The Vote Composition of Political Origins in IRI Presidential Elections

Transcription

1 Technical Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences Available online at TJEAS Journal S/1-14 ISSN TJEAS The Vote Composition of Political Origins in IRI Presidential Elections Sadeq Peivasteh PhD student and invited lecturer at Allameh Tabataba'i university of Tehran Corresponding Author ABSTRACT: The objective if the current study is investigating the political origins of presidential election candidates and selected onesfrom the seventh to eleventh period, as well as comparing and determining relative weight of origins of votes. The origin from asociological perspectivehas several aspects including economical, prestige, generational, political, etc. The emphasis of the current research is on the political aspect and intellectual perspective related to political orientation. The research methodology was basic and comparative research based on official data gathered from Ministry of Interior, journals and reliable websites. The provincial votes are compared with each other to analyze the impact of candidates origins. The origin comparison is then analyzed based on the representativeness of a candidate for an origin according to people s votes. The results showed that left-wing and right-wing political origins within the system, which means the political spectrum of conservatism to reformism, could not attract the majority of votesand the issue of silent-vote has risen. The silent votes should not be considered as only being formed by political protesters and beyond reformists, but the majority of them are at the middle of these two political spectrum and independent of them. Key words: political origin, vote, election, presidential, Iran INTRODUCTION Part of social status of an individual, his party or group reflects political orientation and tendency. A candidate or a political party or a social group is officially or unofficially,representative of a particular viewpoint, idea and action. In another word, it has a political origin. Generally, in election advertisements like television programs of presidential candidatesin Iran, the political origins of candidates are discussed.however, in a society like Iran where evident party affiliation or classifications do not have significant and organizational impact on political action ofindividuals like in western countries, investigating political origins like combination of intellectual part of social and economical base and party affiliation is possible.although there are no independent research on origin of candidates and chosen candidates of presidential elections after Islamic Revolution of Iran, any investigation on social origins of elites can be considered as backgrounds for studyin abroader context. For instance, Ashjaee (1993) has investigated social origins of deputies of National Consultative Assembly since the time it was established in constitution period until Islamic Revolution victory. He has looked over and compared many changes in different social characteristics of deputies during this time. The selected characteristics in this research included career (owner military, civil servant, self employed, ), economic class (higher, middle, lower), education (higher education studies at universities or religious studies, field of study, number of years of education), age, parents status (education of mother, father s career, family economy), intellectual dependency (intellectual, religious and enlightenment movements), and political dependency (communities and groups). In comparison with that research, the current study only examines intellectual dependency. Instead, a reverse process is used here to reach the vote combination of these origins from the number of votes for candidates and selected candidates of previous five presidential periods. Saaee (1998) has also studied an aspect of social origin which is social class of deputies of National Consultative Assemblyduring the first to fifth periods. Results showed reduction of chaplains in favor of university graduates and at the same time, increase of job experience in governmentalorganization careers before being selected as a representative. He has considered National Assembly deputies as based samples of political elites of the society. He has applied some of the features used in Ashjaee s research to make quantitative indexing. He has interpreted the process of social-class alteration of deputies as sort of social movement. Ketabi et al. (2004) have also studied aspects of social origin of deputies under the title of Few social features during the first six rounds of Islamic Consultative Assembly and their findings were in line with

2 Saaee s research in some points but their main objectives was to compare the distribution of age, sex, educational certificate, field of study and political background as being a member of the parliament. According to their conclusion, political and social changes of the society were correlated with these distributions. In another study (Eivazi and Ramezani, 2010), the decision-making process in the reign of Iran has been under the influence of social and intellectual origins of elites. All above named studies have tried somehow to shed light on social or political characteristics of elites and their votes. But the current research is far more objective and practical: What are the intellectual and political origins of presidential candidatesand what is the percentage of votes that each of these origins attract?, What is the nature of these votes? So as far as enough data is provided, this study tries to differentiate votes of different political orientation. In press and media, in and out of the country, different conjectures are expressed about this issue but there is no documented research which proposes a more scientific assumption. We intend to define the percentage of votes that reformists, conservatives or others have attracted or they may attract based on presidential candidates votes during the last five periods. Where do silent votes end up? Is it true, as often says, that silent votes would have