On July 19, the Islamic Participation Front, the principal group aligned with Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's reform movement, concluded its third convention amid great uncertainty about the future of reforms in Iran. The meeting in Tehran drew 238 prominent reformists, making the event as intriguing for political observers as it is crucial for the future of Iranian democracy. Mohammed-Reza Khatami, the president's brother, earned another term as party chief. On July 24, a court shut down the IPF's newspaper and sentenced its leader to jail. Three days later, IPF threatened to stop supporting the government if crackdowns on journalists and dissidents extend to parliamentary elections.
IPF conventions draw attention for several reasons. IPF holds the largest parliamentary bloc in the Majlis, its members remain Khatami's most influential advisors, and its newspaper, Norouz, still circulates more copies than any other Iranian daily. Because the group has established itself so firmly as a voice for reform, many observers equate its future with the future of progressivism. In that context, the shutdown of Norouz could signal a watershed. The same political forces that froze the newspaper are calling on Khatami to resign. It is not the first time the president's cause has intertwined with that of the free press.
In 1996, Khatami and a group of intellectuals that had clustered around him sought a permit for a journal called A'yeen. Khatami's surprise victory in the 1997 election cancelled plans to publish the journal, but catapulted the Ay'een group to commanding positions in the government. Out of this nucleus, a group of 110 individuals founded the Islamic Participation Front in November 1998. The Front blended students, intellectuals, and older thinkers who had studied under imams. Its conventions quickly generated dramatic events. The first took place within days after the closure of 19 newspapers by the country's conservative-dominated judiciary and after a vigilante attack on the party's theoretician, Saeed Hajarian, which left him crippled. The second convention, in 2001, occurred as many activists and journalists sat in jail and Khatami wrestled with the question of whether he should seek a second term. At that time, the party's chief strategist, Abbas Abdi, openly called on reformists in the government to disengage from all levers of power rather than associate with a corrupt and inept polity. His call was rejected by both the leadership and the rank and file. On July 28, 2002, Abdi again told reporters that the country faces "a very serious crisis of political legitimacy and public confidence." This time, the party officially shares his urgency.
During and in the days leading up to the meeting, conservative forces tried to persuade the IPF to soften its rhetoric. Conservative newspapers accused it of being America's fifth column, Islamist speakers branded an ally organization as heretical, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei warned Muslims to avoid people "who worship party-building." With President Khatami barred from seeking a third term in 2005 and many Iranians worried about the United States' potential military involvement in the region, any effort to brand reformists as heathens could foster serious political conflict.
On the opening day, Mohammad-Reza Khatami soberly enumerated the many challenges facing the reform movement. He cited the conservatives' extra-legal prerogatives in courts and religious institutions and the hard-line Council of Guardians' power to block progressive laws and reformist candidates. But the party leader did not call for across-the-board reform. Instead he differentiated between what he called "social reforms" - the loosening of traditional social relations which he said were transforming at a bewildering pace and political reforms, which all agreed had come to a halt. He said conservatives had tried to corrode the reformists' popularity by insisting that political reforms had to bring unrest and violence. Finally, rather than entertain ideas about ceding power, he said only a dictatorship or a state of chaos would make the party withdraw.
But the conservatives' success in shutting down the newspaper and otherwise gagging reformist views seems to have sapped the party's authority. According to one delegate that attended the convention, a lively and often frank discussion about the party's performance followed the speech. Many delegates believed that the leadership had been too slow to respond to the changing situation and was lagging behind rather than influencing the unfolding situation. "This year the atmosphere was more combative and less conservative than before. People thought holding government jobs had made some Participation Front leaders more conservative," said the delegate. As far as the all-important question of remaining or exiting from power, the delegate told EurasiaNet: "More people than before agreed with the
