IRAN: PARLIAMENT OPENS AND THE CLERICS DOMINATE IT

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81B00401R000500110025-1
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: C
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 6, 2002
• Sequence Number: 25
• Publication Date: July 23, 1980
• Content Type: SUMMARY

Approved For Release 2002/07/03 : CIA-RDP81B00401 R000500110025-1 IVIP4
CONFIDENTIAL
State BUREAU OF INTELLIGENCE AND RESEARCH - ANALYSIS: July 23, 1980
1. IRAN: PARLIAMENT OPENS AND THE CLERICS DOMINATE IT
The Majlis (parliament) has been formally established with a
strong show of force by its clerical faction. At the same time,
Khomeini has urged an even tougher approach in enforcing Islamic
precepts throughout-the government. Those developments make the
appointment of a Prime Minister acceptable to the hard-line clerics
inevitable, and a confrontation between them and President Bani-Sadr
over that appointment likely.
Khomeini, in a speech on July 20, said that "the Majlis must
be 100 percent religious" and that the ministers must be "100 per-
cent. revolutionary and ideologically motivated." The first test of
these orders will come following Bani-Sadr's nomination of the
Prime Minister, which is due within the next few days. Competition
for appointment as Prime Minister has centered on minister of Trans-
portation Kalantari (the IRP candidate) and Minister of Culture and
Higher Education Habibi (Bani-Sadr's candidate). More recently,
Minister of Education Rajai has been rumored as a compromise candidate.
The Majlis has 270 seats, but because of incomplete elections
and unaccepted credentials, only some 200-230 of those seats have
been filled. Within that total, the strength of the clerics is so
overwhelming that they will, as long as they remain united and
Khomeini agrees, be able to determine what parliament considers and
what it decides. The membership figures for the major factions
testify to the dominance of the clerics:
--The Islamic Republican Party (IRP) and its allies: Its earlier
c aims a been for about 130 seats, but its candidate for
Speaker, Ayatollah Rafsanjani, who was elected, got 146 votes.
(Rafsanjani is a senior IRP member who has shown a firm hand
as the acting Minister of Interior; he and Bani-Sadr have de-
veloped a sharp rivalry.) One of the key questions for the
future, however, is just how united this large bloc will re-
main. Ayatollah Beheshti said that he cannot even now be sure
of the support of all IRP members.
--Bani-Sadr's followers: We have no figures for this faction,
but one of Bani-Sa r s closest associates received 20 votes
in the Speaker's race.
--Followers of former Prime Minister Bazar an: Eleven members
listtheir association with t is group, and Bazargan received
12 votes for Speaker.
--The left: One member claims to represent the Mujaheddin, but,
more s gnificantly, the 20 members who joined in objecting to
recent attacks against a Mujaheddin rally must have leftist
leanings. A known leftist member received 15 votes in the
race for Speaker.
State Department review completed
Approved For Release4?DIMPMT&WRDP81 B00401 R000500110025-1