ended in reformists ballot box if they were going to vote? Answering to all these questions through this research would help us answer our main questions: What is the combination of votes in presidential election? What is meant by combination here is the share of different origins. Theoretical and methodological principles We are going to use basic theory and comparative method in the current study which means we would approach our desired model step by step by collecting data and information. We are not going to make any assumption beforehand on how the composition of votes in presidential election of Iran would look like. We will look at the present political orientations in presidential election and casted votes to their baskets and study composition changes of these votes among candidates and selected ones by comparing elections during different times. Using theories and proper ideas, we will form this structure and make a scientific guess about the distribution of votes, or to make it more precise, about the composition of political origins. The required data are the number of votes, reports, analyses about the candidates and votes in five periods from the seventh to the eleventh. The information on the number of votes is collected directly by vising the Ministry of Interior and receiving the nationwide comprehensive analyses of votesfor each province. For the secondary analyses, current researches and historical documents are used. Thus this research hasaspect of proof and aspect of attributive from methodological point of view. Description and analysis We will investigate the last five periods of presidential elections and finally, we will make a conclusion to provide suggestions or scientific guesses about the composition of political origins votes in the section of Conclusion. The seventh presidential election The seventh presidential election was a new chapter in political competition in the Islamic Republic which brought 80% of voting eligible population to ballot boxes on 23 rd of May 1997 (2 nd of Khordad). Overt ism of current social policies and promises of social freedom and changes of political attitude toward the worldexpressed by the candidate of left party (Seyyed Mohammad Khatami) against the viewpoint of maintaining current situation (Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri) which was considered as the policy of the right-wing party and the speaker of the 5 th Consultative Assembly. The 5 th parliament had become the solid base of right wing party by mass qualification of left-wing candidates (Barzin, 1997 and Nozari, 2008). Table 1. List of candidates in the 7 th presidential election. Party, group, political wing or viewpoint Combatant Clergy Association (Left-wing party) Combatant Clergy Association (Right-wing party) Association of Defending Values Independent Orientation Level of political background ConsultativeAssembly, Ministry Speaker of Consultative Assembly, Ministry Assembly of the Experts of Leadership, Minister Revolutionary prosecutor, Deputy minister Candidate Khatami Naategh Noori Reyshahri Zavare i Revolutionary forces from left and right orientations were standing against each other to make a decision about the political future after non-partisan cabinet of Hashemi Rafsanjani. Candidates are highly 2

3 experienced, thus their bureaucratic aspect of their origin was important. The origin of al thought has been attributed to left wing candidate. Critical orientation has been associated with left-wing candidate SINCE during that time, right-wing party was in the dominant position with the help of Consultative Assembly and Regulatory Body s forces. Appendix 1, showed the distribution of provincial votes during this period. In this round, the cooperation of moderate fraction or Executives of Construction Party with left-wing candidate, Khatami, resulted from a distance between right and middle fraction.in addition, open-minded, intellectual and academic origins helped in attracting moderate political thought. Khatami s slogans calling for liberalism, his intellectual origins and his tolerance and patience with the modern world, brought him a great number of votes among young people, women, intellectuals and artists. Since these groups were considered as reference groups, it gave him a louder voice and made his political and intellectual origins attract higher number of votes. His al orientation encouraged demands of civil forces and then was interpreted as demanding reforms and the message of 2 nd of Khordad. The eight presidential election The eight presidential election can be called the test of liberalism origin in Iran. Although from a historical point of view, liberalism and freedom meansfreedom from tyranny, during the reformation period, the concept of easing the burden of law on private sectorsand making laws as customary was added to it. Thus ignoring the consequences of such idea in Iran s sick economy which was full of inequality, put the justiceseeking origins against it. Khatami rose from the first origin and Tavakoli from the second. Although Khatami s slogans were extremely attractive for university students, artists and many groups of elites, it has also created strong oppositions among some of government officials and groups of people. According to Khatami, the result of that was one crisis in every 9 days for the reformist government. These issues created sense of reform s failure for some of oppositions, s and groups of people and it resulted in 13% reduction in turnout. Party, group, political wing or viewpoint All reformists groups Independent (conservative) Independent (reformist) Independent )centrist-wing party( Independent Islamic coalition party Independent Independent Independent Executives of Construction Party (Kargozaran) (centrists wing party) Table 2. The list of candidates of the 8 th presidential election Orientation Level of political background ConsultativeAssembly, President ConsultativeAssembly, Ministry Ministry Presidency of Islamic Azad University One of founders of Republican Party Ministry Consultative Assembly Second vice-president of Consultative Assembly Ministry