16 December 11, 2015 News & Analysis Iran The ageing cleric who could decide Iran’s elections

Gareth Smyth ly’s nuclear agreement with world powers and the related question of support — or otherwise — for Roha- London ni’s government. Hence “principle- ists” such as Nategh-Nouri and Lari- li Akbar Nategh-Nouri, a jani line up alongside Khatami and 71-year-old conservative Rafsanjani. cleric with a solid but That said, lists in Iranian elections lacklustre track record, are fluid. Candidates are often on might seem an unlikely more than one list and the national fitA for a pivotal role in the February focus present in weakens elections for Iran’s parliament and elsewhere as regional and local fac- Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Kho- tors grow in importance. Even if bregan), the body that chooses the Nategh-Nouri does support a broad supreme leader. pro-Rohani coalition, he could back Nategh-Nouri was trounced in another list drawn up by the con- the 1997 presidential election by servative Association of Combatant the reformist Clerics. and, in 2005, his efforts to persuade Iranian politics is unusual in com- conservative candidates to unite be- bining rampant factionalising with hind a single figure failed miserably. a lack of effective political parties. His request to Mahmoud Ah- Suspicion of parties goes back to the madinejad to stand down because Islamic revolution, when revolu- he had least chance of winning was tionaries feared parties undermined trumped by Ahmadinejad’s later “unity” and weakened respect for victory. Relations between the two clerics. have been bitter ever since. Nategh- During the 1980s, factions formed Nouri has kept a low profile as an mainly over economic policy, with A 2008 file picture shows Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri (C) next to fomer Iranian president Mohammad aide to Supreme Leader the left supporting greater state in- Khatami (R). . volvement to create a more equal society and the right supporting Back in the 1980s, “freedom” for private enterprise Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran, a president in 1997, assurances were another major political realignment Nategh-Nouri was and the influential bazaar mer- deeply researched book published conveyed to the British (and so pre- is beginning — or what effect this part of what was chants. in 2002 by Mehdi Moslem, a bril- sumably the United States) that he might have on the parliamentary In general, the left also called for liant -born Iranian scholar who would be flexible in foreign policy. election, and indeed on the Kho- dubbed the greater social freedoms and spread- succumbed to pancreatic cancer in In the late 1980s and early 1990s, bregan election and therefore on “traditional” right. ing the revolution abroad, while 2004. Nategh-Nouri led the rightist fac- who succeeds Khamenei as leader. those on the right were socially con- Moslem suggested Nategh-Nouri tion in parliament, working closely But at least in the short term, here Nonetheless, Tehran talk has servative and favoured pragmatic may have once been a member of with fellow-parliamentarian Roha- is the shape of things: Aside from Nategh-Nouri — as candidate or foreign policies less likely to disrupt Hojjatieh, a pro-business conserva- ni, and when the right won the 1996 fundamentalists who oppose the organiser — helping bring fellow trade. tive society among clerics and ba- parliamentary election, he became nuclear agreement and green move- principle-ists into a broad electoral There were many figures who zaars who believed no government speaker with Rohani as deputy. Af- ment reformists who are excluded coalition that would stretch from fit neither camp, most obviously could be truly Islamic before the ter Khatami became president in from politics, there is a broad con- parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and Rafsanjani who wanted pragmatic 12th Shia Imam returned as the Mah- 1997, Nategh-Nouri opposed his cul- sensus behind Rohani favouring a him, through “pragmatic” con- foreign policy, greater social di. After the revolution, Khomeini tural policies but this did not mean pragmatic foreign policy (including servatives such as President Has- freedom and — once the Iraq strongly criticised the group, which he opposed all aspects of his foreign implementing the nuclear agree- san Rohani and ex-president Akbar war finished — a more “liberal” dissolved and left many ex-mem- policy. ment), encouraging the private sec- Hashemi Rafsanjani to Khatami and economy. By the 1990s, the factions bers to become staunch supporters Hence while Iranian factional tor and allowing cautious relaxation other reformists. realigned as most on the left moved of clerical rule. politics under Khatami realigned of social and cultural policy. Nategh- There is frequent mention of a away from command economics, Nategh-Nouri held the classic into “reformists”’ versus “conserva- Nouri has good reason to sign up. “triangle” of Khatami, Rafsanjani moderated their opposition to the beliefs of the traditional right. He tives” over social and political free- and Hossein Khomeini, grandson of West and put greater emphasis on urged young people to resist West- doms, Nategh-Nouri’s ally Rohani Gareth Smyth has covered Middle the 1979 revolution’s leader, espe- social and political freedoms. ern cultural influence through stud- led nuclear negotiations with the Eastern affairs for 20 years and cially as a focus for the Khobregan Back in the 1980s, Nategh-Nouri ying the Quran and stressed a pref- European Union in 2003-05. was chief correspondent for the election. With the parliamentary was part of what was dubbed the erence for the chador over lighter It is too early to say whether, af- Financial Times in Iran election, the clear divide is over Ju- “traditional” right in Factional veiling. When Nategh-Nouri ran for ter the July 14th nuclear agreement, from 2003-07. Relations with the West at stake in Tehran exhibit

