I remember each time there was an election in Iran I would see and wonder at all the big posters of the candidates in the street in Tehran. It was always strange for me how I could make up my mind and choose my candidate with these photos many of which didn't even have any text explaining their campaign message. I was asking myself how an election campaign may look like in a “democratic” (and liberal) country!

After a while I found myself in France, the country of the liberal press. Fortunately the presidential campaign 2002 came up and my long wish became reality...

There were constructive analyses and discussions on TV and much better ones in newspapers and journals about the program of each candidate and their professional backgrounds. (These were apart from some funny French discussions like the penis size of the candidates in national TV!) But in any way I couldn't compare their style for debate, even Le Pen of Le Front National, with any Iranian candidate. I remember Rey-Shahri, one of the candidates in the presidential election 97 and the minister of information, when he wanted to justify his plan to decrease the age of marriage in Iran and said “I've thought about the financial recourse for this plan we can allocate 0.5% of the national budget for that.” I wonder if he knew what kind of budgetary reform that needs.

My concern here is more about Lionel Jospin, the candidate of the socialist party. Everybody knew Mr. Jospin well, the prime minister at that time, as a hard worker for the significant efforts he had made under his mandate: the 35-hour working week, le PaCS (Le pacte civil de solidarité) although he is personally against gay marriage, considerable decrease in the youth unemployment, etc. so that the majority of people believed that Jospin would definitely win. But the result was not what the majority around me was thinking. Not only he didn’t win but he was also defeated by Le Pen, the candidate of Le Front National, the extreme right party in France. Why?

There were tons of explanations that came outright for this so-called “catastrophe” and “shame” for the Republic of France: 1. the distribution of the votes between leftist parties; 2. tendency towards xenophobe-, popular nationalist- or simply extreme-right parties in France or generally in Europe which began in 90’s; 3. the austere character of Jospin; etc. I want to emphasize the last one. Although as I mentioned above Jospin was known for being hard-working, he was better known for his austerity. It seems that people needed him to put on a “show,” keep always a smile on his face, go into the crowd, shake hands with the people in village, take pictures with them, etc. Although he did some of these things, he could never make it like his rivals especially Mr. Chirac. He didn't even face any revelation of corruption or scandal, but people expected a ‘cooler‘ character as their president. That put France in jeopardy, leaving Chirac and Le Pen for the second round, but thanks again to the media and the press, a huge mobilization against Le Pen was established and delivered the Elysée palace to Chirac for another 5 years.

My point is that even in France, where the democracy has a long history and the question of secularism has been solved a long time ago, we encounter some collective behaviors that may appear illogical when viewed from a rationalist perspective. Let's go back to Iran where the idea of democracy is much younger than France, and the so-called sapling of democracy has started to take roots in the soil of a religious country. The transition towards a secular-democratic system needs a lot of effort, in a country that a lot of people voted for Khatami in 1997 because he was a descendent of Mohammad (the prophet) and his major rival Natgh-e-Nouri wasn't. Although lots of people became familiar and tasted the more or less free press and democracy after a long time, and went towards newspapers instead of foreign radios to see what is happening inside the country, the general concept is still far from secularism. Lots of effort should be put into, first, studying the “social psychology” of Iranian society which is not limited to Tehran and some big cities, and second, thinking about how to fortify the new-born democracy tree (if it was even born!) It is true that the latter is the goal but it seems that sometimes the former is forgotten. There are lots of elements affecting collective social behavior in Iranian society that distinguish it from other countries, which should be studied and discussed too.