Word: gavam
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Like Tennyson's Brook, a Persian election goes on forever, and sees, in its course, a varied scene. In April 1946, Prime Minister Ahmad Gavam first promised to hold an immediate election for the Majlis (Parliament) to ratify the Russian oil concession he had just signed in Moscow. The Russians were then posed menacingly in Azerbaijan. In December 1946, when the Russians abandoned the Azerbaijani Democrats, the election finally "started" with much fanfare. Distribution of registration forms began-by plane, truck and camel back. A TIME correspondent asked Gavam when it would be completed. Fingering his jade conversation beads...
Priority for Scuttling. With U.S. support, wily Gavam was not now so hard-pressed to please the Russians, and no longer so eager to sponsor the Russian oil agreement before a new Majlis. Troublesome tribesmen, who roam over two-thirds of Persia's barren land, gave him his latest excuse to string out the elections. They look with suspicion on the central Government and army (present strength, about 100,000), which has been trying to disarm them as a prelude to election. Oxford-educated Mohamad Houssein Qashqai, one of the four Qashqai brothers who rule most of the southern...
...tribesmen from the south teamed up with Kurds from the north, announced a tribal bloc which would have an influence far beyond its representation (probably 30 out of 136 seats) in the Majlis. Priority item on their program: to scuttle the Russian oil concession. When the election finally ended, Gavam could submit the Russian oil agreement with certain knowledge that it would be strongly opposed-which will suit him fine. He could sit back, finger his jade beads and chuckle-unless the neighbors across his northern border turned the heat on again...
Grey little Jafar Pishevari, the Azerbaijan leader, waited for word of support from Moscow. It never came. Pishevari capitulated, and then fled across the Soviet border with a few followers. Thousands of Azerbaijani lined the roads and hurrahed Gavam's troops with a cheer never raised before on land or sea: "Long live the Security Council !" The Tabriz radio now said: "Being desirous of . . . proving to the world that we want peace . . . we have decided to help the Government in its task. . . . Long live the sovereignty and independence of Persia...
...retrospect, Ambassador Ala seemed U.N.'s first hero for his courageous fight last spring. But Gavam had won the other half of Persia's battle by repressive measures against the Tudeh Party. First Gavam broke last July's bloody strike of Tudeh-led Abadan oil workers. In mid-October, he kicked three Tudeh men out of his Cabinet, then muzzled the Tudeh press. Result : an independent, but not a very democratic, Persia...