The Man Who Would Be President

He was elected first President of Iran's Islamic Republic last January with 76% of the vote--a seemingly invincible mandate. He had the confidence and blessing of the all-powerful Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, who bestowed upon him command of the armed forces. Confident and ebullient, he promised to rebuild Iran's battered economy in accordance with the Islamic socialist theories he had developed as a doctoral student at the Sorbonne. Yet somehow Abolhassan Banisadr, 46, has become the saddest political casualty of the Islamic Republic; his clerical enemies in the Revolutionary Council have reduced him to a figurehead chief executive, frustrating his every move. Two weeks ago, in an admission of defeat, he handed in his resignation to Khomeini, to be exercised at the Ayatullah's discretion.

What went wrong? Banisadr was apparently both a victim of circumstance and to a large extent responsible for his declining influence. His initial political ascendancy was well planned and executed. During elections to the "Assembly of Experts" that drew up Iran's constitution, he shrewdly managed to become a candidate of the Islamic Republic Party, the principal organization of Iran's orthodox mullahs. Later breaking with the I.R.P., he won a landslide presidential victory. Banisadr was also lucky enough to take office when Khomeini was suffering from a heart ailment; wary of anarchy, the Ayatullah had no choice but to build up the President as the only official with a mandate to govern. Says one insider of the clerical establishment: "Banisadr correctly read Khomeini's recognition of the fact that the clergy are incapable of running the country. But he tried in vain to use Khomeini's professed need for technocrats to gain real power."

The seeds of Banisadr's conflict with the orthodox mullahs were sown in the Assembly of Experts. Banisadr, as a ranking member, tried to modify the sweeping powers of the faqih, the supreme theologian who heads the government. That drew the ire of orthodox Muslims, who suspected Banisadr of trying to undercut the clergy. In the January elections to the parliament, Banisadr's supporters were soundly defeated by candidates of the Islamic Republic Party. Led by an archenemy, Ayatullah Seyyed Mohammed Beheshti, the cleric-dominated parliament now threatens to stonewall him as the outgoing Revolutionary Council did. Among other things, it can reject his candidate for the office of Prime Minister, and continue to block his efforts to solve the American hostage problem.

Meanwhile Banisadr had acquired some new enemies and problems. In an electrifying television broadcast last week, he told the nation that a military plot to overthrow his government had been foiled on the eve of a coup d'etat. Seventeen officers from an armored division had already been put on trial, he said. The plot was said to have been organized at a military base near the western Iranian city of Hamadan. At week's end, there were reports that 350 more conspirators, including such high-ranking officers as the former air force commander and the chief of the rural police, had been arrested in what appeared to be an attempt to purge the armed forces of all non-Islamic elements. One member of the Revolutionary Council said: "The plotters wanted to release the American hostages, then take some high officials as hostages and bomb important places such as the residence of the Ayatullah Khomeini."

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