Media Guide: A Look Back at the Rouhani Administration
/By Senior Research Fellow Andrew Lumsden
19th century French journalist and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr famously wrote, “plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (the more things change the more they stay the same).” This may well serve as an apt description of Iran under the administration of President Hassan Rouhani, which comes to an end this month after eight rollercoaster years. Having begun with bold promises of domestic reform and international openness, and featuring a landmark agreement between Iran and world powers, the Rouhani administration ends amidst a deadly global pandemic, renewed tensions between Iran and the West, a battered economy and resurgent hardliners poised to reassume full control of government once President-elect Ebrahim Raisi takes office in August. All while the country’s dismal record on human rights and political freedom remains virtually unchanged.
AIC’s 2018 “Myth vs. Fact” on the Rouhani administration highlighted some of the progressive policies the administration spearheaded and the constitutional limitations on Rouhani’s power to bring about far-reaching reform, arguing that Rouhani’s reputation as a political moderate is not as unfounded as many of his Western critics have charged. More recently however, Rouhani has come under intense criticism from even his former reformist allies at home. Former Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref, a prominent reformist leader, went so far as to apologize “to the people [of Iran]” for having backed Rouhani. Aref blasted the Rouhani administration as one which “doesn’t want or cannot implement” meaningful reforms.
How can Rouhani’s leadership best be described? Has he been a well-meaning reformer thwarted by forces beyond his control? Or has he been what some of his critics have labeled him, an “enabler” of Tehran’s political establishment who never really intended to bring to pass the changes he touted?
What follows is a brief analysis of five key policy areas, women’s rights, diplomacy, the economy, the rights of the disabled and the rights of ethnic and religious minorities, in which Rouhani promised to bring about progressive change when he came to power and has actually had control of the relevant organs of government to do so under Iran’s complex political system. Iranian presidents, it should be remembered, have little to no control over the country’s military, judiciary or internal security forces.
Women’s Rights and the Rouhani Years
It is important to first note that Iran very much remains a country where, as the UN puts it, “women’s dignity and fundamental human rights,” are consistently violated and undermined. Iranian women still face a myriad of constitutionally and legally enshrined restrictions including on their dress, ability to hold high public office, secure employment or travel without spousal consent and inherit property.
Nevertheless, the Rouhani administration has succeeded in bringing about some small but important advancements for Iranian women over the past eight years for which it has even received praise from both the United Nations and some human rights organizations. It has:
Overseen a 3% increase in female participation in Iran’s labor force between 2014 and 2019
Doubled the number of civil service job listings open to women in 2017
Raised the proportion of female senior executives in the national government by 17%, and by 60% in provincial governments
Appointed Iran’s first female ambassadors since 1979. Marzieh Afkham to Malaysia, and Homeira Rigi to Brunei
In 2018, in conjunction with Parliament, passed a bill allowing mothers to pass their Iranian citizenship to their children. Previously, only children of Iranian fathers received citizenship at birth. The first national ID cards were issued under the new rules in November 2020
The administration also proposed other new measures protecting women, which have been stalled in Parliament or have not been approved by the Guardian Council, a conservative-controlled body which can veto any legislation it deems inappropriate. These include bills which would allow some female professionals to travel without spousal permission, increase penalties for domestic violence and acid attacks, and raise the legal marrying age for girls from 13 to 16.
Amidst these promising steps, the Rouhani era has also featured several disappointing failures and missed opportunities in the realm of gender equality. First, while Rouhani did notably expand women’s access to the civil service beginning in 2016, it is unclear if that trend has continued. World Bank data shows that despite sharp increases between 2014 and 2017, female participation in Iran’s overall labor force has remained stagnant with a slight declination since 2018.
Additionally, Rouhani opted not to appoint any women to ministerial positions, a move which angered many of his domestic pro-reform supporters. Rouhani did not explain why he chose not to appoint female ministers, saying only that he’d intended to, “but it didn’t happen.” Former parliamentarian Mahmoud Sadeghi, told a reformist newspaper that Rouhani felt he was “unable to use women” as ministers in his cabinet.
This may be because Rouhani reportedly opted to seek the approval of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an outspoken supporter of gender discrimination, for each of his cabinet picks. Khamenei’s consent is not legally required for cabinet appointments, and even by tradition, he is only consulted regarding oil and national security related posts. Analysts suggest that Rouhani involved the Supreme Leader so heavily in the selection process as a means of ensuring that he did not face significant conservative opposition in Parliament.
