For four decades, the rule of Iran’s Islamic Republic has rested on the pillars of redistributive social justice, foreign policy independence, Islam and a managed form of electoral legitimacy.  These pillars, each of equal importance, have served as guiding principles bolstering Iran’s domestic and foreign policy decisions.  Amid the latest round of protests to have gripped Iran, it is clear that these pillars are fracturing. 

On 15 November at midnight, the Iranian government, in a move supported by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Hassan Rouhani, Speaker of the Parliament Ali Larijani and Head of the Judiciary Ebrahim Raisi, announced a 200 per cent increase in fuel prices – a redistributive measure designed to provide cash transfers to the population.

In immediate reaction, Iranian citizens took to the streets to express their discontent with this policy move alongside mounting economic and political grievances.

What ensued over the subsequent days was an outbreak of protests through 100 Iranian cities, including at universities and bazaars, that was followed by a weeklong internet blackout and a brutal crackdown that has left at least 200 people dead and 7,000 arrested. Initially, public anger focused on the price increases but quickly targeted the political leadership, lack of government accountability, effective governance and corruption.

This wave of protests is the fourth in a two-decade period – 1999, 2009, 2017 and 2019 – for the Islamic Republic and comes at time when the Iranian government is under severe economic strain from Washington’s maximum pressure campaign. It is equally burdened by endemic factional politicking.

These protests are one of many reminders of the shattered social contract between state and society in Iran, which without repair will continue to resurface.

With internet connectivity resumed and news of the regime’s brutality spreading, conservatives and reformists are both trying to distance themselves from this internal crisis and reposition themselves in advance of the 2020 parliamentary elections.

Parliamentary elections for Iran’s 290-person legislature are expected to be held on 21 February. Amid concerns over public apathy and lower political participation, both reformists and conservatives are trying to develop strategies to maximize gains at their ballot box.

Even before these protests, voter turnout was anticipated to be lower than normal. Participation in the July 2019 Tehran municipality election was at a nadir of 9 per cent.  To prepare for this challenge, Iran’s parliament has lowered the vote threshold for a valid result from 25 to 20 per cent.

Elections in Iran, while by no means completely free and fair due to the vetting of candidates by the Guardian Council, have repeatedly been an important barometer of public support and participation. Electoral participation, which is traditionally higher than in most Western democracies, and compared to the lack of electoral opportunities in the Middle East, is heralded as a sign of public legitimacy. 

Voter participation is generally higher in presidential elections than in legislative ones.

For example, 73% voted in the 2017 presidential elections, 72% in 2013, 80% in the contested 2009 elections, and 59% in 2005 elections that brought Mahmood Ahmadinejad to office. Comparatively, in the 2016 parliamentary elections 62% voted, in 2012, 66%, in 2008, 47%, and in 2004, 51% participated.

Voter turnout in the 2008 parliamentary elections, reflective of public apathy, mounting international tensions over the nuclear programme, and Guardian Council vetting of reformist candidates, could be emblematic of what to expect next year. 

In the run up to the election, conservative groups are trying to capitalize on popular economic frustrations, disappointment with reformists, wider regional security concerns and tensions with the United States to rally voters. 

Reformists associated with the Rouhani government, who also supported the Iran nuclear agreement, have been severely weakened by the US maximum pressure campaign and the return of US sanctions.  They are also blamed for the current economic downturn and remain frustrated by their ability to affect change in a political system that affords more power to unelected figures.

Amidst this stalemate, Rouhani has continued to call for a national referendum to no avail, while reformist groups are debating how to position themselves – some even calling for greater accountability – so as not be tainted by the government crackdown. Leading reformist politicians such as Mohammad Khatami have called on reformists to stay united and avoid boycotting the elections. It remains to be seen how their strategy will develop after the protests.

Should the Guardian Council bar too many reformists from running, calls for a boycott could snowball and even incite new protests. Together with low turnout at the ballot box, the outcome of this election could further damage the regime’s already fragile electoral pillar and weaken its claims to legitimacy.

Historically, Iraq lay claim to one of the most abundant water supplies in the Middle East. But the flow of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers has reduced by up to 40% since the 1970s, due in part to the actions of neighbouring countries, in particular Turkey, upstream.

Rising temperatures and reduced rainfall due to climate change are also negatively impacting Iraq’s water reserves. Evaporation from dams and reservoirs is estimated to lose the country up to 8 billion cubic metres of water every year.

