Iranian Principlists

Principlists
Principlists
Parliamentary leader	Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf
Ideology	Conservatism; Islamism[1]; Political Islam[2]; Theocracy[3]; Vilayat Faqih ; Factions:; Populism[4]; Traditionalism[4][5]; Pragmatism[4]; Fundamentalism[6]
Political position	Right-wing to far-right
Religion	Shia Islam
Executive branch
President	No
Ministers	2 / 18 (11%)
Vice Presidents	0 / 12 (0%)
Parliament
Speaker	Yes
Seats	230 / 276 (83%)
Judicial branch
Chief Justice	Yes
Status	Dominant[7]
Oversight bodies
Assembly of Experts	66 / 88 (75%)
Guardian Council	Dominant[7]
Expediency Council	Dominant[8]
City Councils
Tehran	0 / 21 (0%)
Mashhad	0 / 15 (0%)
Isfahan	0 / 13 (0%)
Karaj	0 / 13 (0%)
Qom	12 / 13 (92%)
Shiraz	1 / 13 (8%)
Tabriz	3 / 13 (23%)
Yazd	2 / 11 (18%)
Zahedan	0 / 11 (0%)
Rasht	1 / 9 (11%)
	Politics of Iran; Political parties; Elections;

The Principlists (Persian: اصول‌گرایان‎, romanized: Osul-Garāyān, lit. 'followers of principles[9] or fundamentalists[1][10]'), also interchangeably known as the Iranian Conservatives[11][12] and formerly referred to as the Right or Right-wing,[12][13][14] are one of two main political camps inside post-revolutionary Iran, the other being Reformists. The term hardliners that some western sources use in the Iranian political context usually refers to the faction,[15] although it also includes more centrist tendencies.[16]

The camp rejects the status quo internationally,[5] but tends to preserve it domestically.[17]

Within Iranian politics, a principlist refers to the conservative supporters of the Supreme Leader of Iran and advocates for protecting the ideological 'principles' of the Islamic Revolution’s early days.[18] According to Hossein Mousavian, "The Principlists constitute the main right-wing/conservative political movement in Iran. They are more religiously oriented and more closely affiliated with the Qom-based clerical establishment than their moderate and reformist rivals".[19]

A declaration issued by The Two Societies, which serves as the Principlists "manifesto", focuses on loyalty to Islam and the Iranian Revolution, obedience to the Supreme Leader of Iran, and devotion to the principle of Vilayat Faqih.[20]

According to a poll conducted by the Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) in April 2017, 15% of Iranians identify as leaning Principlist. In comparison, 28% identify as leaning Reformist.[21]

The Principlists currently dominate the Assembly of Experts as well as non-elective institutions such as the Guardian Council and the Judiciary.[20]

Factions

Ultra conservatives—also known as neoconservatives—consists of laymen representing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) collectively.[22] These conservatives support the Islamist government and are more aggressive and openly confrontational toward the West.[22]
Traditional conservatives are a political faction that helped form the Revolutionary government and can point to personal ties with Ruhollah Khomeini.[22] These conservatives support the Islamist government and advocate for clerical rule.[23]

Election results

Presidential elections

Year	Candidate(s)	Votes	%	Rank
1997	Ali Akbar Nategh-Nouri	7,248,317	24.87	2nd
2001	Ahmad Tavakkoli	4,387,112	15.58	2nd
2005/1	Mahmoud Ahmadinejad	5,711,696	19.43	2nd
	Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf	4,095,827	13.93	4th
	Ali Larijani	1,713,810	5.83	5th
Total		11,521,333	39.19	Runoff
2005/2	Mahmoud Ahmadinejad	17,284,782	61.69	1st
2009	Mahmoud Ahmadinejad	24,527,516	62.63	1st
2009	Mohsen Rezaee	678,240	1.73	3rd
Total		25,205,756	64.36	Won
2013	Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf	6,077,292	16.56	2nd
	Saeed Jalili	4,168,946	11.36	3rd
	Mohsen Rezaee	3,884,412	10.58	4th
	Ali Akbar Velayati	2,268,753	6.18	6th
Total		16,399,403	44.68	Lost
2017	Ebrahim Raisi	15,835,794	38.28	2nd
2017	Mostafa Mir-Salim	478,267	1.16	3rd
Total		16,314,061	39.44	Lost

