Ehsan Mehrabi - Radio Farda - September 5, 2016
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| Masoud Pezeshkian, the Deputy Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, also served as the Minister of Health and Medical Education during President Mohammad Khatami's administration. |
If in the past, the identity demands of Turkish-speaking members of parliament were expressed through reading the poem Heydar Baba by Mohammad-Hossein Shahriyar during the speeches before the official parliamentary sessions, nowadays, these representatives are proposing the creation of a "Turkish Region Faction" and speaking of their special role in electing Masoud Pezeshkian as the first deputy speaker of the parliament.
After the rise of the forces associated with the line of Imam Khomeini in the post-revolutionary Iranian parliaments and the removal of opposition groups, ethnic demands were rarely raised by representatives in these parliaments. In each election, some candidates who highlighted these demands were disqualified.
Although, in these parliaments, Turkish-speaking representatives would often complain when introducing ministers to the parliament, stating that their fellow-speaking compatriots were underrepresented in the cabinet, with most ministers coming from other regions such as Isfahan.
In the 6th parliament election, influenced by the political atmosphere of the time, these demands had more room to be voiced. For example, Akbar Aalami's article, "From Bahraman Rafsanjan to Tabriz Azerbaijan," was one of the reasons for his success in the election.
Although Akbar Aalami was the most well-known representative of Tabriz in the media, Esmail Jabarzadeh's membership in the 6th parliament's executive board earned him a special place among the Turkish-speaking parliamentarians.
Before this, Turkish-speaking members had also been part of the executive boards. For instance, Asadollah Bayat, the representative of Zanjan, was the deputy speaker in the 3rd parliament. Hamid Chitchian and Mohammad Ali Subhanallahi, representatives of Tabriz, and Abbas Dozdouzani, the representative of Tehran, were also part of the executive board. In the 4th parliament, Javad Engaji, representative of Tabriz, and in the 5th parliament, Hossein Hashemi, representative of Mianeh, and the current governor of Tehran, were part of the executive board.
Since the 7th parliament, at least two members of the executive board have been from Turkish-speaking provinces.
In the 7th parliament, Jahangir Mohabbi-Nia, the representative of Miandoab, and Hassan Noei-Aghdam, the representative of Ardabil, were part of the executive board. Mohabbi-Nia, along with Mohammad Reza Mirtajeddini and Mohammad Hossein Farhangi, the representatives of Tabriz, were part of the executive board in the 8th parliament. In the 9th parliament, Mohammad Hossein Farhangi, Alireza Monadi, representatives of Tabriz, and Javad Jahangirzadeh were also part of the executive board.
However, in the 10th parliament, a Turkish-speaking representative became the deputy speaker for the first time after 28 years. Asadollah Bayat, however, owed his deputy speakership less to the Turkish-speaking representatives than Masoud Pezeshkian did, since in the environment of the 3rd parliament, ethnic inclinations had less room to manifest.
Pezeshkian's position in Khatami's government was also not unrelated to his ethnicity, as he was appointed to the cabinet in the final days. One of the reasons given by his supporters was that Khatami's second-term electoral votes were weak in Turkish-speaking provinces, and thus the number of Turkish-speaking ministers needed to increase.
In recent parliamentary terms, Turkish-speaking representatives have tried to increase their share of the cabinet, and in some cases, they have even defended ministers with opposing political inclinations. For many parliamentary reporters, the support of some reformist Turkish-speaking representatives for Ali Nikzad, the Minister of Roads and Urban Development in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, was surprising. During the vote of confidence for him, even Vali Azarush, a reformist representative of Ardabil, in the 6th and 7th parliaments, came to parliament to sway the representatives' opinion.
However, sometimes the political atmosphere prevails, and Turkish-speaking representatives are unsuccessful. For example, despite support from several Turkish-speaking conservative representatives for Jafar Millimani-Fard, the proposed Minister of Science in Hassan Rouhani's government, he ultimately failed to join the cabinet.
After Pezeshkian's election as the deputy speaker, the editor-in-chief of the Etedal-Press website mentioned several Turkish-speaking representatives as potential candidates for the chairmanship of parliamentary committees. Eventually, Salman Khodadadi and Azar Akbari, two Turkish-speaking representatives, took over the chairmanships of the Social Affairs and Industries Committees, respectively.
