Iran's young elite face trial by fire

No political opponent ever accused Iran's youngest woman parliamentarian of mincing words - and she has strong ones for the hard-line conservatives who have engineered almost certain victory in next week's parliament vote.

The election campaign officially began Thursday, but Fatemah Haqiqat-Jou - along with some 2,500 other candidates - is barred from running by the unelected Guardian Council.

The freshly minted lawmaker first came to office in 2000 full of hope, imbued with ideals of justice and democracy, and backed by 1 million Tehran votes - part of a reformist landslide that ushered in a new generation of young leaders.

But today the collapsing dreams of Ms. Haqiqat-Jou, whom the Monitor first met on the campaign trail four years ago when she was 31, is emblematic of how hardliners in Iran have triumphed over the first reform parliament since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

That victory cannot last, vows Haqiqat-Jou, a demure new mother who expects that she may soon have to fulfill a prison sentence, handed down by a notoriously hard-line prosecutor in August 2001.

"There are two options: Either [conservatives] are destroyed, and finally destroy the Islamic system, or they change their behavior toward people," warns the soft-spoken deputy, who wears her many-layered chador with elegant ease.

"I believe in the proverb: 'Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely,' " says Haqiqat-Jou, narrowing unflinching eyes. "That is our main problem now."

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei makes all final decisions. But after twice asking the Guardian Council to reconsider the cases of nearly 4,000 barred candidates, he finally accepted the banning of some 2,500, and said the vote would not be delayed.

Like most reformists, Haqiqat-Jou sees it differently. The decisions of the Guardian Council are "both un-Islamic and illegal," says the lawmaker, one of 11 women deputies in the 290-seat parliament, or majlis.

"Reforms from within the state are impossible now," she says during an interview in the downtown offices of the main reform party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF). The IIPF is boycotting the election. "They are not dead; the young generation is determined to find reforms, even if they take a different form."

That message was echoed during a rally to mark the 25-year anniversary of the revolution on Wednesday, by reform-minded President Mohammad Khatami, who has watched his own vast popularity disappear amid charges of ineffectiveness.

"Elections are a symbol of democracy if they are performed correctly," Mr. Khatami told the conservative crowd. Not a single portrait of the embattled head of state was evident among the sea of pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, father of Iran's revolution, and Iran's current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. "If this is restricted, it's a threat to the nation and the system."

It already may be too late, says Haqiqat-Jou, who receives "a lot of complaints" about the failure of reformers from students when she teaches at a local university. "I think people are disappointed and in despair, because they think their vote doesn't count."

The unassuming woman hardly looks like a populist firebrand who held audiences of both men and women rapt four years ago, before and after her election victory, when 83 percent of Iranian voters flocked to polling booths.

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