Parties and organizations


Society of Pathseekers of the Islamic Revolution Association of Islamic Revolution Loyalists Fadayeen of Islam Society Ansar-e Hezbollah Front of Islamic Revolution Stability Resistance Front of Islamic Iran Progress and Justice Population of Islamic Iran Modern Thinkers Party of Islamic Iran YEKTA Front Green Party	Combatant Clergy Association Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom Islamic Coalition Party Islamic Society of Engineers Islamic Association of Physicians of Iran Islamic Society of Students Islamic Society of Employees Islamic Society of Athletes Zeynab Society Society of Devotees of the Islamic Revolution Development and Justice Party

Alliances

The Two Societies (Unofficial)
Front of Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Leader (founded in the 1990s)
Coordination Council of Islamic Revolution Forces (founded 2000)
Front of Transformationalist Principlists (founded 2005)
Resistance Front of Islamic Iran (founded 2011)
Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces (founded 2016)

Electoral

Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran (2003, 2004)
Coalition of Iran's Independent Volunteers (2004)
Coalition of the Pleasant Scent of Servitude (2006)
Principlists Pervasive Coalition (2008)
United Front of Principlists (2008, 2012)
Insight and Islamic Awakening Front (2012)
Principlists Grand Coalition (2016)
Service list (2017)

Media

References

Mehdi Mozaffari (2007), "What is Islamism? History and Definition of a Concept" (PDF), Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 8 (1): 17–33, doi:10.1080/14690760601121622, In fact, Iranian ‘Islamists’ of our day call themselves ‘Usul gara’, which literally means ‘fundamentalist’, but in a positive sense. It designates a ‘person of principles’ who is the ‘true Muslim’.
Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi (2013), "Women's Rights, Shari'a Law, and the Secularization of Islam in Iran", International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, New York, 26 (3): 237–253, doi:10.1007/s10767-013-9143-x, “Principlism” or osul-gera’i first appeared in the Iranian political lexicon during the second-term presidency of Mohammad Khatami as an alternative to eslāh-talabi or reformism. Although principlists do not share a uniform political platform, they all believed that the reformist movement would lead the Republic towards secularism. One of the most common elements of their political philosophy is the comprehensiveness of the shari‘a. The responsibility of the Islamic state is to determine ways of implementing the mandates of Islam, rather than the reformist project of reinterpreting the shari‘a to correspond to the demands of contemporary society.
Mohseni, Payam (2016). "Factionalism, Privatization, and the Political economy of regime transformation". In Brumberg, Daniel; Farhi, Farideh (eds.). Power and Change in Iran: Politics of Contention and Conciliation. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies. Indiana University Press. p. 47. ISBN 978-0253020680.
Melody Mohebi (2014), The Formation of Civil Society in Modern Iran: Public Intellectuals and the State, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 129–131, ISBN 978-1-137-40110-6
Robert J. Reardon (2012), Containing Iran: Strategies for Addressing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge, RAND Corporation, pp. 81–82, ISBN 978-0833076373
Mehdi Moslem (2002), Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran, Syracuse University Press, p. 135, ISBN 9780815629788
"Freedom in the World: Iran", Freedom House, 2017, retrieved 25 May 2017
"Iran conservatives tighten grip on top oversight body", Agence France-Presse, Yahoo, 14 August 2017, retrieved 14 August 2017
Axworthy, Michael (2016), Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic, Oxford University Press, p. 430, ISBN 9780190468965
Kevan Harris (2017). A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran. Univ of California Press. p. 157. ISBN 9780520280816. This discourse was eventually tagged with the Persian neologism osulgarāi, a word that can be translated into English as “fundamentalist,” since "osul" means “doctrine,” “root,” or “tenet.” According to several Iranian journalists, state-funded media were aware of the negative connotation of this particular word in Western countries. Preferring not to be lumped in with Sunni Salafism, the English-language media in Iran opted to use the term “principlist,” which cought on more generally.
