Political parties in Iran

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See also: List of political parties in Iran

Only candidates and parties that do not oppose the religious system of the governance (Velayate faqih) can participate in elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is enforced by the clerical Guardian Council which vets candidates.

Offices open to election on a national level in the Islamic Republic include, the president, the parliament (or Majlis), and an Assembly of Experts (which elects the Supreme Leader of Iran). After the banning of the last two Opposition parties in 1983, parties and candidates usually have operated in loose alignments within two main coalitions, the conservative (osool-garayan) and the reformist (eslah-talaban) both of them coming from the former single-party Islamic Republic Party. Since 2009, only the conservatives have been allowed to participate and prominent reformist parties have been banned and their members jailed.

Contents

[edit] Parties inside Iran

These parties can operate inside the Islamic regime. Until 2010 two groupings functioned: the Conservatives (extremist and ultra-religious right-wing parties) and the Reformists (moderate religious right-wing parties). As of 2011 only the Conservatives parties can carry out political and cultural activities inside Iran.

[edit] Conservative Alliance

See also: Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran

[edit] Main Parties

[edit] Reformist Coalition

Main article: 2nd of Khordad Movement

[edit] Main Parties

[edit] Opposition parties active in exile

[edit] Generality

[edit] Notability of these parties

There are about 74 political parties outside Iran (they fled the Islamist Regime). Only 13 are fully active of which 4 are powerful :

see also List of political parties in Iran.

The rest of the Opposition is insignificant : they are rather tiny clubs of individuals than political parties and do not influence the political arena of Iran. But 9 of them are of some importance :

- The Tudeh Party of Iran and the Communist Party of Iran (of Ebrahim Alizadeh), which were important parties in the past, exist today in a very anemic state.

- Worker-Communist Party of Iran was formerly powerful and led by the charismatic Mansoor Hekmat before splitting into three weak parties see when the latter died in 2002. Among the three parties the Hekmatist Party is the most vocal.

- National Resistance Movement of Iran (NAMIR) of Shapour Bakhtiar,[1] the Party of the Iranian Nation (PIN) of Darius and Parvaneh Foroohar and the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (DPIK) of Abdul Rahman Qassemloo, although prominent parties in the past, have almost been destroyed with the killings of their charismatic leaders by the Islamic Republic. The NAMIR has almost ceased to exist, whereas the PIN and the DPIK struggle to expand their activities. In December 2006, the DPIK split another time into two groups.

- The Organization of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Rahe Kargar) has isolated itself by rejecting joint actions or even dialogue with non-communist parties (they do not have a good relation even with some socialist/communist parties deemed not too radical or "traitor" like the Tudeh Party or the Fadaian-Majority).[2] The Party split into two groups in August 2009.

- The social-democratic Komala (not to be confused with the communist Komalah with an h), although an important party, can't be classified among the four powerful party of the Opposition cited above since its modest activities are only concentrated in the kurdish-inhabited provinces of Iran. Furthermore Komala split into two parties in August 2007.[3]

- The Islamic Society of the Iranians has few members but has a prominent leader (Abolhassan Banisadr).

- The Union of People's Fedaian of Iran is the Iranian Party with the most ties with other Opposition parties (it has warm relations even with the Rahe Kargar). It has been designated as the twin sister of the Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian-Majority (OIPF-M) but has far fewer members. Some members told their Party will soon merge with the OIPF-M.

[edit] Ideologies

These 74 parties can be divided into 6 ideological branches from left to right :

  • Communists (20 parties; the most important: the Hekmatist Party)
  • Socialists and Social-Democrats (10 parties; the most important: Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian-Majority)
  • Ethnic nationalists (24 parties; the main one: the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan)
  • Muslim-Democrats (5 parties; mainly the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran and the Freedom Movement of Iran)
  • Liberal-Democrats & Secular Nationalists (14 parties; mainly the National Front of Iran and the Constitutionalist Party of Iran)
  • Anti-Islamic Nationalists (1 party : The Kingdom Assembly of Iran)

[edit] History

[edit] Past (1990-2003)

Before the year 2003, a lot of parties tried to form a coalition against the Islamic regime and failed. Only two unions succeeded; but even them - which are the National Council of Resistance of Iran and the Workers Left Unity - Iran - are just an alliance of two parties : the religious-leftist People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran and the marxist Organization of Iranian People Fadaee Guerillas for the first one and the Iranian fedaian communist league and the Organization of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Rahe Kargar) for the latter.

[edit] Present (2003-2008)

However, since 2003 the Democratic People's Party of Iran of Babak Amirkhosravi (a separated fraction of the communist Tudeh party), the Iranian National Republicans of Hassan Shariatmadari, son of the late Grand Ayatollah Kazem Shariatmadari, and the Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian-Majority created the United Republicans of Iran (URI), a federation of three pro-republican parties.[4][5] Over one thousand persons took part in the inauguration of the URI in Berlin.

At the same time, in Paris, the Union of People's Fedaian of Iran, the Organization of Iranian Socialists and the Provisional Council of Iranian Left Socialists[6] created another alliance named the Democratic and Secular Republicans of Iran (DSRI).

Both the URI and the DSRI are still discussing how to forme a single union to form a strong "republican" (=leftist) force.[7] Both have also invited two ethnical parties (the DPIK and the Komala), a centrist party (the National Front of Iran), a far left party (the Provisional Council of Iranian Left Socialists) and even a conservative party (the Islamic Society of the Iranians) to these negotiations which took place on September 22, 2007.[8][9]

Moreover, since September 2005 a greater spectrum of these exiled parties who used to be very divided (even among groups of similar philosophies) have begun to unite. Reza Pahlavi had dinner in Berlin with some of the leftists who had helped to overthrow his father, and it generated outrage on both the left and the right.

