Sunni figures in Iran, and announced that if elected, he would revitalize the constitutional articles that protect minorities’ rights.
Also, he has pledged to end persecution against them on the political, economic, and cultural levels, to allow them to assume senior government positions and to use their local languages, and to eliminate all the obstacles in the way of Sunnis who aspire to study in prestigious Iranian universities.
Karroubi has not undertaken to appoint a Sunni minister in his government. However, he has promised to do what is more than this: putting an end to the security-oriented approach towards Sunnis and considering them Iranian citizens rather than agents for foreign powers.
Who Would Sunnis Vote for?
Mehdi Karroubi’s attempts to appeal to Sunni voters have urged other candidates to follow the same path. Mirhossein Mousavi visited the Kurdish city of Mahabad, declaring that the first thing he would do if elected is proposing a bill to the parliament to increase the powers of local councils.
Yet, what distinguishes Mousavi from Karoubi is that the former makes only the promises he can make. All the pledges Iran’s former prime minister has made are part of his general electoral program, such as the public housing project and eliminating corruption.
Significantly, Mousavi has undertaken to build the first big mosque for Iranian Sunnis, who make the Friday prayer in foreign embassies.
After visiting Mahabad, he went to Sistan and met with Molavi Abdul-Hamid, who has become a magnet for presidential candidates who aspire to Sunni votes. Since Mousavi’s visit, rumors haven going around about Abdul-Hamid abandoning Karroubi and supporting Mousavi in the upcoming election.
It is totally improbable that Sunnis vote for Ahmadinejad, who started his tenure with a sense of bitterment about their support for his competitors. And his intelligence background has dominated his approach towards them; under Ahmadinejad, oppression against the Sunnis of Baluchistan heightened.
After Karroubi and Mousavi’s visits to Sunni areas, Mujtabi Thamara Hashemi, head of Ahmadinejad’s electoral committee, went to Zahedan to meet with Abdul-Hamid, who refused to see him at the beginning. After the meeting, Molavi announced that he would not support Ahmadinejad.
Ahmadinejad has failed at appeasing Sunnis during his last year in office by creating the position of the Advisor for Sunni Affairs because it was too late already to contain the Sunni anger against him.
On the other hand, Mohsen Rezaei has not made any effort whatsoever to attract Sunni voters because he knows that this would be wasted effort; it is illogical that Sunnis vote for him after what they experienced with a former Revolutionary Guards officer.
Thus, most of the Sunni votes in Iran will go to Mirhossein Mousavi and a small portion of them will go to Karroubi. And if a second round is held between Karroubi and another Conservative candidate, they will vote for Karroubi.
All in all, Sunnis in Iran have managed to pass the weakness period they have lived for 30 years, and they have come to have their civil society organizations that are politically active. Despite all the constraints, Sunni voters have become able to unify their stance, forming an electoral weight that cannot be ignored. Molavi Abdul-Hamid has become a significant leader of the Iranian Sunni minority, who is capable of striking a balance between the different candidates in Iran’s upcoming election.
What is even more important is that Sunnis in Iran have managed to improve their status without the support of any external forces.
Dr. Fathi al-Maraghy is an expert on the Iranian Political System in al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies. He is one of the founders of
Mokhtarat Iraniyya (Iranian Selections) publication. Al-Maraghy, who travelled to Iran several times, speaks Farsi fluently.
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