A threat to peace and stability

Shortages have dried up previously fertile land, increasing poverty in agricultural areas. Shortages have also served to fuel conflict: communities faced with successive droughts and government inertia proved to be easy targets for ISIS recruiters, who lured farmers into joining them by offering money and food to feed their families. Economic hardship for those whose livelihoods relied upon river water has also driven rural to urban migration, putting significant strain on already over-populated towns and cities, exacerbating housing, job and electricity shortages, and widening the gap between haves and have-nots.

But scarcity isn’t the most crucial element of Iraq’s water crisis – contamination is. Decades of local government mismanagement, corrupt practices and a lack of regulation of dumping (it is estimated up to 70% of Iraq’s industrial waste is dumped directly into water) has left approximately three in every five citizens without a reliable source of potable water.

In 2018, 118,000 residents of Basra province were hospitalised with symptoms brought on by drinking contaminated water, which not only put a spotlight on the inadequacies of a crumbling healthcare system but sparked mass protests and a subsequent violent crackdown.

The water crisis is also undermining the stability of the country’s federal governance model, by occasionally sparking disputes between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government, as well as between governorates in the south.

The crisis is both a symptom and a cause of poor governance. Iraq is stuck in a cycle whereby government inaction causes shortages and contamination, which result in economic losses, reduced food supply, increased prices and widespread poor health. This in turn leads to increasing levels of poverty, higher demand on services and civil unrest, increasing the pressure on a weak, dysfunctional system of government.

What can be done?

The first priority should be modernising existing water-management infrastructure - a relic of a time when the problem was an excess rather than a shortage of water (the last time Iraq’s flood defences were required was 1968). Bureaucratic hurdles, widespread corruption and an endless cycle of other crises taking precedent prevent good initiatives from being implemented or scaled up.

Diversifying energy sources to improve provision is crucial. Baghdad has a sewage treatment plant that originally ran on its own electricity source, but this capacity was destroyed in 1991 and was never replaced. The city continues to suffer from dangerous levels of water pollution because the electricity supply from the grid is insufficient to power the plant. Solar energy has great potential in sun-drenched Iraq to bridge the gaping hole in energy provision, but successive governments have chosen to focus on fossil fuels rather than promoting investment to grow the renewables sector.

Heightened tension with upstream Turkey could turn water into another cause of regional conflict. But, if approached differently, collaboration between Iraq and its neighbour could foster regional harmony.

Turkey’s elevated geography and cooler climate mean its water reserves suffer 75% less evaporation than Iraq’s. Given that Turkey’s top energy priority is the diversification of its supply of imported hydrocarbons, a win-win deal could see Turkey exchange access to its water-management infrastructure for delivery of reduced cost energy supplies from Iraq.

German-French cooperation on coal and steel in the 1950s and the evolution of economic integration that followed might provide a model for how bilateral cooperation over one issue could result in cooperation with other regional players (in this case Iran and Syria) on a range of other issues. This kind of model would need to consider the future of energy, whereby oil and gas would be replaced by solar-power exports.

These solutions have been open to policymakers for years and yet they have taken little tangible action. While there are leaders and bureaucrats with the will to act, effective action is invariably blocked by a complex and opaque political system replete with vested interests in maintaining power and wealth via a weak state and limited services from central government.

Breaking the cycle

To break this cycle, Iraq needs a group of professional and able actors outside of government to work with willing elements of the state bureaucracy as a taskforce to pressure for action and accountability. Publishing the recommendations from a hitherto withheld report produced in the aftermath of Basra’s 2018 heath crisis would be a great start.

In time, this taskforce could champion the prioritisation of water on the national agenda, the implementation of infrastructure upgrades, and hold more productive conversations with neighbour states.

With such a high degree of state fragmentation and dysfunction in Iraq, looking to the central government to provide leadership will not yield results. Engagement with a coalition of non-state actors can begin to address the water crisis and also open a dialogue around new models of governance for other critical issues. This might even be a starting point for rewriting the tattered social contract in Iraq.

This piece is based on insights and discussion at a roundtable event, Conflict and the Water Crisis in Iraq, held at Chatham House on March 9 as part of the Iraq Initiative.

Neither Cameroon nor Malaysia has made progress in tackling illegal logging since 2010, according to new reports from Chatham House. Corruption, lack of political will and a lack of transparency pose problems in both countries. 

Illegal logging is much more widespread in Cameroon, where entrenched corruption, weak institutions and unclear and inappropriate laws are all impeding reform. Although Malaysia does not have such high levels of illegality, problems remain, particularly in the state of Sarawak.

Alison Hoare, Senior Research Fellow at Chatham House, said: 'Illegal logging has a devastating impact on some of the world’s most valuable remaining forests and on the people who live in them and rely on the resources they provide.'

