Him or Her? No Difference for Iranian Officials, Some for Iranian Public
“Did you watch the recent debate between the two candidates for the U.S. presidential elections? Did you see the truths that they revealed? Did you listen to them? They revealed the true nature of America. The truths that they revealed were several times larger in number [and worse] than the truths which we had disclosed. Of course, some people did not believe or did not want to believe them.”
This is part of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s speech in a meeting with thousands of university and secondary school students on November 2, on the “National Day of Fighting against Global Arrogance” or what the West knows as the anniversary of the Iranian hostage crisis. Many in Iran have had the chance to follow the US presidential debates live, as the state-run TV aired the second and third debates in an unprecedented move.
The Supreme Leader went on to stress Donald Trump’s candor, without naming him, saying what he said was tangible in the real lives of American people. “Human values have been trampled upon in that country. There is discrimination, differentiation, racism and annihilation of human rights in America. When you shout, “Death to America” and when Imam [Khomeini] said, “Let out all your shouts and cries on America” this means death to all these things,” he added.
The remarks echoed President Hassan Rouhani’s first public comment on the US presidential race. He too refused to name the candidates. “Did you see the debate and the way of their speaking, accusing and mocking each other? Do we want such a democracy in our country? Do we want such elections in our country?” Rouhani said, speaking to a crowd in the Iranian city of Arak. “You see the United States that claims it has had democracy for more than 200 years,” he said in comments broadcast live by state TV. “Look at the country, [look] how the situation is where morality has no place.”
Rouhani said that during his September visit to the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he was asked which of the candidates he preferred. “I said, ‘What? Should I prefer bad to worse or worse to bad?’”
Ali-Akbar Velayati, former foreign minister and the Supreme Leader’s senior advisor in foreign policy, has called the two presidential hopefuls two sides of the same coin, saying the ‘female’ candidate shows the real face of the US while the ‘other’ candidate shows it made up. “The US presidential candidates’ Iran policies do not make much difference for us and they will not want the Iranian nations’ progress and prosperity,” Velayati told a live show in Iran’s state-run TV on Sunday evening.
According to a recent poll, more than half of Iranians see no differences in the two presidential nominees either. The results of a telephone survey, conducted between October 31 and November 2 by Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) with 1600 participants, shows that 52 percent believe that the outcome of the US presidential election will have no impact whatsoever on Iran. Sixty-eight percent of the participants predicted that Hillary Clinton would win the race while only 14 percent find it more likely for Trump to be elected.
However, seen from the public domain, Hillary Clinton seems to be more popular, or at least less detestable. Last week, Slovenian psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s remarks in which he said he would vote for Trump prompted fiery backlashes among Iranian Twitter users who believed his argument resounded those that backed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. The parallel between Trump and Ahmadinejad was also recurrent before the latter was recommended by the Supreme Leader to stay out of the next year presidential election in Iran.
Few newspapers in Iran have dedicated their headlines or pages to the US presidential election. However, Iran Daily, the official organ of the Iranian administration, has put out an eight-page special issue featured on the larger part of its front page, with the headline reading “Black Battle for White House”. In an interview inside the extra, Zhand Shakibi, Fellow in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science in the University of London, enumerates five reasons for the polarization of the American society, which he believes is rooted in half a century ago.
“First, the US election is held separately in states electorates. It is said that the Republicans have drawn borders between these electorates in a way that leads to their winning. Second, class differences are increasingly widening. Third, the number of radical politicians has grown in both major political parties, and thus politics in the United States has become radical or better to say ideological. Four, the personality of the candidates have made people radical in their support for them. Five, the racial composition in the US is changing, which means the Protestant White will be a minority in a matter of years, and thus they try to preserve the status quo.”
However, he says the polarization does not threaten the integrity of the political establishment or lead to demands for radical change.
Drawing on the case of former US President Truman, Iranian political scientist Davoud Hermidas-Bavand says Trump could be the history’s surprise. However, his victory will be a great blow to American democracy he reiterated in an interview with Arman Daily. “Trump has no political background and positions he has taken during his campaign are populist ones,” Hermidas-Bavand said before elaborating on Trump’s inappropriate and provoking stances. Calling Trump a naïve politician who may pose new perils for the American society, the expert saهی change is naturally welcome among the masses, even if there is no reason for it and that is why Trump insists on change but his baseless remarks stirs up illusion and ignorance in public opinions. Elsewhere in the interview, he calls Trump’s remarks on election fraud in the United States as a great mistake, exposing the country’s political structure. “Trump lacks political ideology and foresight and that is why he cannot bring harmony and discipline to the American society and may instead derange the [existing] order,” he added.
Perhaps hardliner Principlists in Iran look forward for the opportunity where Trump refuses to accept the outcome, in order to criticize the long-antagonized government of the United States for its faux democracy.
There are apparently a few things for Iran worth learning from its foe, too. Asr-e Iran, a reform-oriented online outlet, has come out with a piece of small-world advice for Iranian politicians in its Telegram channel. “We would like to warn our officials to learn and remember that distances are cut short in the new century, and their every word and action can end in their disadvantage and ruin the country’s face in world, at the same time,” part of Asr Iran’s brief article reads.
Many observers have noted that the world is closely watching the race as it may affect the normalization of economic cooperation with Iran, as part of the implementation of the nuclear deal.