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Iran After the Elections

The Way Forward

5 PM Tuesday, November 29

Wiener Auditorium, Taubman Building, Ground floor Kennedy School of Government

Michael Ignatieff, Director, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy

Mehrangiz Kar, Iranian human rights activist & Carr Center Fellow

Karim Sadjadpour, International Crisis Group

Mohsen Sazegara, Iranian activist/writer, Yale University

Inquiries: Negar Azimi - negoush@mac,com

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory on June 24 took most everyone by surprise--Iranians and foreign observers alike. Among the eight candidates in the running, Ahmadinejad, a blacksmith's son who had risen through the ranks to become mayor of Tehran, seduced just enough of the voting public with his rants against corruption, his humility and, perhaps most important, his promises of social and economic justice to overwhelm his closest rival, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a conservative reborn as a centrist who served as president from 1989 to 1997. Why the unknown Ahmadinejad, and why now? While the hardliner's victory was a symbolic blow to the aspirations of the reform movement and its vision of a modern, even secular, democracy, for many Iranians a vote for the modest mayor was simply a vote for change. In his down-home manner, he responded to voters' desires for a larger chunk of the economic pie as well as their frustration with the reformists for failing to connect to their most fundamental needs; lofty talk of human rights and democracy, while melodious to Western ears, often sounded irrelevant, unrealistic at best. With Ahmadinejad's victory, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is surely beaming--assured of a consolidation of power in conservative hands across elected and unelected institutions. Herein is our panelists' point of departure; what does the future hold for Iran?

From: negar azimi