Ministry Candidate Khatami Tavakolli Sham-khaani Jasbi Kashani Ghafouri-fard Razavi Sadr Fallahian Haashemi-tabaa Since there was an increase in sense of freedom of individuals, political and media among different groups during the first round of reformism and an intense conflict between reformists and conservatives, huge number of people candidate themselves in the 8 th period. This can be interpreted as the result of political development in the sense of an institutionalized power for accepting serious competition and presence of candidates from diverse origins. Although Khatami s victory was predictable, different opposition parties and even parties-agree sent candidates as an independent panel to see who got stronger voice in politics. According to Appendix 2, the young age of Sadr and Razavi failed by Khatami s youth-driven slogans. Tavakolli s votes can be related to his justice-seeking origin since he is not a definite conservative or right-wing party s candidate. Most of candidates got the highest number of votes in their province but it iskhatami s maximum votes in Sistan and Baluchestan which is considered as the impact of geopolitics. For deprived and marginal provinces Khatam is the politics of the margin of Iran not his, Tavakoli. This case is also true in Kordestan, Kermanshaah and other frontier provinces. The logic of considering these provinces as margins can be found in the Table of participation of provinces during 11 periods. Therefore, with relative opener political environment and the rise of diversities, although very limited, the impact of origins in candidates vote has become clearer. This shows that we can not find impact of origins in elections with predefined results withcandidates of convenience. But as the competition become more serious and limitations reduce, the diversity of origins become more effective. 3

4 The 9 th presidential election The 9 th presidential election started during the decline period of reformism and loosing Tehran City Council in free election and without disqualification of candidates, along with huge candidate disqualifications in Consultative Assembly. From the conservatives right-wing parties several candidates are participating in the election following the previous three rounds of presidential election based on discourse of justice and promises of economic redistribution. The impediment to coalition among conservatives is Ahmadinejad who announced that he does not care about consensus of grandee and will not resign anyway. As we will see, he is the sign of a new origin manifestation. Reformists also have several candidates with diverse slogans and have become from the technocrat origin of the regime from the moderate party and their spiritual father, Hashemi Rafsanjani. The 9 th election is a serious confrontation of candidates from crackedpolitical and economical origins in the economical development project of Hashemi and political development project of Khatami.The Freedom Movement of Iran and other groups emerged from National-Religious origin experienced once again candidature and then being disqualified. For this election, registrants broke the record and 1014 individuals from vendors to Former President participated for registering candidature. Among them, Guardian Council disqualified 1002, one candidate resigned and the competition between the remaining 7 started. Table 3. The list of candidates in the 9 th presidential election Party, group, political wing or viewpoint Orientation Level of political background Candidate Executives of Construction Party (centrist, technocrat) The Alliance of Builders (conservative) Speaker of Consultative Assembly, President, etc. Governor, of the Municipality of Tehran Rafsanjani Ahmadinejad National Trust Party (reformist) Speaker of Consultative Assembly, General Secretary of Party Karroubi Participation Party, National-Religious Forces Some of political spectrums of conservatives Consultative Assembly, Ministry Chief Commander, Khatamal-Anbiya Construction Organization Moeen Ghalibaf Some of political spectrums of conservatives Ministry, Presidency of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting Larijani Independent (reformist) Governor, Vice Chancellor of the Department of Physical Education Mehralizadeh According to Table 3. the diversity of origins has increased from the previous course which means in the 3 periods of elections, 7 th, 8 th and 9 th, a procedure of coverage increase of political origin by candidates can be seen. What was effective in the rise of more diverse origins were the attitude of regulatory bodies as well as dialogue and political changes (which explanations are not in the scope of this study, refer to studies conducted by Hosseinzadeh, 2006 and Bashirieh, 2003). The level of prior experience also shows a surprising distribution. A revolution would result in entry of unexperienced new human forces to the regime. It is expected to observe increase of experience in every period after Revolution. This trend was nearly seen until 8 th election but it is surprising that after that time, we encounter with people who do not have political background of working in Consultative Assembly or Ministry. In case that these people win the election, their lack of experience might become problematic in being people s representatives, in macropolitics and recognition and relation with other forces. Although Guardian Council is still serious about religious issues, they are less strict in authentication of this competency. The presence of four s and three s indicated the rally of representatives of different origins against current political and managerial situation. Candidates belonged to fractions and different groups in a more established manner as if the two aspects of the repeated binaryexpression of» Working for the fraction/working for the country and people«which seemed unbreakable in political literature of populaces and Iranian elites, has been stylized a bit in this round of election. Everything indicates of a serious competition and the possibility of scattering votes and their distribution among candidates. In this period, reformists believe that reforms are irreversible but moderates and conservatives consider people to be tired of political competitions and unfulfilled promises mired in economical problems (Eivazi, 2005). In such condition, the result of the 4