Khodadadi's appointment as the head of the Social Affairs Committee was particularly unexpected, given that his credential was challenged in the 8th parliament over allegations of "sexual assault" and "molestation." Ultimately, after some representatives, including Masoud Pezeshkian, defended him, his credentials were approved.
The Share of Turkish-Speaking Representatives in Parliament
While the share of Turkish-speaking representatives in different parliaments has varied, on average, there are more than 70 Turkish-speaking representatives in each parliament.
East Azerbaijan province has 19 representatives, Ardabil province has seven, and Zanjan province has five. West Azerbaijan province has 12 representatives, with four seats from Kurdish-majority cities. In some parliaments, one of the representatives of Urmia has been Kurdish-speaking.
Thus, Turkish-speaking provinces typically have 39 seats in parliament. Besides these provinces, representatives from some other constituencies in provinces like Hamadan, Fars, Khorasan, Gilan, and Golestan are usually Turkish-speaking.
In almost every parliamentary term, a few representatives from Tehran have been Turkish-speaking. However, in Tehran elections, usually only those listed by political groups manage to be elected, and being Turkish-speaking only helps increase their votes compared to other members of the list.
Some cities surrounding Tehran, including Islamshahr, have a majority Turkish-speaking population, and Turkish-speaking candidates in Tehran pay particular attention to these areas.
In the 10th parliament elections, after Ahmad Amirabadi was elected first in Qom with 72,000 votes, more than Speaker Ali Larijani, the Entekhab website cited Amirabadi's Turkish ethnicity as one of the reasons for his higher vote, noting that "a key point in Amirabadi's success was the votes of Turkish-speaking people in Qom, especially in the large area of the Qom Power Plant, where they reside and which had been predictable since before; even the late Khalil Khalkhali received his major votes from this region."
Thus, if the Turkish-speaking representatives can form a faction independent of their political affiliations, it would likely be one of the largest factions in parliament, as a faction with 70 members would surpass some minority factions in past parliaments.
Nader Qazipur, however, announced on his Telegram channel that this faction would consist of 100 Turkish-speaking representatives. If this claim is true, it would match the vote of Mohammad Reza Aref, the head of the "Hope" faction, in the parliament presidency election.
In the picture he posted, Masoud Pezeshkian, the first deputy speaker, and Azar Akbari, the head of the Industry Committee, are among the first volunteers to join this faction.
Before Qazipur took the initiative to form this faction, the Qashqai Online website had reported in June that the Turkish-speaking faction of the 10th parliament was formed at the invitation of Salman Khodadadi.
The Challenges of Forming a Faction
Forming the Turkish Regions Faction for the representatives pursuing it is not without its challenges, as institutions like the Supreme National Security Council and the Ministry of Intelligence are among the main opponents of its formation. One of their concerns is that Kurdish and Arab-speaking representatives may also want to form their own factions.
From the perspective of security institutions, forming such factions could exacerbate ethnic conflicts in parliament and subsequently in certain provinces, especially given the history of these conflicts in the parliament.
For example, in 2008, when Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, the head of Iran's Cultural Heritage and Tourism Organization under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, referred to West Azerbaijan province as one of the Kurdish lands of Iran in a speech in Sanandaj, Nader Qazipur and Salman Zaker, representatives of Urmia, strongly protested. This led to objections from representatives of Kurdish-majority cities in West Azerbaijan, and eventually, the disagreement escalated into a physical altercation between the two sides in the parliament.
Supporters of the Turkish Regions Faction argue that currently, the representatives of Turkish-speaking provinces are already undertaking activities similar to the proposed faction. They also assure security institutions that the formation of this faction will weaken separatist tendencies.
The specific functions and expectations of the faction remain a topic for discussion. Some of the potential demands of the faction members, like the teaching of the Turkish language in schools and universities, are already part of President Hassan Rouhani's government agenda, but it is unlikely that the faction will be able to propose demands beyond this scope, as parliamentary representatives often begin considering their re-election soon after taking office.
Although there is no serious legal obstacle to forming the Turkish Regions Faction, external warnings sometimes dissuade representatives from certain actions.