Kurds and certain other minority groups refused to participate
in the voting.
Later that year, a national referendum approved a new constitu-
tion to replace the one of 1906. It retained the Majlis, the elected
parliament, and provided for a president to be elected by popular
vote. The president, in turn, would appoint a prime minister and
cabinet (subject to Majlis approval) to actually run the government.
What, officially, would be the ayatollah’s role in the new Iran?
American journalist Elaine Sciolino had asked him that question
during his exile in France. His response: “I will not have any
position in the future government. I will not be the President or
the Prime Minister. I will be some sort of supervisor of their
activities. I will give them guidance. If I see some deviation or
mistake, I will remind them how to correct it.”^36
Khomeini made himselfvalayate-faqih, a term which implied
legal authority behind his total control of the government.
Khomeini could name the country’s president and oversee all
branches of government: presidential, judicial, and legislative.
This was unprecedented and dangerous power, in the minds of
many leaders. Ayatollah Shariatmadari, for one, protested that
this title of absolute authority was not necessarily established by
Islamic law. Prime Minister Bazargan, for another, worried that
Iran in effect was replacing one monarch—the deposed shah—
with another.
Historian Elton L. Daniel observed that the new constitution
generally “sought to completely Islamize the state in accordance
with the ideas of the architect of the revolution, the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini.”^37
Besides the countless executions, the action that brought
world criticism upon Khomeini’s new regime was his campaign
against people he considered morally undesirable, including
prostitutes and homosexuals. At the same time, he turned back
the clock to the time before Iran had become “Westernized.”
Strict Islamic codes of dress and behavior were enforced.
Alcoholic drinks were forbidden, women were required to cover
their heads in public, and Western entertainment was banned.60 AYATOLLAH RUHOLLAH KHOMEINI
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