'It is disappointing how little progress Cameroon and Malaysia have made in tackling illegal logging, which exacerbates deforestation, climate change, and poverty. In both countries corruption is a major issue, and the governments need to do much more to address the problem and its underlying drivers.' 

In Cameroon, the principle of transparency has not been accepted within the government, enforcement is weak and information management systems are inadequate. The misuse of  small permits, often granted to allow clearance of forests for infrastructure projects or agricultural expansion, is particularly problematic and could be increasing.

Meanwhile, a huge amount of illegal production takes place in the informal artisanal sector – accounting for around half of all timber produced in the country. Artisanal loggers mainly supply the domestic market, but their timber is also exported.

In Malaysia, governance varies significantly from region to region but there are high levels of deforestation across the country. Expansion of timber, pulp and agricultural plantations is the primary cause of forest loss, with the area of plantations expected to double by 2020. 

Adequate recognition of indigenous peoples’ land rights is also a serious challenge in Malaysia and has held up the negotiation of a Voluntary Partnership Agreement with the European Union. Recent enhanced efforts to tackle corruption, including in Sarawak, could mark a turning point. 

Alison Hoare: 'In both countries, more concerted efforts are needed to tackle corruption, increase consultation, and improve transparency and availability of information. The Cameroonian government also needs to pay more attention to the informal sector and the domestic market.'

The Chatham House Prize is presented annually to the person, persons or organization deemed by members of the Royal Institute of International Affairs to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year.

This year, members voted for John Kerry and Mohammad Javad Zarif in recognition of their crucial roles, throughout 2015, in successfully negotiating the historic nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 – considered to be one of the most intractable diplomatic stand-offs in international affairs in the 21st century.

The deal was one that many thought impossible. Overcoming enormous technical complexity, entrenched domestic opposition in the United States and Iran and three decades of intense hostility between their two countries, Kerry and Zarif’s leadership and commitment, in particular, were imperative to sustaining and driving the negotiations to their successful conclusion. With the vital participation of officials from other permanent members of the UN Security Council, Germany and the EU, they secured a deal, endorsed by the UN Security Council and more than 90 countries, which was a victory for diplomacy as well as against nuclear proliferation.

Events

John Kerry at Chatham House: Chatham House Prize Presentation
31 October 2016

Mohammad Javad Zarif at Chatham House: Overcoming Regional Challenges in the Middle East
4 February 2016

Nominees

The nominees for the Chatham House Prize 2016 were:

• Laurent Fabius, Minister of Foreign Affairs, France (2012–16) and Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary, UN Framework Convention 
• Attahiru Muhammadu Jega, Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, Nigeria (2010–15)
• John Kerry, US Secretary of State and Dr Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s Minister of Foreign Affairs

About the Chatham House Prize

The Chatham House Prize is presented to the person, persons or organization deemed by members of Chatham House to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations in the previous year.

The selection process is independent, democratic and draws on the deep knowledge of Chatham House's research teams, making the Prize a distinctive and unique award in the field of international affairs.

A short-list of nominees is selected by the institute's three presidents from a longer list submitted by the research programmes and departments in their areas of expertise. The recipient is then determined by Chatham House's broad membership base on a one-member, one-vote basis. The award is presented on behalf of the institute's patron, Her Majesty the Queen, representing the non-partisan and authoritative character of the Prize.

The Chatham House Prize was launched in 2005. Previous recipients of the Prize include Burmese democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi, Médecins Sans Frontières, former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Melinda Gates, co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

For more information, please contact:
Jenny Williams, Media Relations Manager
Email: jwilliams@chathamhouse.org
Phone: +44 (0) 7921 867 626 

Dame Margaret Anstee was a diplomat whose postings as UN representative included in Colombia, Uruguay and Argentina, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Morocco and Chile. She was also special representative of the secretary-general to Angola (1992-93) and, when Chatham House launched its British Angola Forum in 1998 Dame Margaret served on its board until 2009.

Her involvement with the institute’s work on Angola included most recently a Chatham House conference on Angola in 2015 where she sent a video message to delegates. In a separate interview, recorded at the same time, she reflected on the UN on its 70th anniversary and discussed its successes and failures and her optimism for its future.

On 17 January 2017 a memorial service was held at St James’s Church and a message from José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s president, acknowledged Dame Margaret’s courage and the remarkable role she played in Angola’s transition to democracy. A eulogy address was delivered by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, member of Chatham House’s council, and the service was followed by a reception at Chatham House. In an obituary published last year Alex Vines, head of Chatham House’s Africa programme, wrote about the vital role she played in Angola’s recent history.