Said Amir Arjomand; Nathan J. Brown (2013). The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran. SUNY Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-1-4384-4597-7. “Conservative” is no longer a preferred term in Iranian political discourse. Usulgara', which can be clumsily translated as “principlist” is the term now used to refer to an array of forces that previously identified themselves as conservative, fundamentalist, neo-fundamentalist, or traditionalist. It developed to counter the term eslahgara, or reformist, and is applied to a camp of not necessarily congrous groups and individuals.
Randjbar-Daemi, Siavush (2012). "Glossary of the most commonly-used Persian terms and abbreviations". Intra-State Relations in the Islamic Republic of Iran: The Presidency and the Struggle for Political Authority, 1989-2009 (Ph.D. thesis). Martin, Vanessa (Supervisor). Royal Holloway, University of London. p. 11. Open access material licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Haddad Adel, Gholamali; Elmi, Mohammad Jafar; Taromi-Rad, Hassan (2012-08-31). "Jāme'e-ye Rowhāniyyat-e Mobārez". Political Parties: Selected Entries from Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam. EWI Press. p. 108. ISBN 9781908433022.
Robin B. Wright, ed. (2010), The Iran Primer: Power, Politics, and U.S. Policy, US Institute of Peace Press, p. 37, ISBN 978-1601270849
Masoud Kazemzadeh (2008), "Intra-Elite Factionalism and the 2004 Majles Elections in Iran", Middle Eastern Studies, 44 (2): 189–214, doi:10.1080/00263200701874867, In Western sources, the term ‘hard-liners’ is used to refer to the faction under the leadership of Supreme Leader Ali Khamanehi. Members of this group prefer to call themselves ‘Osul-gara’. The word ‘osul’ (plural of asl) means ‘fundamentals’, or ‘principles’ or ‘tenets’, and the verbal suffix ‘-gara’ means ‘those who uphold or promote’. The more radical elements in the hard-line camp prefer to call themselves ‘Ommat Hezbollah’. ‘Ommat’ is a technical Arabic-Islamic term referring to people who are Muslim. ‘Hezbollah’ literally means ‘Party of Allah’. Before the rise of Ahmadinejad to the presidency in 2005, many official sources in the Islamic Republic referred to this group as ‘mohafezeh-kar’ (‘conservative’). Between 1997 and 2006, many Iranians inside Iran used the terms ‘eqtedar-gara’ (authoritarian) and ‘tamamiyat-khah’ (totalitarian) for what many Western observers have termed ‘hard-liners’. Members of the reformist faction of the fundamentalist oligarchy called the hard-liners ‘eqtedar-gara’.
Banafsheh Keynoush (2012), "Iran after Ahmadinejad", Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, New York, 54 (3): 127–146, doi:10.1080/00396338.2012.690988, What is important, however, is that the principlist camp now increasingly represents not just hardliners but also more centre-right factions.
Etel Solingen, ed. (2012), Sanctions, Statecraft, and Nuclear Proliferation, Cambridge University Press, p. 222, ISBN 9781107010444
Ladane Nasseri; Kambiz Foroohar; Yeganeh Salehi (June 16, 2013). "Iranians Celebrate Surprise Rohani Win as Reason for Hope". Bloomberg. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian (2012), The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir, Brookings Institution Press, p. 486, ISBN 9780870033025
SHAUL, BAKHASH (12 September 2011). "Iran's Conservatives: The Headstrong New Bloc". Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Tehran Bureau. Retrieved March 10, 2015.
"Poll Results of Popular Leaning Towards Principlists and Reformists", Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) (in Persian), 28 April 2017, retrieved 1 June 2017 – via Khabaronline
Sherrill, Clifton (2011). "After Khamenei: Who Will Succeed Iran's Supreme Leader?". Orbis. 55 (4): 631–47. doi:10.1016/j.orbis.2011.07.002.
Thaler; et al. (2010). Mullahs, Guards, and Bonyads: An Exploration of Iranian Leadership Dynamics. Sacramento, CA: RAND Corporation. ISBN 978-0-8330-4773-1.

External links

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[Islamism-1] Mehdi Mozaffari (2007), "What is Islamism? History and Definition of a Concept" (PDF), Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 8 (1): 17–33, doi:10.1080/14690760601121622, In fact, Iranian ‘Islamists’ of our day call themselves ‘Usul gara’, which literally means ‘fundamentalist’, but in a positive sense. It designates a ‘person of principles’ who is the ‘true Muslim’.

