Word: referendums
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Mujahedin is the more moderate of the two parties. It practices the same religion as Khomeini, but it differs in wanting to establish a classless society, or "pure Shi'ism." The party boycotted the referendum on the theocratic constitution, and it refused to surrender the arsenal it had built up during its long struggle against the Shah. Persecuted by Khomeini forces, the Mujahedin nevertheless feel they are spiritually akin. Says a party leader: "The struggle is between two kinds of Islam, two kinds of Shi'ism, not them...
...Iran's northwestern city of Tabriz (pop. 1 million), tens of thousands of Azerbaijani Turks, the country's largest ethnic minority, revolted against Khomeini's rule shortly after a referendum had made him a virtual dictator for life. The rebels are followers of Ayatullah Kazem Sharietmadari, who is both Khomeini's leading religious rival and Iran's foremost Muslim moderate. They demanded autonomy for Azerbaijan...
...With the referendum behind him, the next step for Khomeini was to name the members of his new government. But this process was suddenly interrupted by the revolt of the Azerbaijani Turks, who follow the leadership of Iran's second most powerful ayatullah, Sharietmadari. They number about 13 million out of Iran's total population of 35 million, and have long sought autonomy. When Sharietmadari expressed mild reservations about the new constitution-he wanted some checks on Khomeini's power-and said that he would boycott the polls, most of his followers in Azerbaijjrfi followed suit...
...days after the referendum, trouble broke out in Qum, where Khomeini, Sharietmadari and most of Iran's top Shi'ite leaders live. Several hundred Khomeini supporters gathered in the bazaar, shouting slogans against Sharietmadari, and then marched on his house. Among them were young men in black shirts, beating themselves with chain flails-the traditional Shi'ite expression of penitence...
...pleading that Iranians cease fighting among themselves and concentrate "on the confrontation with the U.S." But he acted quickly to forestall trouble in the province of Kurdistan, to the south of Azerbaijan. The 4 million Kurds, who revolted unsuccessfully against Tehran's rule last summer, had boycotted the referendum too. Late last week Khomeini's revolutionary guards that were supposed to pull out of Kurdistan stayed on. The Ayatullah also faces potential trouble among Iran's other minorities, particularly the Baluchi tribesmen in the southeast, Turkomans in the northeast and the Arabs in the southwest...