The Party of Barracks
After the 9th
presidential elections, the existence of a military
formation known as “the Party of Barracks” has started to
occupy the media implicitly. The reformists highlight the
impact of this formation on the election of Ahmadinejad as
the president. The “think tank” of the mentioned party,
which is considered to play an important role in the
upcoming presidential elections, consists of 150 and 350
individuals. The central cadre of this party is subordinated
to IRGC (Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps) and the leader who
is one degree higher.
The state has always preserved
its silence about the mentioned party. However, from time to
time the pressmen, the reformists, the 6th
Speaker of the Parliament Mohammad Karrubi and even Mohammad
Khatemi have talked about the formation and activities of
this party in their speeches. The statements as such the
soldiers and the members of IRGC should stay away from the
elections actually target at the “Party of Barracks”. All
these developments bring questions into minds: Is there a
military party in reality? Who is running the leadership of
the party? How is its relation with the IRGC? How is its
institutional structure? Why is not there an official
explanation about this party?
As indicated by some commanders
of the IRGC and at times by mullahs “The hard core of the
Basij forces actually constitutes the Party of Barracks”.
Its difference from the IRGC is that these individuals do
not have any task other than the military one. Each member
of the Basij is charged with enthralling a couple of
teenagers to himself in the district he lives, his workplace
or school and establishing small groups. The mentioned group
members made up of 5-10 individuals can easily enter into
universities; gain the opportunity to be employed in the
state offices. They do not experience any difficulty in
obtaining coupons of provisions, moreover they can easily
benefit from the quotas allocated in order to travel to the
holy cities such as Karbala , Najaf, Mashhad and even Mecca
. In other words, who are dedicated to Basij in this way
“become partner in part to the power of the state”, and of
course are ready for each task to be given by the state,
too. The biggest responsibility of the Party of Barracks is
to ensure the election of the individual desired by the
center, fulfilling the tasks given during the elections.
Given that 300 thousand in house and organized members in
the party have spread across the country and that each of
them recruits 5 individuals on average and that they vote in
the elections together with their families, that means
millions of organized votes which shows how dimensional a
work the Party of Barracks carry out. Certainly, this
organized activity makes the reformists highly anxious.
The mentioned party has recently
turned mosques into offices. Therefore, the leader’s desire
in his recent statements that “the number of the mosques
should be increased” is noticeable. The intention behind
increasing the mosques is to enlarge the “Party of
Barracks”. These places of worship are gradually losing
their sacred meanings. Do you think the mullahs are not
worried about this state of the mosques?
These developments indicate that
soon there will be major quarrels among the commanders of
IRGC, the leaders of Basij forces and traditional mullahs
operating in the mosques. The mullahs have a skeptical
approach towards these in house and salaried Basij members.
Especially in these days in which their prestige does worth
a penny in the eyes of the public!