5 election, which is presented in Appendix 3, shows that all candidates (except Moeen) are dominant in their province and provinces with same descendants. The aspect of ethnic and geopolitical is evident. The dominance of Moeen as a radical reformist in Sistan and Baluchestan is the geopolitical feature ofthe al political aspect of his origin. Reformism itself has a al attitude toward conservatism in the regime. The level of political background might show another aspect of rising from marginalizedand underdevelopment origin. The wide distribution of Ahmadinejad s votes as someone who had the least experience and political fame and he himself emphasis on the same issue during his advertisements and presented himselfas someone away from power-hungry officials, proved marginal vote attraction by his origin. A al origin which unlike Moeen s, is more economical than political.on the other hand, Ahmadinejad is claiming for the lost values of Revolution during the 16-years period of development (economical and political). Political origin also join his votes. Here again he is unlike Moeen and has perhaps attracted the votes of intellectual conservatives who are of regime s reforms. Therefore the attraction and widespread economical and cultural binaryal basis of him against intellectual s of Moeen, whose slogan was alliance for democracy and human right, is clear. There are similar people to Ahmadinejad in the opposite spectrum. Although Karroubiis one of the fathers of left-wing parties and thus, reformism, he has a and similar origin to Ahmadinejad s regarding economics. He is the first person who raised the slogans of direct payment of subsidies to people; the slogan which was later taken and implemented by Ahmadinejad. Such a slogan can be described as a promise to distribute money among people. Marginal people are always the audience of economical redistribution slogans including unemployed people, small vendors, squatters and populated families with low income andalike. Likewise, Karroubi has also a wide distribution of votes in different provinces of country. It must be noted that another aspect of intellectual origin and political orientation of Karroubi is his attention to ethnic and religious margins. The data presented in Appendix 3 shows Karroubi s dominance in western provinces in addition to Golestan province. Opposite to that, Ahmadinejad got the highest number of votes in Tehran and central provinces. Although Hashemi Rafsanjani is in total on top, he only got the highest number of votes in Kerman, Gilan and Zanjan. Corresponding to the last line of the Appendix 3, none of candidates hadmore than half of the votes thus Hashemi and Ahmadinejadwent to second round. On the other side, candidates with conservative origins have less than 40% of the votes (39.15) and the rest of the votes (apart from small percentage of wasted votes) belong to reformists. But will such a political calculation on the paper be transferred to the reality of the society or the second would change the first? The reformist president of that time asked Hashemi in a letter to resign so that Karroubi (the third candidate) would compete with Ahmadinejad because a competition between Hashemi and Ahmadinejad, considering their origins and publicities, would turn into a fight between poverty and wealth. The victory of the first over the second has been the slogan-orientated revolution and its founder, and the winner of such competition is recognizable. Thus the calculation from Appendix 3 is not reliable. Studying the 9th period is the most important and decisive part of analyzing political origins and candidates votes because there is a serious conflict at the end of reformism period and attempts for political development which faced the strongest objections of right-wing fraction about forgetting revolution values in political and social tolerance, there were loudest voices of objection to economical inequality and reformists were accused of 16-years of ignorance towards slum dwellers, and deep disappointment of different developmental spectrums who were referred as radical reformists. It seems as if intellectual and political origins of two fractions have lessened their social controversies in their terms of discourses but another origin is looking for a representative to be their voice. An expression of social conflict can be found in an editorialof the most circulated and printed newspaper of that time, one day before the election:» In the contemporary politics of Iran, the power conflict among elites is not related to community relations among public. But tomorrow won t be the same. In one side we have the middle class clergymen as traditional elites of Iran who have limited their authority to orthodox middle class and intellectuals as modern elites of Iran restricted their hegemony to new middle class. A dense flow of elites who thought differently from common groups contrary to their perception, the gap in Iranian society is not between authoritarianism and democracy but between development and underdevelopment the gap which has gradually depended during the last 16 years and has show itself as a political issue now. Tomorrow on the day of election this matter would be solved by people (Ghouchani, 2005). Underdevelopment and becoming marginal does not only mean being rural or deprived frontier dweller but more than that. It means being distributed among central dwellers who seems to be far from being deprived. This is the same thing which is called Fourth World (Conceptualization from Luben, 1990: 65 and Concept development from Castells, 2010, 418).But why should be talk about Fourth World while analyzing origins of the 9 th presidential election candidates? The current paper is looking at the origins that candidates become their representative not just a candidate considering himself as representative of an origin. This becoming must be tracked in their votes and the 9 th election is when apparent signs of emergence of an originwhich is not usually seen in Iran and is buried under political discourses framework and ignoring it would 5

