Ethnicity Affects Parliament   

15 October 2001, Volume  4, Number  39
Iran Report

A 26 August commentary in the "Entekhab" daily about the selection of President
Mohammad Khatami's cabinet warned of the emergence of tribal and linguistic coalitions in
the legislature. Some parliamentarians, the commentary stated, "have placed their regional
interests above national interests." The deputies did not vote for cabinet members along
factional lines; rather, they voted for the cabinet members on the basis of common regional
or linguistic roots. This demonstrates the weakness of Iran's party system, according to the
commentary, and it means that the deputies are not acting in terms of the national interest. 

At the end of September the role of regional and ethnic factors in domestic Iranian politics
came to light when the parliamentarians from Kurdistan Province resigned en masse to
protest discrimination against the Kurdish and Sunni minority, according to press reports. In
their letter of resignation, Baha al-Din Adab of Sanandaj, Jalal Jalali of Sanandaj, Masood
Hosseini of Qorveh, Mohammad Mohammad-Rezai of Bijar, Abdullah Sohrabi of Marivan,
and Salaheddin Alaie of Saqez criticized President Khatami for not paying attention to their
co-ethnics' plight. Mohammad-Rezai said that more than 80 percent of the province's
residents live below the poverty line and the state universities grant very few places to
students from Kurdistan. Mohammad-Rezai complained that the Interior Ministry has never
responded to requests that it send a delegation to the province, it rarely replies to any
communications, and when it does reply, the response is usually unsatisfactory. 

The provincial governor-general is appointed by the president and is part of the Interior
Ministry. Abdullah Ramazanzadeh, the former governor-general, has moved on to a post in
the presidential cabinet. Adab asked why Interior Minister Abdolvahed Musavi-Lari could
not meet with the Kurdistan Province representatives even once to discuss the next
governor-general, "Seda-yi Idalat" reported on 8 October. The appointee for
governor-general that the Kurdistan parliamentarians preferred was ignored,
Mohammad-Rezai added in a 2 October interview with "Tehran Times." 

Conceding the validity of complaints about Kurdistan, "Iran News" on 2 October said that
the resignations were "ill-timed." It warned that in light of the current regional crisis, "the
ethnic issue of the Kurds is a volatile topic for the international media." The normally
pro-Khatami daily concluded: "If only the president had consulted with the deputies and
solved their problems, we would have been spared the current embarrassment in the
aftermath of their rash decision." Some parliamentarians from Gilan and Mazandaran
provinces appear to share the disgruntlement with the way the matter is being handled.
Lahijan representative Iraj Nadimi said that a legal draft is being prepared for the
interpellation of Interior Minister Musavi-Lari, "Iran Daily" reported on 4 October. 

Before the mass resignations took place, state officials had described how well everybody
got along regardless of religious or ethnic differences. On 23 September, President Khatami
praised the ability of Kurds in Ilam Province to co-exist with Lurs and Arabs, and he said
that this was evidence of national unity and Islamic civil society, IRNA reported. Speaker of
Parliament Mehdi Karrubi told members of the Kurdistan branch of the Islamic Iran
Participation Party on 20 September that Sunni and Shia Iranians enjoy equal rights. Past
unrest in Kurdistan, according to Karrubi, was not sectarian and was the result of "plots of
the Iranian nation's enemies who seek sowing the seeds of discord among them, based on any
type of baseless excuses," IRNA reported. (Bill Samii)
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