Gareth Smyth love of modern art. — used for enriching uranium — of Alarm over Western cultural the 13,500 due for removal under influence is genuine, especially the deal. London among clerics. Back in the 1970s According to Abbas Araghchi, a when Queen Farah was assembling deputy foreign minister, Iran could he Tehran Museum of her collection of modern art, many meet all the terms of the agree- Contemporary Art is run- intellectuals used the term ghar- ment, and see the most punishing ning an exhibition includ- bzadegi (“westoxification”) to lam- sanctions lifted, in January, at least ing some of its remark- bast those supposedly undermin- a month ahead of what most ob- able foreign collection, ing Iranian culture in pursuit of all servers have been expecting. Tacquired in the 1970s by Queen Fa- things Western. rah, wife of Mohammad , The word had been coined in the Fundamentalists in who fled into exile during the 1979 early 1960s by Jalal al-e Ahmad, a revolution. writer who while effectively secu- the judiciary and the Many of the works — including by lar saw Islam as an inspiration for Islamic Pablo Picasso, Rene Magritte and the struggle against the shah’s dic- Revolutionary Andy Warhol — have been stored tatorship and supposed subservi- Guards Corps are underground since then, with cu- ence to the West. Ahmad’s ideas rators wary of their Western origin influenced Ayatollah Ruhollah looking for ways to and sometimes risqué nature. Khomeini, leader of the 1979 revo- embarrass Rohani. While not all the art has been lution and the early years of the Is- stashed — Tehranis have long Visitors look at a painting titled Girl with lovelock by French artist lamic Republic brought the restruc- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s glanced from the street at Henry Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec during the opening ceremony of an turing of higher education as well leader, has remained largely aloof. Moore sculptures in the museum’s exhibition of modern art at Tehran’s Museum of Contemporary as a push to “Islamise” the arts. Without his backing there would garden — the current emergence Art (TMOCA) in the Iranian capital, on November 20th. Under Mohammad Khatami, the have been no nuclear agreement of so many works has been linked reformist president of 1997-2005, but he has expressed only tepid to July’s nuclear agreement with official attitudes relaxed. There public support and has stepped up world powers. The exhibition in Tehran is joint- which includes two naked men were more art shows, a growth in warnings of the dangers of Western Iranian President Hassan Rohani ly curated with Italy’s Germano (strangely Iran reportedly once the variety of newspapers, and “infiltration”. has talked not just of further dip- Celant, a man with vast experience turned down a $100 million-plus talks with the European Union Khamenei said on November lomatic cooperation but of a wider in the international art scene who offer for the Bacon from a founda- over Iran’s fledgling nuclear pro- 25th that vigilance against infiltra- interchange with the West. At the has expressed astonishment at the tion in Monaco). The danger for gramme. Under Khatami’s succes- tion should not be exploited for exhibition preview, Culture Minis- range of works held by the muse- the exhibition is not as simple as sor, , the factional advantage — apparently ter spoke of a “first step” um. offending sensibilities, which are arts and media felt a heavier gov- echoing Rohani’s charge that fun- in what he hoped would be “more Among those on show, which easily identified, but becoming ernment hand while the nuclear damentalist critics were doing ex- mutual cooperation to showcase have been chosen to lend context caught up in factional battles that talks reached a stand-off. Funda- actly this by arresting dissidents. outstanding Iranian artists as well to exhibited items by the late Irani- have intensified since the July 14th mentalists have long feared that But Khamenei also suggested the as displaying more works from our an painter Farideh Lashai, are Jack- nuclear agreement and probably a nuclear agreement would both United States would use “money foreign art collection”. son Pollock’s Mural on Indian Red explain the recent arrests of jour- encourage the reformists and in- and secular attractions” to “change There have long been people who Ground, valued a few years ago by nalists, poets and rights campaign- crease Western influence. But their ideals, beliefs and consequently believe art can sometimes build Christie’s at $250 million, Warhol’s ers. efforts to obstruct July’s deal have the lifestyle” of Iranians. The ex- firmer bridges than diplomacy, the Suicide and Francis Bacon’s Reclin- Fundamentalists in the judici- foundered with parliament giving hibition at the Tehran Museum of thinking behind the two exhibitions ing Man with Sculpture. ary and the Islamic Revolutionary approval in October. On November Contemporary Art is not funded by of Iranian art in the United States in But unlikely to emerge from the Guards Corps are looking for ways 18th, the International Atomic En- the United States but the curators 2001 and 2007 organised by Nancy basement anytime soon is Pierre- to embarrass Rohani and create a ergy Agency reported Iran was in know that when it comes to the Matthews for the government-fi- Auguste Renoir’s Gabrielle with public sense Iran is facing attack compliance with its commitments likes of Warhol and Pollock, there nanced Meridian International. Open Blouse or Bacon’s Triptych, and they are not known for their by dismantling 4,530 centrifuges are those who see only red.