6 be difficult. The war between poverty and wealth, dissolution of development and underdevelopment or emergence of Forth World in the election is the consequence of two 8-years period of economical and political development. Apart from what could be calculated on the paper, Ahmadinejad won a great part of provincial votes that Karroubi has won earlier, in the second round. The increase in his votes in central provinces of the country and big cities and not winning in most of ethnic and religious and geopolitics margins was impressive. Figure 1presents graphically the majority of votes won by candidates in different provinces. Figure 1. Provincial vote distribution of 9 th residential election candidates in the first and second round In general, Ahmadinejad as the winner of the second round of the 9 th presidential election who came from intellectual origin and support of conservatives, was of the process of 16-years development. He went back to fundamental principles instead of tolerance values, belonged to younger forces of revolution from the aspect of generational origin, was far from having particular view regarding ethnics and geopolitical margins and instead came from a origin against formation of Fourth World (incapable margins of wealth distributing in every corner of the society in terms of physical space) with a far less experimental and professional attitude comparing to former presidents, especially without any experience in Ministry or being a member of Consultative Assembly. An origin with such composition had the consequence of having a directive attitude in making attempts for social and cultural engineering of the society and lack of proper engagement with other powers during his presidency was in a way that each year less conservatives accepted his conservative origin. His government was also truly emerged and supportive and dependent to a new origin. An origin which features was discussed earlier and year after year was less conservative and added more to displaying the aspect of being representative of Forth World. Because of those issues like importanceof youthinstead of experience, using anonymous individual instead of well-known political figures, closing complicated systems instead of reforming them (like Planning Organization of Iran), provincial trips instead of making the structural relationship between the government and people effective, subside omission and distributing money equally instead of directing subsidies purposefully. Ahmadinejad belonged to a new origin who liked such actions and people s and regime s support show the wide distribution of this origin. As we will see, 8 years was needed until left and right wing would recognize the origin of his voice was neither reflecting conservative values nor social freedom of reformism period. His government was popular among those who were tired of inequalities and cumbersome rules; people who neither liked fundamentalism of conservatives nor had the patience and knowledge of reformism. The 10 th presidential election There were unprecedented objections expressed by experts and professionals against government during the 9 th presidential period because of equal distribution of cash and subsidies, lack of implementation of national development plans, innovative but personal decisions and ignoring specialized organizations and wellknown professionals, directive problem solving, receiving millions letters from people during provincial trips, accusing all former governments to corruption, failure and disunion from people, aggressive foreign policy and Iran s isolation by the West, and bringing loads of pressure on the government by hiring employees from private sectors and devolving it to military units and organizations like Social Security (The report of Research Center of Consultative Assembly 2013 and series of reports by the Research Center of Expediency Council in year 2013 publish in Jomhourieslami Newspaper). In the 10 th election, Ahmadinejad who still had the support of intellectual conservative origin and his plans like Housing Development (Maskan-e-Mehr), cash distribution of subsidies and resistance againstworld powers was praised by right-wing political orientations, stood against Mousavi and Karroubifrom Reform Party who considered him the reason of moral values destruction and false statistics; and finally, Mohsen Rezaee 6

7 who resigned in favor of conservative coalition (which did not establish finally) in previous period but had participated in the election independently and recognized Ahmadinejad s decisions as the cause of economic crisis in the near future. According to Table 4., though there are 4 candidates competing in this period only 3 political orientations and intellectual perspectivesexisted. Ahmadinejadis from the origin of Forth World and there is a relative consensus on him being the most qualified among conservatives. Rezaee is from conservative s who thinks about himself as moderate and apart from the binary classification of right and left and is considered as an Economic expert. Mousavi is one of the mythical figures among left-wing parties who arises after being away from politics for longs years and Khatami, the president of reformism period respected him by resigning from candidature. However, Mousavi calls himself as a conservative reformist. Table 4. The list of candidates in the 10 th presidential election Party, group, political wing or viewpoint Orientation Level of political background Candidate Conservative consensus Consensus of majority of Reformist Independent (conservative) National Trust Party (reformist) Municipality of Tehran, Presidency Prime Minister Commander of Revolutionary Guard, Secretary of Expediency Council Speaker of Consultative Assembly, General secretary of fraction Ahmadinejad Mousavi Rezaee Karroubi Mousavi got the highest number of votes in East-Azerbaijan (which is his domestic origin) and