OK, so during Ayatollah Khomeini's rule in Iran, there were three different "executive" positions - the Supreme Leader, the President, and the Prime Minister. Nowadays, ever since the position of Prime Minister was abolished in 1989, it's been down to only two positions - the Supreme Leader and the President. My question on this pertains to the former tripartitie division under Khomeini between Supreme Leader, President, and Prime Minister. Just how did it work, without anyone stepping on anyone else's toes? What distinguisted the Iranian President from the Iranian PM, and in turn how were both of them distinguished from the Supreme Leader?
An Iran question [NON-POLITICAL]
- Thread starter Dan1988
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The supreme leader is appointed by the guardians council, a mix of religious and elected leaders. The president is elected by the people. The PM was the guy with a parliamentary majority. The supreme leader is responsible for major political decisions. The President and the PM run the country on day to day basis. This is an oversimplification, of course, but you can get the full explanations very easily online.
Even if the latter two were ceremonial, in theory - under the original constitution, not the amended one - what made the President different from the Prime Minister?
(If anyone asks, I'm doing research for a TL that is not Iran-related, but I'm fascinated with the original tripartite split in Iran between the Supreme Leader, President, and Prime Minister and therefore I'm thinking of implementing it elsewhere. That's as far as I'm going to say, so as to avoid spilling any beans, because I still don't have details or even a general outline of what I plan on happening, though I've vague ideas which I will not divulge.)
Well, here's what I can find:
First, there weren't many Prime Ministers of Iran. 5 total, counting the one who there during the Revolutionary government. The position only existed for about 10 years. And there was one person who held the position for 9 of those. The Prime Minister was apparently appointed by the President, but in one case, the Parliament overrode the President's decision, forcing him to appoint someone they liked better.
Let's look at Mir-Hossein Mousavi, since he is basically synonymous with the post.
Mr Mousavi was considered something of a leftist, a liberal, and a reformer. He took broad control of the economy, and is credited with helping end the Islamic Republic's diplomatic isolation. He also pretty much single-handedly handled the Iran-Contra Affair.
Meanwhile, the President for almost all of that time was Ali Khamenei (current Supreme Leader), who mostly handled the military and the state budget.
From what I can gather, the position mostly existed to give leftists a voice in a rightist-dominated government, but basically existed because it was allowed to exist.
EDIT: this is very interesting to me, so later tonight I'm going to read the Iranian constitution and see what I can find.
First, there weren't many Prime Ministers of Iran. 5 total, counting the one who there during the Revolutionary government. The position only existed for about 10 years. And there was one person who held the position for 9 of those. The Prime Minister was apparently appointed by the President, but in one case, the Parliament overrode the President's decision, forcing him to appoint someone they liked better.
Let's look at Mir-Hossein Mousavi, since he is basically synonymous with the post.
Mr Mousavi was considered something of a leftist, a liberal, and a reformer. He took broad control of the economy, and is credited with helping end the Islamic Republic's diplomatic isolation. He also pretty much single-handedly handled the Iran-Contra Affair.
Meanwhile, the President for almost all of that time was Ali Khamenei (current Supreme Leader), who mostly handled the military and the state budget.
From what I can gather, the position mostly existed to give leftists a voice in a rightist-dominated government, but basically existed because it was allowed to exist.
EDIT: this is very interesting to me, so later tonight I'm going to read the Iranian constitution and see what I can find.
I agree, it is interesting - which is why I want to use it for a future TL.
Just be careful - the original 1979 Consitution, not the one with the 1989 amendments, would probably hold the key.I hate to pry, but will the tl feature an incapacitated (stroke for example) Khomeini?
Sort of 'regency' Iran
Sort of 'regency' Iran
Nah; I'm almost entirely sure that in that situation, the Assembly of Experts would appoint someone to be regent.
Anyway, I have finished examining the Constitution of Iran as found here (the University of Bern's unofficial translation based on text provided by the Iranian Embassy in London, and then modified to bring it into ICL standards), and here (Iran Online, a big forum of what appears to be Iranian expats).
So, the constitution doesn't appear to make any provision for a Prime Minister. Okay, a lot of countries don't, technically. But aside from that, the duties of the Council of Ministers seem awfully vague. Frankly, the constitution seems to me like it was almost designed to keep the Council of Ministers fighting with the President.
Like I said, without giving too many details, it's not an Iran-related TL. Just a future TL where a bit of the Iranian system of government (original setup) might be used, but which I'm a bit confused on so I just need some sorting out and clarification.
That's the Constitution as amended in 1989 (to eliminate Mousavi's position, which Wikisource also has). The original 1979 Constitution, however, had a provision for Prime Minister. That's where I'm confused. Even if the President and Prime Minister were, in theory, ceremonial, there's got to be some difference between the two. That the Supreme Leader has the real power in all this in undeniable, as it's an adaptation of Plato's philosopher-kings. But apart from that, it's the existence of Prime Ministers during Khomeini's time in power that bothers me a bit.
Presidential powers
Iran's president is not ceremonial. It seemed so during the war because the war, and Khomeini personality, placed him very much on the background. The President runs the government, and is very influential in economy, administrations, etc, issues. The Supreme leader defines broad political guidelines, including on foreign politics. But the fact that the president is elected by the people on direct elections gives him a lot more weight on the post Khomeinei era. I suggest Ali Ansari book "modern Iran" as both a good source and an interesting read.
Iran's president is not ceremonial. It seemed so during the war because the war, and Khomeini personality, placed him very much on the background. The President runs the government, and is very influential in economy, administrations, etc, issues. The Supreme leader defines broad political guidelines, including on foreign politics. But the fact that the president is elected by the people on direct elections gives him a lot more weight on the post Khomeinei era. I suggest Ali Ansari book "modern Iran" as both a good source and an interesting read.