For the first time, a Republican (the late spokesman of the National Front of Iran) Parviz Varjavand wrote in an article in August 2006[10] that Democracy is compatible with both a Constitutional Monarchy and a Republic and that the issue should not be between Constitutional Monarchy and Republic. The Green Party of Iran led by Kayvan Koboli said the same thing months before Parviz Varjavand.[11] Heshmat Raeisi, ex-member of the Central Committee of both the Fedai and the Tudeh Party,[12] participated in the sixth Congress of the (monarchist) Constitutionalist Party of Iran in November 2006 and gave a speech;[13] in February 2007 Dariush Homayoun of the rightist Constitutionalist Party of Iran wrote a friendly letter to the major leftist party (the OIPFG (M)).[14] Jamshid Taheripoor of the latter party answered.[15]

[edit] Gathering together (2012)

The situation as of 2012 is clearer.

A political union is emerging:

Ten parties which are communist, socialist, social-democrat and also liberal-democrat : the Fadaian-Majority, the Union of Fadaian, the People's Democratic Party, the Tudeh, the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, the Komala, the United Republicans, the Provisional Council of Iranian Socialists, the Democratic and Secular Republicans and the National Front.[16][17][18][19][20][21]

Some critics such as Amir Jahanchahi note that such a political union may succeed only if it manages to include the two other major political groups which are the Constitutionalist Party and the People's Mojahedin. That is why he created the 'Green wave' to promote a provisional government in exile.[22] In August 2010, Fereidoon Ahmadi from the Fadaian-Majority made a speech in the Congress of the Constitutionalist Party.

[edit] Names and websites of the Opposition

[edit] The Communists

There are 19 Iranian communist parties. However two are considered more prominent, namely the Hekmatist Party, and the Organization of Revolutionary Workers of Iran (Rahe Kargar). The Rahe Kargar, the Organization of Fedaian (Minority), the Communist Party, the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist-Maoist) and Azarakhsh formed a coalition named the United Supporters of Left and Communist Groups,[23][24]

[edit] Historic Party

The well-known Communist Party which used to be very powerful. No longer very active. The oldest political party in Iran still alive.

  • Tudeh Party of Iran led by Mohammad Omidvar/Ali Khavari. The International Department of the Tudeh Party of Iran is headed by Navid Shomali.[25]

Now, only a minority of the original members remains in the party. The majority was murdered by the Islamic Republic (especially in 1988), others left the party to pursue cultural activities or to join other political parties (such as the United Republicans of Iran), but some others were expelled from the Tudeh Party and created six other Tudeh groupings :

  • Tudeh path (or Rahe Tudeh) led by Ali Khodaei/Ali Reza Elahi (founded by two excluded party members)[26][27]
  • Tarnegashte mehr led by Afshin Razani (excluded from the party in the 1990s)[28]
  • People's voice (Sedaye mardom)[29]
  • The Tudehis[30]
  • Justice[31]
  • Party's path[32]
[edit] Worker-Communism

The four splits of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran :

[edit] Anti-revisionism
[edit] Maoism

The two Maoist parties :

[edit] Fadaian

The original communist motherparty was called Organization of Iranian People's Fadai Guerrillas. Since 1980, it has split dozens of times. Today there are 9 parties, 7 of them are still communist. The other two (which constitute the majority of the members) have evolved into democratic socialist parties.

[edit] Others

[edit] The Socialists/Social-Democrats

The Organization of Iranian People's Fedaian-Majority is the most prominent. The United Republicans of Iran (URI) and the Democratic and Secular Republicans of Iran (DSRI) are not really parties but federations of parties.

[edit] The Muslim-Democrats

Religious people against the Islamist ideology : they are against the application of the Sharia but at the same time oppose everything opposed to what they call "the main principles of Islam". They believe in the equality between men and women and at the same time their female supporters are mostly veiled. The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI), which abandoned its armed opposition since 2001, is considered to be the main Opposition to the Islamic Republic. The Muslim-Democrats who remained in Iran are close to the Reformists and grouped in a coalition named the Nationalist-Religious Forces whose spokesman is Ezzatollah Sahabi. The main party of the coalition is the Freedom Movement Party of Ebrahim Yazdi, but also the Movement of Muslim Militants of Habibollah Peyman. It should be noted that most founding members of the PMOI used to be members of the Freedom Movement Party.

[edit] The Liberal-Democrats/Nationalists

Most of them are republican but some favor a constitutional monarchy as in Spain. The National Front and the Constitutionalist Party of Iran (Liberal Democrat) are the most active. Some of them are united in an organization called "Melliun".[71] The National Front has the particularity of being the only opposition party to have an official bureau in Tehran :

[edit] The Anti-Islamic Nationalists

[edit] Ethnic nationalist parties

Among the ethnic parties, only the Kurdish DPIK and Komala are active. Some of these parties formed a union called "Congress of Iranian Nationalities" whose activities are mainly done by both parties cited above[91]

[edit] Kurds
[edit] Baluchs
[edit] Azeris
[edit] Arabs

For more information about these parties see: Politics of Khuzestan

[edit] Turkmens
[edit] Lurs & Bakhtiaris

[edit] See also

[edit] References

 This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (February 2012)
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Abrahamian, Ervand (1982). Iran between two revolutions. Princeton University Press.ISBN 978-0-691-10134-7

[edit] External links

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