UPDATE ON A TURKISH PROFESSOR'S PLANS TO OBSERVE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 000096 SIPDIS SIPDIS LONDON FOR GAYLE; BERLIN FOR PAETZOLD; BAKU FOR HAUGEN; DUBAI FOR IRPO E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/22/2018 TAGS: PREL PGOV KDEM TU IR SUBJECT: UPDATE ON A TURKISH PROFESSOR'S PLANS TO OBSERVE IRAN,S MAJLES ELECTIONS REF: (A) 2007 ISTANBUL 694 (B) ISTANBUL 37 (CB) STATE 13345 Classified By: Consul General Sharon Wiener; Reason 1.4 (D) ¶1. (C/NOFORN) Summary: A Turkish professor plans to return to Iran on March 12 with five other election experts to quietly observe the March 14 Majles elections. He will portray the visit as a follow-up to past academic exchanges with Iranian counterparts, but once there he plans to divide his group and observe polling stations in Tehran, Esfahan, Tabriz, and possibly Qom. He predicts voter turnout at around 40%, bemoaned Iran's lack of a standard election law, and noted a nascent effort by pro-Rafsanjani politicians to create a new "third way" party, with Turkey's ruling "Justice and Development" party (AKP) as one model. Comment: The professor has low hopes for a procedurally sound election and no hopes for a "free and fair" election, but is hopeful about the growing interest in Turkish/European election standards evinced by many Iranian academic contacts, including some close to Rafsanjani. End Summary. ¶2. (C/NOFORN) Consulate Istanbul pol/econ "Iran Watcher" met February 22 with Isik University professor Bulent Aras (please strictly protect) to follow-up on ref B discussion about Aras's effort to organize a small non-Iranian mission to observe Iran's March 14 Majles elections. Aras had gone back to Iran in January accompanied by Turkish academic colleagues and by a Danish election expert. They had meetings with the Center for Strategic Research (CSR, a think tank that reports to the Iranian government's Expediency Council and its Chairman, former President Rafsanjani),as well as with officials from the Interior Ministry, the Ministry for Islamic Culture and Guidance, several MPs, and the "Iranian House of Parties", a loose but officially sanctioned grouping of Iranian political parties that acts as a procedural advocate for parties' interests, and which is helping parties assert their right to place party-based election observers inside polling stations. ¶3. (C/NOFORN) Aras had organized that visit as an academic exchange on election standards and procedures universally, not specific to Iran. The Danish expert, for example, gave a presentation at the CSR about "European electoral standards" and specific criteria used by the Council of Europe (COE) to determine if elections meet those standards. Aras said many Iranian interlocutors agreed during that talk that Europe has the highest standards in the world for ensuring free and fair democratic elections; and also they continued to express interest in the Turkish election model based on Turkey,s 2007 elections (which, as reported in Ref A, were extremely well-managed and gave significant opportunities for opposition party and civil society involvement.) ¶4. (C/NOFORN) Aras and his team also concluded that Iran's lack of a single, national, standardized election law, Iran's corresponding reliance on "ad hoc" procedures that varied from province to province and even from polling station to polling station, and the Majles's own proclivity to pass piecemeal legislation addressing only specific election concerns (e.g., prohibiting posters depicting candidates' faces),will likely result in an election that is not "technically or procedurally sound." The question of whether it will be free and fair, he added, was already answered: the disqualification of a majority of reformist candidates precluded that. ¶5. (C/NOFORN) When the issue of international election observation was broached, both at the CSR and with the Iranian House of Parties, Aras said those Iranian interlocutors did not object to the idea of foreign observation of Iranian elections in principle, but questioned procedurally whether such observers could obtain visas. Officials at the Ministry of Islamic Guidance told Aras there was not enough time to give visas to foreigners for election observation, but did not rule out granting visas to foreign election experts for future academic exchanges about election standards. ¶6. (C/NOFORN) Undaunted, Aras plans to return to Iran on/around March 12, accompanied by five fellow academic experts -- either five other Turks, or perhaps including a Macedonian and/or Slovenian expert (as they are reportedly allowed to travel to Iran without visas). He will portray that visit as yet another academic exchange, but on arrival he plans to divide them into three groups of two experts each and send them to Tehran/Qom, Esfahan, and Tabriz to visit polling stations on March 14. He hopes contacts at Iran,s House of Parties will facilitate that travel. He plans to ISTANBUL 00000096 002 OF 002 return to Istanbul on March 16 and offered to give us a readout of his observations. ¶7. (C/NOFORN) Asked to predict what will happen on election-day, Aras anticipated a voter turnout of around 40%, noting that the conservative parties have a much more effective "get out the vote" capability than reformists -- all they have to do is mobilize the "basiji" militias -- and many reform-oriented voters have already "tuned out" of this election campaign. As a result, Aras saw signs of high confidence among conservative parties and candidates, including candidates with whom he met in January, while many reformists he met with readily admit they will fare very poorly. ¶8. (C/NOFORN) One development Aras is following closely is the creation of a new party by some pro-Rafsanjani candidates (including several who served as Ministers under Rafsanjani) called the "Party of Development and Moderation" (Hezb-e Tose,e va E,tedaal). The party's Secretary General told Aras that the party seeks to offer Iranian voters a "third way" between the current conservative and reformist coalitions. The party plans to campaign on a platform of economic reform, focusing on the need to reform Iran,s hydrocarbon industry and better use Iran's hydrocarbon resources -- "Iran,s most important natural resource" -- to benefit citizens on both a local and national level. Aras's interlocutor said he wanted to learn more about Turkey's ruling "Justice and Development" Party (AKP),expressing an interest in how an Islamic-oriented party can steward such a fast-growing, globalizing economy. Aras told us that representatives from this party had reached out to the AKP, directly and through Iran,s House of Parties, but that the AKP prefers to keep a distance from Iranian politics, for fear of a secularist backlash in Turkey. ¶9. (C/NOFORN) Comment: Although Aras, as noted, has low hopes for a procedurally sound election and no hopes for a "free and fair" election, he is notably optimistic about the growing interest in Turkish/European election standards (and in the AKP) evinced by many Iranian academic contacts, including some close to Rafsanjani. Aras plans to focus future, post-Majles election exchanges with Iranian counterparts more on that topic. Aras welcomes contact with us, but -- as he requested in our previous meeting (Ref B) -- he asked again that the USG respect his desire to keep his efforts untainted by the perception of any association with the USG, EU, GOT, or any other governments. End comment. WIENER