Was not the Iranian system of having the three posts of the supreme leader, the president and the prime minister, similar to the former system in communist countries having the three top posts of the Party Secretary, the president and the prime minister? In later years the Secretary often occupied the post of the president also as in China now. In Soviet Union, Stalin kept only the post of the Party Secretary during the major part of his rule. Krushchev held prime ministership for some time. When he was overthrown, the power was at first shared by Brezhnev as Party Secretary, Mikoyan as the president and Kosygin as the Prime Minister. In Soviet Union and other communist countries the real power was in the hands of the Party Secretary, whether he held a post in the Government or not. In Iran the ultimate authority is the Supreme Leader and others are only his subordinates.
It is interesting to note that in the final years of his reign, Deng Xiaoping of China held none of the top posts in the Party or the Government and still had all the power in his hands!
It is interesting to note that in the final years of his reign, Deng Xiaoping of China held none of the top posts in the Party or the Government and still had all the power in his hands!
Similarity is not accidental
The Shah services often accused Khomeini of being a mix of black (Islamic) and red (Marxist-Leninist) influences.
The logical system would be to have the Supreme Leader as head of state, and a PM as head of the executive. But since that would be too much like a monarchy, the Supreme Leader "election" being too closed and indirect to be democratic, a Presidencial figure was introduced to provide an elected Head of State figure.
The Islamic Republic works very much like a single party system with open internal elections. Tere are lots of parties, but since the constitution requires them all to be Islamic in nature, they are more like diferent faction than real parties. Imagine the USA with only the GOP, but free primaries. You could only vote if you were republican, but you could vote for the tea party nominates or for Ron Paul, for example.
The Shah had a PM, and initially the job remained, rending the President rather decorative. Since an elected president has a stronger mandate, it made sense to remove the PM job, and put the President in charge of the executive.
As in the USSR, real power lies more in what you control than the constitution. Ahmadinejad real power lies in his ties with the revolutionary guards. In a sense, and from an European perspective, Ahmadinejad is a bit the tea party of Iran...
The constitution had to be changed because without Khomeini personal authority, the original one would probably be unworkable.
The Shah services often accused Khomeini of being a mix of black (Islamic) and red (Marxist-Leninist) influences.
The logical system would be to have the Supreme Leader as head of state, and a PM as head of the executive. But since that would be too much like a monarchy, the Supreme Leader "election" being too closed and indirect to be democratic, a Presidencial figure was introduced to provide an elected Head of State figure.
The Islamic Republic works very much like a single party system with open internal elections. Tere are lots of parties, but since the constitution requires them all to be Islamic in nature, they are more like diferent faction than real parties. Imagine the USA with only the GOP, but free primaries. You could only vote if you were republican, but you could vote for the tea party nominates or for Ron Paul, for example.
The Shah had a PM, and initially the job remained, rending the President rather decorative. Since an elected president has a stronger mandate, it made sense to remove the PM job, and put the President in charge of the executive.
As in the USSR, real power lies more in what you control than the constitution. Ahmadinejad real power lies in his ties with the revolutionary guards. In a sense, and from an European perspective, Ahmadinejad is a bit the tea party of Iran...
The constitution had to be changed because without Khomeini personal authority, the original one would probably be unworkable.
Hmm. I thought that the second of those sources was the unamended document, but I see now that I thought wrong.
This is insane. I just spent half an hour looking for unamended copies of the Iranian Constitution. Why can I not find any? I'm currently emailing my Persian-speaking friend to ask her to help me look
Anyway, while this is a very interesting problem, returning to your original problem of a tripartite government, I had an interesting idea how to do it: basically the American system on steroids.
Set up a system where you have a President (probably directly elected), a Prime Minster (chosen by the elected Parliament), and a Chief Justice (chosen by the Supreme Court. The President and Prime Minister each have their own sphere (i.e. they fight over different duties and responsibilities), while the Chief Justice basically has veto power over any of their actions. The Supreme Court in this scenario is a large body; probably in the 50-100 range. They deal with most cases that come before them by assigning a small subset of Justices to handle it (say, 3-7), but some issues (particularly laws) are instead handled by having the legal counsels and the Court's aides prepare all the documents, the Justices read over the materials, and then vote accordingly in open votes on each subject ("Parliament Bill 10845 has been determined constitutional by a vote of 73 for, 27 against"). This works best in a theocracy, because then you can have the Supreme Court be drawn from religious legal authorities without any recourse to the people (justifying such a large and powerful branch of the government being self-selecting under other circumstances gets a little dicey, though it's happened)
From my understanding of the Iranian Revolution, the Constitution was originally being drafted by the more liberal elements of the revolutionaries. The original goal was essentially to take the old Constitution, and transition from a monarchy to a Republic, which meant abolishing the role of the Monarch and replacing it with the presidency.
Of course, after Khomeini let the liberals and youth have their fun and games, the Constituent assembly was packed with his followers in the Islamic Republican Party, who then proceeded to add to the Constitution and created offices like the Supreme Leader, the Assembly of Experts, etc.
The Amendments in 1989 simply streamlined the system of government, by removing the office of Prime Minister which was essentially a vestigial element.
Of course, after Khomeini let the liberals and youth have their fun and games, the Constituent assembly was packed with his followers in the Islamic Republican Party, who then proceeded to add to the Constitution and created offices like the Supreme Leader, the Assembly of Experts, etc.
The Amendments in 1989 simply streamlined the system of government, by removing the office of Prime Minister which was essentially a vestigial element.