[2] Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi (2013), "Women's Rights, Shari'a Law, and the Secularization of Islam in Iran", International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, New York, 26 (3): 237–253, doi:10.1007/s10767-013-9143-x, “Principlism” or osul-gera’i first appeared in the Iranian political lexicon during the second-term presidency of Mohammad Khatami as an alternative to eslāh-talabi or reformism. Although principlists do not share a uniform political platform, they all believed that the reformist movement would lead the Republic towards secularism. One of the most common elements of their political philosophy is the comprehensiveness of the shari‘a. The responsibility of the Islamic state is to determine ways of implementing the mandates of Islam, rather than the reformist project of reinterpreting the shari‘a to correspond to the demands of contemporary society.

[3] Mohseni, Payam (2016). "Factionalism, Privatization, and the Political economy of regime transformation". In Brumberg, Daniel; Farhi, Farideh (eds.). Power and Change in Iran: Politics of Contention and Conciliation. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies. Indiana University Press. p. 47. ISBN 978-0253020680.

[mm-4] Melody Mohebi (2014), The Formation of Civil Society in Modern Iran: Public Intellectuals and the State, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 129–131, ISBN 978-1-137-40110-6

[CI-5] Robert J. Reardon (2012), Containing Iran: Strategies for Addressing the Iranian Nuclear Challenge, RAND Corporation, pp. 81–82, ISBN 978-0833076373

[6] Mehdi Moslem (2002), Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran, Syracuse University Press, p. 135, ISBN 9780815629788

[FH-7] "Freedom in the World: Iran", Freedom House, 2017, retrieved 25 May 2017

[8] "Iran conservatives tighten grip on top oversight body", Agence France-Presse, Yahoo, 14 August 2017, retrieved 14 August 2017

[9] Axworthy, Michael (2016), Revolutionary Iran: A History of the Islamic Republic, Oxford University Press, p. 430, ISBN 9780190468965

[Harris-10] Kevan Harris (2017). A Social Revolution: Politics and the Welfare State in Iran. Univ of California Press. p. 157. ISBN 9780520280816. This discourse was eventually tagged with the Persian neologism osulgarāi, a word that can be translated into English as “fundamentalist,” since "osul" means “doctrine,” “root,” or “tenet.” According to several Iranian journalists, state-funded media were aware of the negative connotation of this particular word in Western countries. Preferring not to be lumped in with Sunni Salafism, the English-language media in Iran opted to use the term “principlist,” which cought on more generally.

[11] Said Amir Arjomand; Nathan J. Brown (2013). The Rule of Law, Islam, and Constitutional Politics in Egypt and Iran. SUNY Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-1-4384-4597-7. “Conservative” is no longer a preferred term in Iranian political discourse. Usulgara', which can be clumsily translated as “principlist” is the term now used to refer to an array of forces that previously identified themselves as conservative, fundamentalist, neo-fundamentalist, or traditionalist. It developed to counter the term eslahgara, or reformist, and is applied to a camp of not necessarily congrous groups and individuals.

[SRD-12] Randjbar-Daemi, Siavush (2012). "Glossary of the most commonly-used Persian terms and abbreviations". Intra-State Relations in the Islamic Republic of Iran: The Presidency and the Struggle for Political Authority, 1989-2009 (Ph.D. thesis). Martin, Vanessa (Supervisor). Royal Holloway, University of London. p. 11. Open access material licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

[13] Haddad Adel, Gholamali; Elmi, Mohammad Jafar; Taromi-Rad, Hassan (2012-08-31). "Jāme'e-ye Rowhāniyyat-e Mobārez". Political Parties: Selected Entries from Encyclopaedia of the World of Islam. EWI Press. p. 108. ISBN 9781908433022.

[14] Robin B. Wright, ed. (2010), The Iran Primer: Power, Politics, and U.S. Policy, US Institute of Peace Press, p. 37, ISBN 978-1601270849

