Mosharekat was created approximately six months after the astonishing victory of Mohammad Khatami in the 1997 presidential election. The party at the time was regarded as a top-down organisation formed by Khatami’s men (his brother was the head of the party) to help Khatami pass his government’s bills in the sixth parliament. President Khatami was a veteran member of Majma’
Rohaniyune Mobarez (the Combatant Clerics League) but his old organisation was a clergy
association annexed from CCA incapable of encompassing the aspirations and the participation of the millions of voters, especially women and youth, who hung their hopes on Mohammad Khatami’s government’s performance. It was clear, with the after-Khomeini changes in the Iranian society taken into consideration, that Khatami and his friends needed a more modern, all- encompassing organisation than CCL.
At first it was thought that Kargozaran might take on this role since the party was consisted of open-minded technocrats and pragmatic politicians with a good deal of governing experience. However, soon this choice was deemed unsuitable because of Kargozaran ’s well-known allegiances to Hashemi Rafsanjani, to whom they looked as the grand advisor in any unresolved intra-party dispute. For instance, when the possibility of endorsing Khatami was first raised in the Kargazoran’s central council, a key party figure (Mohammad Hashemi) disagreed. Since the protocol of the party demanded a unanimous vote for crucial decisions, the party members decided to send Mohammad Hashemi and Ataollah Mohajerani to seek advice from the then president Hashemi who, in turn, asked both gentlemen to submit to the majority vote i.e. to endorse Khatami.408 In addition, the focal point in Khatami’s election campaign was putting emphasis on
Jame’ie Madani (literary meaning civil society) and full commitment to the rule of law and the
constitution (constitutionalism). For Khatami’s agenda the political development of the country had precedence over its economic growth, while the Kargozaran ’s priority during Rafsanjani had been the Hashemi- branded economic reform known as ta'dil [adjustment]. Therefore a number of people who were regulars in the Kian and Aeen circles, in addition to a number of the prominent figures of the second MIRO and a few members of Kargozaran , came together and formed a “reformist” party named Hezbe jebhe Mosharekat e irane eslami [The Islamic Iran Participation Front Party]. The fact that the interior ministry’s No 10 commission of parties (in charge of issuing party licences) was in the hand of Khatami’s interior minister Mousavi Lari had facilitated the legal registration of the new establishment. The Mosharekat Party was initially established to support
408 Ataollah Mohajerani,(former IRI Majles deputy and former Minister of Culture). In discussion with the author,
Khatami’s reformist agenda in the Sixth Majles but it is interesting to note that many of its founding fathers had SFLI background..
Many of those who later were known as the reformist elites were in fact members of Students Following the Line of Imam (SFLI) who occupied the American embassy. Ibrahim Asgharzadeh (after Khordad the 2nd, became member of the city council and head of Hambastegi party), Mohsen Mirdamadi (the chairman of National Security Commission in the Majles and the director of a banned newspaper), Habibollah Bitaraf (Minister of Energy after Khordad the 2nd), Abbas Abdi (Prominent Khordad the 2nd intellectual), Mohammad Naimi Pour (an MP and the head of a banned daily paper), Shamsoldean Vahabi (an MP after Khordad the 2nd), Mohsen Aminzadeh (a key figure in Khatami’s presidential campaign and his Deputy Foreign Minister), Mohammad Reza Khatami (Deputy Speaker of Majles and Head of Mosharekat party after Khordad the 2nd) were among the most significant figures who invaded the American embassy.409
However, by the time of its formation, most of the Mosharekat party elites had abandoned their former revolutionary fanaticism. For example, in a bridge-building effort organised by Khatami’s Centre for World Dialogue, one of the Mosharekat elites and a former hostage taker, Mr Abbas Abdi, shook hands and exchanged words with Mr. Barry Rosen who was the press attaché in the US embassy in Tehran at the time when the hostage-taking took place. Barry Rosen told the press that he decided to see Mr Abdi “because I sensed the time had come to put “closed” on 444 days that brought me great pain - partly because I want to enjoy the anticipation that a new page in Iranian-American history may soon be turned”410
This ideological revision among the left-current goes back to the time of the fourth Majels election when many leftist hopefuls were barred from the election either by legal methods (the Guardian Council rejection of the nominee’s competence) or illegal methods (systematic spreading of rumours and false allegations about the candidates’ moral and financial status). As a result the MIRO and SFLI members who were part of the left-current were pushed to the outer edge of the IRI political structure, a position that forced them to redefine their ideology.
