Iran's reformers face their greatest challenge during 2001. They must convince their President, Muhammad Khatami, to seek a second four-year term and secure his re-election in May. If he does not stand and win, the conservatives will continue to implement their step-by-step plan to remove reformists from political office and reverse the modest gains they have made. Although last summer he declared his intention to run, Mr Khatami was wavering by year's end. On the one hand, many of his liberal supporters sharply criticise his low-key, non-confrontational approach to the conservatives, who have blocked the emergence of "Islamic democracy", the rule of law and a civil society. On the other hand, the conservatives, who control the armed forces, judiciary and administration, seem to go from strength to strength. Since last spring, they have shut down the liberal press, stalled and stymied Mr Khatami's modest reform programme and jailed or silenced prominent lay and clerical reformers.
While ordinary people are disappointed with Mr Khatami and disillusioned with the reformists, there is little doubt that he would be re-elected if he chose to stand again. Neither camp has another candidate who matches his personal popularity. Mr Khatami won the presidential poll by a 70 per cent landslide in May 1997. Liberals won control of local and municipal councils in 1999, and of parliament in 2000. But the reformist camp is powerless while the clerics exercise rule by divine right. In the contest between people power and clerical power, the people have lost out.
Mr Khatami complained bitterly to a gathering of supporters. "I declare, after three years as president, that I don't have sufficient powers to implement the constitution, which is my biggest responsibility." Some of his supporters view this admission of defeat as an acknowledgement that he has been mistaken in adopting a policy of backing away from confrontation with obstructive clerics who hold the levers of power.
Indeed, the President failed to implement his domestic reform package because he chose to capitulate rather than risk outright conflict with the conservatives' powerful and occasionally violent supporters in the armed forces, vigilante groups and the bazaar. Mr Khatami is now trying to regain lost ground by returning, belatedly, to the strategy that put him into office. He is renewing his direct appeal to intellectuals, students, youth, women and the unemployed. In 1996, he became the first Iranian politician to campaign in the Western democratic mode by touring the country and speaking to local gatherings. During the coming campaign, Mr Khatami may have to demand more of the people than their votes. In the struggle to survive, the reformists could have to marshall and mobilise the people to fight for democracy and freedom, as they did during the last days of the Shah's reign. However, Mr Khatami is a gentle scholar and not a tough-minded politician prepared to sacrifice lives and limbs in pursuit of his objectives. As a cleric, he was schooled in the quietist Islamic tradition, which holds that ["]"100 years of tyranny is preferable to one hour of anarchy". The months of strife and chaos that marked the fall of the Shah 21 years ago would also make Mr Khatami wary of uncorking the bottle containing the djinn of "people power". He no longer has a choice. The conservatives neither have a plan to solve Iran's serious political, social and economic problems nor a strategy to satisfy popular demands for representative government, an end to social repression in the name of Islamic morality, jobs, decent housing, education and health care. Mr Khatami has just such a programme, but he has not been able to implement it. If he fails to give Iranians greater freedom, privatise the command economy, stabilise the currency and open the door to foreign investment, there could very well be a popular revolt, which would not only bring down the conservative clerics but also the Islamic Republic. The choice could be between the survival of the Islamic Republic in a progressive, democratic form or the abyss. Iran's decision will reverberate throughout the region.