Another potential administration failure surrounds loans offered by state-run banks to marrying couples to cover wedding expenses. Iran’s Youth Minister revealed in June 2020 that an increasing number of applicants for these loans are over the age of 60 and under the age of 15. It has also been found that the number of loans paid out to families of girls marrying between the age of 10 and 14 has grown from 51 in the Persian year 1396 (March 21, 2017- March 20, 2018) to 3,432 girls a year later.
This is the result of impoverished families, made more desperate by the COVID-19 pandemic, marrying off young girls to receive state funds. Iran allows girls as young as 13 to marry with judicial permission. Rouhani ordered that the rules be amended to allow applications for couples between the ages of 18 and 40 in December 2020. However, the application website still lists no age requirement as part of the loans’ terms.
Rouhani-era Diplomacy
Regarding foreign policy, the Rouhani administration did fulfill his promise to pursue greater openness to collaboration with the international community. In 2015, he secured the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany), which relieved some U.S., EU and UN sanctions in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program. Following the JCPOA’s ratification, the Rouhani administration also worked to secure new economic agreements with a wide range foreign partners, regional and European, particularly in the areas of tourism, healthcare, agriculture, oil extraction, renewable energy and transportation.
In this area unfortunately, Rouhani’s successes were undermined primarily by powers outside his control. In 2018, then U.S. President Donald Trump, an opponent of the JCPOA, unilaterally withdrew from the deal and re-imposed economic sanctions on Iran. Furthermore, since Trump has left office, while Rouhani has demonstrated a desire to restore the nuclear deal, he has effectively been sidelined in the negotiating process by an increasingly involved Supreme Leader and the newly-elected conservative-majority Parliament.
That said, it can be argued that Rouhani exercised poor judgement in failing to take seriously the fierce anti-JCPOA rhetoric expressed by former President Trump and the Republican Party in 2016 and 2017. More perhaps, could and should have been done in these early years to develop comprehensive contingency plans and trading frameworks with other JCPOA signatories and non-signatory economic partners in preparation for a possible unprovoked re-imposition of U.S. sanctions.
Rouhani and the Economy
It can also be argued that Rouhani’s economic policies and decisions pre-dating the restoration of U.S. sanctions, bear significant responsibility for the dire state of Iran’s economy. While Iran experienced impressive rates of GDP growth between the JCPOA’s implementation in 2015 and the U.S. withdrawal in 2018, that success ultimately contributed little to the overall health of the national economy. Between 2015 and 2018, income inequality, measured by the GINI coefficient with 100 being maximum inequality, increased from 39 to 42. Rates of poverty (those living on less than US$1.90 a day) saw no decline, and youth unemployment (ages 15-24) increased from 26% to 28%.
Reuters reported in 2017 that since the JCPOA’s implementation, nearly 90% of the deals struck between Rouhani officials and potential foreign investors disproportionately benefited entities controlled by the notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) or the Supreme Leader himself. Only 17 of the more than 100 deals made between Iran and foreign investors at the time of the report, went to private-sector businesses.
Meanwhile, Rouhani, whose administration determines the annual budget, subject only to legislative approval, made cuts to most social programs and consistently increased allocations to the military, the IRGC and the Intelligence services.
Rights of the Disabled
In 2018, the Rouhani administration received praise for introducing a new ‘Law to Protect the Rights of the Disabled.’ The proposed measure would expand accessibility in public buildings and introduce new social protections and privileges for Iranians with disabilities.
Parliament and the Guardian Council approved the law. However, disabled rights activists in Iran lament that despite this, the Rouhani administration has still largely failed to implement the measure. Only about one-tenth of the funds required to properly implement the law has been allocated. In 2019, activists received assurances from Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri that he will “personally pursue the implementation of the disability rights law.” However, in December 2020, Asghar Shirzadi, chairman of the Iranian Association of the Disabled reported that although there were some improvements, many relevant government agencies responsible for administering and enforcing new benefits for the disabled, are still “not very willing to implement the law.”
Given that even the conservative Guardian Council has approved this law, failure to properly implement it is squarely the fault of the administration and represents an unacceptable dereliction of its constitutional duties and moral responsibilities to the Iranian people, particularly the most vulnerable.
Minority Rights Under Rouhani: Ethnic Minorities
Equal rights under the law and equal opportunity for Iran’s ethnic and religious minority communities were pillars of Rouhani’s presidential campaign. He won overwhelming victorities in regions with large minority populations, inspired by his promises to expand minority political participation, employment opportunities, and minority language education.
