The Islamic Republic of Iran rests on a contradictory constitutional foundation. On the one hand, until possibly this year, it has held what have always been acknowledged to be clean presidential and parliamentary elections where the will of the people found unimpeded expression, and on the other, that will has been severely circumscribed by an unelected Supreme Leader and a council of twelve. While it may not appear so at first glance, since the public political face of Iran is its elected president, cabinet and parliament (Majlis), the country is in fact a species of theocracy. Given that more than half the population is under the age of 25, and 68% lives in urban areas, it is only natural that over time pressures will come increasingly to be exerted on this anomalous ‘democratic/theocratic’ framework.

These are in fact, being exerted now, although this is not the intention of the candidates who are challenging the results of the Iranian election held the week before last, and may not be the intention of the majority of protestors who went out on the streets in support of a poll re-run last week. Nevertheless, a demonstration of people’s power on that scale inevitably will open fissures in the upper hierarchy of the establishment, and by implication undermine their power by questioning their decisions. If nothing else, their assumed inviolability has been directly challenged. Either they crack down on the demonstrators, or they make concessions – or as a middle option, they try and work out some accommodation with the opposition candidates.

They dare not make meaningful concessions because that would effectively imply acknowledging the superiority of the people as a political force – a step on the road to the formal recognition of the sovereignty of the people and the creation of a true democracy. That is a genie which the conservative clerical establishment would like to keep firmly corked up in the bottle. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei’s first solution was cosmetic concessions, namely, a 10% random recount. One can speculate that this would have found minor irregularities in some places which would not have affected the ultimate outcome of the poll. However, the two reformist opposition candidates rightly rejected this. As far as possible accommodations are concerned, there is very little room for these without a betrayal by one side or the other of the principles on which they stand. This leaves a crackdown as the Supreme Leader and his backers’ only option. And after his uncompromising sermon on Friday, and the scanty reports emerging from Al Jazeera and to a lesser extent the western media at the time of writing, it looked as if a Tiananmen approach was indeed being implemented.

There was no clarity yesterday from the two reformist opposition leaders – Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi – about how they intended to respond to this challenge. In any event, they really have only two options: either retreat, which would mean concede; or confront the police, which would expose their supporters to violence. It is possible that the students, at least, would ignore any call from the two to suspend the protests, and their youthful response might conceivably then move beyond the current issue of allegedly rigged elections, to openly question the theocratic foundation of the state. Either way, state violence will only succeed if the numbers on the streets dwindle; if tens of thousands continue to mass, the authorities could find themselves faced with a 1979 situation, when the Shah was forced from office.

It is quite possible, however, that heavy-handed methods will intimidate enough people to allow for the demonstrations to be crushed, more especially if the two reformist opposition leaders do not give clear and decisive leadership. While this would be a victory for the establishment, it would be a Pyrrhic victory and a temporary one. The forces which have been unleashed on this occasion will sooner or later reassert themselves; while Mr Ahmadinejad, Ayatollah Khamenei and the conservative clerics have not changed, huge segments of the society around them have. In yesterday’s editorial the role of the Internet in the current crisis was discussed, and it has to be pointed out that in Iran there are 23 million Internet users, who are exposed to world trends of thinking on a daily basis. While the floodgates can perhaps be closed now, they cannot hold back the tide forever.

It was an analyst for Al Jazeera who perceptively pointed out that in the case of China, the “contract” between the people and the state allowed for economic and especially cultural freedoms, so the Communist Party could have free rein in the political arena. This, he argued, was responsible for a certain stability in that country (although it might be observed that it will not prevent the advent of political reforms eventually). In Iran, however, there is no such escape valve as cultural freedom, and this grates with the young and with women in particular, and it is the latter’s votes which have been critical in the past in bringing reformist candidates to presidential office.

But there is more than a battle on the streets. Behind the scenes there is a struggle going on between the various organs of the state, which is closely connected to a major personality/power conflict between Ayatollah Khamenei and another influential cleric who was once President of Iran and who lost to Mr Ahmadinejad in 2005 – Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Khamenei’s power lies first of all in his ability to appoint six clerical members of the Council of Guardians, which has veto power over all legislation passed in the Majlis, and can also veto the nomination of candidates standing for election. In addition, it supervises the polls. Its other six members are jurists selected by the head of the judiciary, who is himself chosen by Ayatollah Khamenei. Needless to say, the tenor of the council is distinctly conservative. But the Supreme Leader has more direct secular power as well, since in addition to controlling the judiciary he is also head of the armed forces, and controls the media and much of the state machinery – in the latter instance, by having it packed with his (or Ahmadinejad’s) supporters. This is particularly the case with the Interior Ministry, which is responsible for counting votes in elections.

Rafsanjani, an extremely wealthy man and a reformer by disposition, is President of the Assembly of Experts which appoints the Supreme Leader, and in theory, at least, could remove him. Its President apart, the Assembly too, however, is conservative. He is also the Chairman of the Expediency Council, whose primary function is to resolve differences between the Majlis and the Guardians, but which has also been delegated the authority to supervise the government, something which has the potential, one presumes, to bring it into conflict with the Supreme Leader. Rafsanjani has tried to belittle Khamenei’s religious qualifications, and has strong links to the acknowledged upper echelon of clerics based in the holy city of Qom. He openly gave his support to Mousavi in the election, and is widely suspected to have had a hand in encouraging protests among the students in particular. Whether his clout is of sufficient order to do serious damage to Khamenei, is not something which western commentators would probably know.

Rafsanjani and his family were attacked in an unprecedented fashion by Ahmadinejad even before the election, being accused of corruption. The reformist Ayatollah wrote to Khamenei complaining about the allegations, but the only response he got was an ominous silence, reinforcing the general view that Ahmadinejad could not have done it in the first place without clearance from above. In his sermon on Friday, however, the Supreme Leader directed some of his few conciliatory statements to Rafsanjani, giving him voluble praise, although what should be read into this seeming volte face can only be guessed at. It must be said there are other institutions and individuals in the complex and secretive Iranian political universe which have already played, or could play a role in the current power game, although these cannot be set forth here.

Ultimately one has to ask, was the election rigged? It is not possible within the confines of the present space to set out the arguments currently in the public domain for and against. Suffice it to say that there are sufficient anomalies, both in terms of the actual results and in terms of the unconstitutional way in which they were promulgated, to raise reasonable suspicion that all was not fair and above board. If large segments of the electorate continue to believe the election was stolen, then for obvious reasons it will do irreparable damage  to the theocratic basis of the state.