Crucial in the genesis of the legitimacy crisis was the post-Khomeini exclusion of the left from political life during the first Rafsanjani presidency. Leftists were first expelled from the judiciary, leaving it in the hands of conservative clerics, and were then squeezed out of other branches of the state. Later on, a climate was created in which a major portion of the left did not participate in the elections for the Assembly of Experts (which appoints the Supreme Leader and monitors his performance). Ultimately, leftist deputies who formed the majority in the third parliament (1988– 92) were disqualified from standing for the fourth parliament. The conservatives were thus able to
409 Salimi, Kalbodshekafie zehniyate eslahgarayan, p. 11.
410 “Tehran Embassy Reunion Pushes Peace”, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/142917.stm], 18 April
seize the legislature and bring it within their authoritative domain. For the first time, a major sector of the political class was excluded from government and participation in the affairs of the state.411
However there were a few establishments where the left-current could still claim sanctuary until the wind changed. The most important of these sanctuary retreats were:
1. The Presidential Centre for Strategic Research
2. Periodicals such as the daily Salaam and the monthly Kian.
In Hashemi Rafsanjani’s era The Presidential Centre for Strategic Research was one of the important sanctuaries in which those later known as reformists (including the founders of Mosharekat) had a chance to flourish intellectually and endure financially. This centre was first established by Rafsanjani in 1992 to facilitate political reforms in accordance with his economic adjustment programme. The centre was run by board of directors and its inaugural manager was Hojatoleslam Mohammad Mousavi Khoeiniha. The most influential personalities of the centre, who were actively pursuing the project of political reform were Sa’id Hajjarian, Alireza Alavi- Tabar, Abbas Abdi and Majid Mohammadi 412
Salaam, Kian and Later Aeen periodicals have also provided spheres where, according to Abbas Abdi, the reformist discourse was enriched. In 1992 Khatami resigned as culture minister. Later he established a circle to enrich and lead the emerging cultural–ideological movement before turning his energies to the creation of a political party413
For these conquered but not defeated leftist elites, the above-mentioned venues acted as an intellectual academy for interaction and contemplation. This unwanted banishment provided them with an opportunity of self-criticism and self-reflection. In addition, most of these people decided to use the opportunity to continue their studies in Human Sciences. During these years of academic education and intellectual deliberation the previously-labelled radicals in the Iranian political spectrum started modifying their views and stances. Little by little they went from zealous defenders of state socialism to advocates of democracy and personal liberties. It must be noted that the teachings and the works of scholars such as Dr. Abdulkarim Soroush, Dr. Javad Tabatabaie and
411 Abbas Abdi, “The Reform Movement: Background and Vulnerability”,
[http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=144], 15 September 2011
412
Salman Alavi-Nik, Asib shenasie hezbe Mosharekat e irane eslami [the Pathology of the Islamic Iran Participation Front Party], Tehran, The Centre for Islamic Revolution Documents, 2009, p. 171.
413
Abdi, Abdi, “The Reform Movement: Background and Vulnerability”, [http://www.worlddialogue.org/content.php?id=144], 15 September 2011
Dr Hosein Bashryeh were instrumental in this ideological revision of the left-current’s young elites. In his works Dr. Soroush used Islamic and classic literature to domesticate the modern concepts of democracy, human rights and toleration. This was to suggest that Iranians and Muslims need not look to the West to find rationalisation for noble maxims. Sufficient justifications could be found at home, if contemporary interpretations of the Islamic texts and new readings of the classic Iranian literature that is the product of the Islamic/Iranian historical reasoning were sought after.414 Bashiriyeh was a political sociologist whose teaching and works revealed the impediments to the transition to democracy in Iran from the point of view of the political sociology. Javad Tabatabaie contributed significantly to the understanding of Western political philosophy in comparison to the history of political thought in Iran.
In a press conference in December 1998, the Mosharekat representatives, Morteza Hajji, Ali Shakori-Raad and Mohammad Reza Khatami while denying allegations of Mosharekat being a state-run party, explained the party’s aims as: increasing people’s participation to rise above the country’s chronic economic and social irregularities and supporting Khatami yet at the same time scrutinising his government’s performance. They also announce that the core of Mosharekat’s
economic programme was Khatami’s economic plan.415
414 For further reading see Abdolkarim Soroush, Ghabz va baste teorike shariat [The Shrinkage and Extension of
Theory in Religion], Tehran, Serat, 1990 also see by Abdolkarim Soroush, Farbehtar az ideolozhy [Sturdier than Ideology], Tehran, Serat, 1993 and read Abdolkarim Soroush, Baste tajrobeh nabavi [Spreading the Prophetical Experience], Tehran, Serat, 1999.