Sistan and Baluchestan (as the base for geopolitical origin). Ahmadinejad got the highest number of votes in the rest of provinces. Karroubi and Rezaee did not win significant number of votes. This round of election got the highest rate of participation (85%) and highest number of votes for a president (24 millions) but it was the only round that two loser candidates did not trust the government and did not accept the results. Mohsen Rezaee announced that he only accepted the results for the sake of the regime. In this round, 10 millions silent votes came to ballot boxes (the number of votes increased from 29 to 39 millions) and according to Appendix 4, they were divided between first and second candidates and diversity of origins did not have significant impact on vote distribution of this round. The 11 th presidential election The displaying of Ahmadinejad s representativeness was from an origin whose beneficial decisions were bitter to others. It was not groundless that Ahmadinejad considered himself standing against a group of politicians and accused present and absent people during debates of 10 th round. He is the only president that all candidates were izing his government in both rounds (according to Table 4 and Table 5 which did not happen for any of former presidents). As we have seen, his political experience was insignificant compared to other presidents and all candidates from all origins turned against him in 11 th round. Hashemi Rafsanjani, president of two periods and current head of Expediency Council and candidates of Moderates coalition (a new name given to moderate fraction meaning coalition of managers of Hashemi s period including Executives of Construction, Technocrats and others) was disqualified as well as Esfandiar Mashaee, the only candidate approved by the government in whose registration Ahmadinejad himself accompanied him by asking for permission to leave. The reason for disqualification of Hashemi was announced to be his age and there was no official and clear statementabout disqualifying Rahim Mashaee. Only 8 people passed the filtering of Guardian Council. From these people, Mohammad Reza Aaref and Gholamali Hadad Aadel resigned. The first follow Khatami s advice for a coalition between reformists and moderates, and the second for coalition of conservatives (which did not succeed as in the 9 th election). Looking at Table 5, three origins of conservatism, reformism and moderation got representative in the aspect of intellectual and political orientation. If we consider an origin emerging from Forth World (as discussed in analyzing 7 th election) for Ahmadinejad, then the votes of this origin is transferrable to others to some extent. But generally, it is a base including people looking for personal benefits and thus they can only be attracted with a similar discoursetoahmadinejad s. Jalili who had least against Ahmadinejad which made some to consider him as representative of government, only ized reformism and moderation and called them to be compromised but he did not say they have betrayed people for more than twenty years and did not make the issue so simple to stand next to people and have the rest of politicians standing on the opposite side. He did not claim to have any plans for increasing subsidies and making the poor rich even if he would be martyred in achieving this goal. 7

8 Thus the Forth World does not have any representative and assuming that all silent votes that Mousavi and Karroubi brought to ballot boxes could be called again, the participation would still not reach 85%. Practically, people participation in this round of election did not exceed 73% too. The fact that the moderate representativeness ( against radicalism of current government) has become powerful and numerous in both conservatism and reformism,has reduced any serious conflict during last four periods. Conservatives are divided into several branches in this period but everyone except Jalili talked clearly with tolerant and moderation. The low number of Jalili s votes and resignation of Aaref in favor of Rohani and Rohani s victory (Appendix 5) show that representatives have accurate guess about people s liking. The selected candidate appeared with slogan of moderation and told that he is not dependent to any fraction or group. He also used moderate peoplein his Cabinetfrom both parties after being selected. His continuous relation with Hashemi Rafsanjani and Khatami shows the affinity of two fractions of moderate and left-wing. As we have seen, coalition of moderate fraction with any other fraction has resulted inadding up votes of their origins and their victory at the end. Although the case was not the same in 10 th election and second round of 9 th election and that was because of the presence of representative of the Forth World which was effective. Therefore, silent votes are sporadic and moderate fraction and Forth World (representing of the poor and marginal) are also important fraction whose votes should also be considered. It can even be said that the determining element is coalition with them. We will return to this issue in the conclusion section of the article. Table 5. The list of candidates in the 11 th presidential election Party, group, political wing or viewpoint Orientation Level of political background Candidate Moderate (support of centrists and left-wing) progress and justice (conservative) Steadfast Front (conservative) vice-president of Consultative Assembly, Secretary of National Security Supreme Council Chief commander of Disciplinary Force, Municipality of Tehran Deputy Minister, Secretary of National Security Supreme Council Rouhani Ghalibaf Jalili Resistance Front (conservative) Commanding officer of Sepaah, Secretary of Expediency Council Rezaee Resistance Front (conservative) Independent (technocrat) Ministry, Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution Consultative Assembly, Governor, Ministry, City Council Velayati Gharazi Summingup 5 presidential periods Table 6 presents the summary of most important information of previous tables meaning excellent political experience of candidates. Ministry