However, a joint investigation by Minority Rights Group International, the Ceasefire Centre for Civilian Rights and the Centre for Supporters of Human Rights finds that even under Rouhani, the “situation of ethnic and religious minorities has not improved significantly.”
Under Rouhani, minorities remain underrepresented in Iranian politics. While he did award them some county-level posts, Rouhani has not appointed any ethnic or religious minorities to cabinet positions or as governors of any of Iran’s provinces, including those with sizable minority populations like Sistan-Balochistan, a majority-minority province. Furthermore, while he did create a new executive office dealing with “Ethnic and Religious Minorities’ Affairs,” Rouhani appointed as its head a former Intelligence Minister, who is not a member of any minority community.
In education, Rouhani pledged to ensure that ethnic minority communities have access to instruction in their own mother tongues. Minority languages have faced repression in Iran since the beginning of the last imperial dynasty in the 1920s. Education is conducted exclusively in Persian and even private communication in other languages is restricted in schools. This has contributed to minority students, for many of whom Persian is a second language, having lower academic scores and higher dropout rates than their ethnic Persian counterparts.
Under the Rouhani administration, some programs have been introduced at universities in Kurdistan and East Azerbaijan, for Kurdish and Azeri Turkish language instruction respectively. Plans have also been announced for Baloch language programs in Sistan-Balochistan. However, the minority rights groups’ joint report notes that the scale of implementation and the impact of these minority language instruction programs has been “unclear and uneven.” Furthermore, little has been done to ensure availability of minority language instruction at the primary and secondary levels beyond a few private schools.
Again, given that the administration does control the Ministry of Education and holds broad influence over provincial and county level governments, it is likely that far more could have been done over the past eight years to expand mother tongue instruction, including without the need for new legislation.
Even more concerningly, the Center for Human Rights in Iran reported that activists for minority language rights continue to face unwarranted surveillance and arrests by the Ministry of Intelligence, an agency which is under Rouhani’s purview.
Minority Rights under Rouhani: Religious Minorities
For some religious minorities, the Rouhani era has actually been a time of receding rights and freedoms. In January 2020 it was reported that Iran’s Interior Ministry, which is under Rouhani’s purview, had removed “other” as a possible selection for the question of religion on applications for the new national Smart ID card. Smart IDs are required for bank transactions and to access many government benefits and services. Under this new format, it is not possible for Iranians who do not adhere to one of the four recognized religions (Islam, Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism) to complete the applications.
The change was prompted by January 2019 complaints to the Interior Ministry by conservative legislators who warned that including the “other” option implies that Iran recognizes all religions including “devious sects.”
The new ID format is widely seen by analysts as an attack on Iran’s Baha’i community. The Baha’i faith is an offshoot of Islam and has over 350,000 adherents in Iran, making it the country’s largest non-Muslim and non-recognized minority faith. Iran’s Shia government considers the Baha’i faith heretical and a danger to national security. Baha’is are effectively barred from receiving Smart IDs unless they choose to falsely claim one of the four recognized faiths, something the Baha’i faith prohibits.
In fact, civil rights activist Bahareh Hedayat shared on Twitter on January 22, 2020 a response from the National Organization for Civil Registration of Iran, the agency responsible for ID documents, received by a Baha’i who inquired about her options under the new rule. The inquirer was told that “the law neither recognizes your religion nor offers a solution,” and was instructed to “submit your application under existing options.”
Conclusion
Though it is an undeniable truth that Iran’s political system is surgically designed to resist efforts by elected leaders to produce far-reaching reform, is it equally the case that far more should, and could, have been achieved by the Rouhani administration over the past eight years.
Rouhani may not have turned out to be the “wolf in sheep’s clothing,” then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described him as in 2013, but he also largely failed to effectively leverage the powers he had to defy the actual wolves of Iranian politics. Far too many compromises were made which neither Iran’s laws nor political traditions required, and government ministries controlled by the President in some cases have failed either to implement new laws or reform their own unjust practices.
Given that conservatives retook the majority in Parliament in 2020 and have now won the Presidency, with President-elect Ebrahim Raisi soon to assume office, many of the few reforms achieved over the past eight years may soon be at risk for repeal or subversion.
Furthermore, with moderate and reformist candidates being more aggressively disqualified from standing for public office by the Guardian Council, it is unclear how much influence these groups will be able to exert in Iranian policymaking, domestic and foreign, over the coming years. However, the Rouhani era has shown that for those seeking change still holding office in Iran, be it at the national or local levels, it will be more important than ever that they utilize all the resources at their disposal to achieve all the change they can, as quickly as they can, for however long they can.