[15] Masoud Kazemzadeh (2008), "Intra-Elite Factionalism and the 2004 Majles Elections in Iran", Middle Eastern Studies, 44 (2): 189–214, doi:10.1080/00263200701874867, In Western sources, the term ‘hard-liners’ is used to refer to the faction under the leadership of Supreme Leader Ali Khamanehi. Members of this group prefer to call themselves ‘Osul-gara’. The word ‘osul’ (plural of asl) means ‘fundamentals’, or ‘principles’ or ‘tenets’, and the verbal suffix ‘-gara’ means ‘those who uphold or promote’. The more radical elements in the hard-line camp prefer to call themselves ‘Ommat Hezbollah’. ‘Ommat’ is a technical Arabic-Islamic term referring to people who are Muslim. ‘Hezbollah’ literally means ‘Party of Allah’. Before the rise of Ahmadinejad to the presidency in 2005, many official sources in the Islamic Republic referred to this group as ‘mohafezeh-kar’ (‘conservative’). Between 1997 and 2006, many Iranians inside Iran used the terms ‘eqtedar-gara’ (authoritarian) and ‘tamamiyat-khah’ (totalitarian) for what many Western observers have termed ‘hard-liners’. Members of the reformist faction of the fundamentalist oligarchy called the hard-liners ‘eqtedar-gara’.

[16] Banafsheh Keynoush (2012), "Iran after Ahmadinejad", Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, New York, 54 (3): 127–146, doi:10.1080/00396338.2012.690988, What is important, however, is that the principlist camp now increasingly represents not just hardliners but also more centre-right factions.

[17] Etel Solingen, ed. (2012), Sanctions, Statecraft, and Nuclear Proliferation, Cambridge University Press, p. 222, ISBN 9781107010444

[Bloomberg-18] Ladane Nasseri; Kambiz Foroohar; Yeganeh Salehi (June 16, 2013). "Iranians Celebrate Surprise Rohani Win as Reason for Hope". Bloomberg. Retrieved March 10, 2015.

[19] Seyed Hossein Mousavian (2012), The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir, Brookings Institution Press, p. 486, ISBN 9780870033025

[Tehran_Bureau-20] SHAUL, BAKHASH (12 September 2011). "Iran's Conservatives: The Headstrong New Bloc". Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Tehran Bureau. Retrieved March 10, 2015.

[21] "Poll Results of Popular Leaning Towards Principlists and Reformists", Iranian Students Polling Agency (ISPA) (in Persian), 28 April 2017, retrieved 1 June 2017 – via Khabaronline

[sherill-orbis-22] Sherrill, Clifton (2011). "After Khamenei: Who Will Succeed Iran's Supreme Leader?". Orbis. 55 (4): 631–47. doi:10.1016/j.orbis.2011.07.002.

[23] Thaler; et al. (2010). Mullahs, Guards, and Bonyads: An Exploration of Iranian Leadership Dynamics. Sacramento, CA: RAND Corporation. ISBN 978-0-8330-4773-1.

Political organizations in Iran
Politics of Iran House of Parties of Iran
Principlists	The Two Societies Combatant Clergy Association Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom Front of Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Leader Islamic Coalition Party Islamic Society of Engineers Islamic Association of Physicians of Iran Islamic Society of Students Islamic Society of Employees Islamic Society of Athletes Zeynab Society Front of Transformationalist Principlists Society of Devotees of the Islamic Revolution Society of Pathseekers of the Islamic Revolution Association of Islamic Revolution Loyalists Summit of Freethinkers Party Fadayeen of Islam Society Ansar-e Hezbollah Front of Islamic Revolution Stability Resistance Front of Islamic Iran Development and Justice Party Green Party Progress and Justice Population of Islamic Iran Modern Thinkers Party of Islamic Iran YEKTA Front
Reformists	Council for Coordinating the Reforms Front Association of Combatant Clerics Executives of Construction Party Assembly of Qom Seminary Scholars and Researchers Islamic Association of Teachers Islamic Association of Engineers Islamic Association of Iranian Medical Society Islamic Association of University Instructors Association of Followers of the Imam's Line Islamic Iran Solidarity Party Democracy Party Will of the Iranian Nation Party Association of the Women of the Islamic Republic Islamic Assembly of Ladies Office for Strengthening Unity Islamic Labour Party Worker House Islamic Iran Freedom and Justice Organization Popular Party of Reforms Iranian Call and Reform Organization Kurdish United Front Moderation and Development Party National Trust Party The Green Path of Hope NEDA Party Union of Islamic Iran People Party
Anti-establishment	National Front Iran Party Party of the Iranian People Freedom Movement Movement of Militant Muslims Council of Nationalist-Religious Activists Pan-Iranist Party Nation Party
Electoral lists Banned/Exiled parties Historic parties