is one step before presidency in terms of politics and is considered as job experience in top-level of a powers whose head is the President. Being a member of Consultative Assembly is being in a legislation position and in terms of depending on people s votes, it is proving good grounds for the position of presidency no yes yes no Table 6. Changes in level of political experience of presidential candidates and selected candidate Presidential round Percentage of candidates with Ministry experience or higher Percentage of candidates with experience of being member of parliament no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes The selected candidate has Ministry experience or higher no yes yes yes yes yes yes yes no The selected candidate has experience of being parliament member In the process of candidate s experience changes, it is expected that regime would used people with higher levels of experiences when years have passed from the revolution and revolutionary forces are more experienced but according to Table 6 it seems that especially in 9 th period the least level of experience in recognizing competency has been taken into account. If we consider expecting candidates with effective experience by the regime-age increase, the changes in level of experience of candidates is fluctuating and does not show a predictable process. It is interesting that the same issue is visible in people s selection. As presented in Table 6 we have high level of political experience of selected candidate from the beginning of revolution until 9 th period which then stops abruptly people s vote belonged to a candidate with low level of experience. 8

9 In the aspect of political orientation and intellectual perspective, despite of name changes of political and intellectual branches in candidates origins, there is generally 4 effective origins recognized,conservatism, Reformism, Moderate Technocracy and Forth World. Forth World or margins has been expanding consistently in Iran during the past half-century (Aasef Bayaat,2012) and demagogues (populists) usually win their votes. It s impact in 9 th and 10 th election was confusing for analyzers which was addressed earlier in this pap. It is not possible to discuss here about analyzes of complex 10 th election which was followed by devastating and widespread events.but it can be guessed that wrong analyses resulted from ignoring Forth World and the president of 9 th and 10 th governments as representative of that origin. This is the same origin which showed itself in Ahmad Tavakoli s critiques in the 6 th election (which was not covered in this paper). But Tavakoli did not win many votes without coalition between origins. Table 7 summarizes and resets information of tables presenting candidates origins based on these four origins and their or attitude toward the government in power at the time. CONCLUSION Overall, it can be said that the importance of presidential candidates experience had a decreasing trendthough with some fluctuations and during the last three periods, the lowest level of responsibilities records like Ministry and being a member of Consultative Assemblycan be seen in opposition candidates. This decreasing trend about selected candidates is nearly constant until 9 th period. But the selected candidates in the 9 th election has the least political experience. Such changes show lack of proper set ups and accidental entrance of candidates into presidential elections. Every political system must have candidates with highest level of political experience for elections which determine and select the highest executive level of the country. One of the results from such changes might be loss of political background importance in public opinion. Not only a reduction in level of political background of candidates was observed in the 9 th election, but people s selection was also in the same direction. The consequence of such procedure and this type of selection was multiple problems of the executive agency with other regime agencies. Such consequences are predictable since lack of experience, unfamiliarity with procedures, institutions and affiliations, might result indissociation of currentexecutive trends of the country (Refer to comprehensive report of Vaezi, 2013). Considering intellectual and political orientations, the first evident result is the fact that during the last five periods,selected candidates had always had a attitude toward the current situation of their time in their first round of presidency (7 th, 9 th, and 11 th ). All in all, in the aspect of intellectual orientation about internal policy of the country, the general origin can be summarized in several groups considering some overlaps: Conservatism (right-wing party, some of left-wing party, independent fundamentalists, and common folk supporters of consolidation of the current political system), reformism (the greatest part of left-wing party, some of National-Religious forces, and common folk supporters of democratic changes in the political system), Moderation (moderate party, technocrats, professional and non-political bureaucrats, some of forces from left and right wing parties, and common folk supporters of economical-development priority over other issues), regime s origin (most of National-Religious forces, some of left-wing party forces separated from the common procedure like Moeen 2005 and Karroubi2009, common folk supporters of gradual changes and secularization of political system), the origin of Forth World (political forces claiming to be representatives of marginalized urban and remote villages; they do not belong to political fractions and they are common folk supporters of fair redistribution of economical sources and immediate benefit to the poor). Although due to lack of coherence and learning organizational pervasiveness in politics like fractions, it is not possible to have accurate analyses of above named groups, but it is acceptable to recognize the existence of these origins with accepting the possibility of differences in number of political activists and common folk supporters. The increase number of votes for the candidates of coalition between origins (except the regime s) can be seen through different periods like coalition of Right-wing and Moderate Parties in 5 th election (which has not been discussed here), Left-wing and Moderate Parties in 7 th and 11 th elections, and Forth World with Right-wing in the 9 th and 10 th elections. Thus the scientific guess of this research based on thorough studies can be replaced with the common attitude toward political origins and their vote composition. Meaning if we consider the public and specially, the media conception like what explained in Table 8, then the current study proves that it is giving a more precise image of vote composition as shown in Table 9. Having a perception like what explained in Table 8 is not baseless. Considering one or several elections, every political fractions and media in support of them can show efficiency of that conception. For instance, reformists of the 7 th presidential election are simply justified by attracting silent votes. Their conception does not give a proper explanation for the 10 th election. The status of conservatives is inversed. They do not explain the 7 th election well. According to previous section of this article, we do not consider this image as being helpful.this image would deface our understanding of the vote composition of political origins. Instead, we would suggest Table 9 in which votes of Forth World, moderates as well as radicals are also included. 9

10 Moderate Demagogue Demagogue Reformist Reformist Moderate Moderate Conservative Conservative Conservative National- Religious Tech J Engin & App Sci., 5 (S): 1-14, 2015 Table 7. Political orientation and intellectual changes of candidates of 11 rounds of presidential elections Period Relative percentage of candidate al of government Relative percentage of reformist candidate Relative percentage of conservative candidate Relative percentage of moderate candidate Relative percentage of demagogue candidate Relative percentage of independent candidate and others Tendency of selected candidate toward current government Political and intellectual orientation of selected candidates Silent votes little or average Table 8. Public and media perception about vote composition of political origins Reformism Conservatism Political origin average average The level of political origins vote Estimated percentage of conservatives (subjective and hypothetical) Estimated percentage of reformists (subjective and hypothetical) Exterminis m Low 5 Table 9. Alternative image proposed by the current study on the vote composition of political origins Moderate Moderate with Reformis with Forth-World Conservatis Fundamentali tendency to Political origin m tendency to (margin) m sm conservatis Reformism m Medium low 10 Medium high 20 High 30 Medium high 15 Medium low 10 Medium low 10 share in composition of votes Tolerant estimation of percentage of votes (by comparing votes of representative of these origins in different presidential election periods) Yes To some extent _ Almost _ Belonging to silent vote The suggested table can be tested both in next election as well as survey with proper buoys. In this table, median with tendency toward conservative or reformist fractions are separated but it must be noted that moderates can all incline to one side. Also, having margins in the middle show that this origin might be attracted by either fractions, moderates or s. As said earlier, the Forth World or margins do not have specific political viewpoint and they enter the game based in Theory of Survival; or as said in slang expression, they are of the idea of From a bad paymaster get what you can which means they want to earn a specific financial or exciting benefit in a short time or immediately. They are unfamiliar with political games but they know their benefits and they have learnt by experience, or they think they have, how to reach to some of those interests in this periodic game.with such assumption, election analyses would be different. Analyses discussed in the current study and their differences with typical analyses of media have been explained exceedingly. To sum it up, it can be said that winning in the 7 th election was the result of coalition between moderates, reformists and to some extents, margins. But in the 8 th election, some of margins were disappointed and silent and the overall rating of selected candidate fell. In the first round of 9 th election, we had the division of moderates and margins votes between two fractions; and candidates from some origins were more than one thus the votes were divided between them too. But in the second round, coalition between conservatives, moderate conservatives, fundamentalists and people from forth world, won. The 10 th election observed intense confrontation and victory of conservatives, who had the votes of forth world, against reformists. The votes of moderates were also divided in this election. In the 11 th election, moderates and reformists stood up against conservatives and won. This time, the votes of forth world were divided and of course, most of these votes were silent. Therefore, coalition of origins and attracting margins or better to say Forth World, will be decisive 10

11 and being a hardliner in any political spectrum, with the hope of attracting more votes, would lead to failure unless Forth World would be attracted by extremists. Finally, to sum up the whole study, the analytical recommendation of this research is to consider quaternary of reformist, moderate, Forth World and conservative instead of binary of reformist/conservative and investigate the possibility of coalition between them. Appendices Appendix 1. Percentage of provincial votes of candidates in 7 th presidential election (May 23, 1997) Province Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, West Ardabil Isfahan Ilam Bushehr Tehran C. M. & Bakhtiari Khorasan Khuzestan Zanjan Semnan Sistan & Balouch. Fars Ghom Kurdistan Kerman Kermanshah Kohgil. & Bouyer. Gilan. Lorestan Mazandaran Markazi Hormozgan Hamedan Yazd Summary (Iran) S. R. Zavarei M. M. Nik (Reyshahri) A. Nategh Noori S. M. Khatami