Why won't Saudi Arabia's political reformists accept change as a way to improve the lives of their country's citizens?
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, ordered a postponement today in the inauguration of President Mohammad Khatami, adding a new wrinkle to the extended political struggle here between reformists seeking change and their conservative rivals.
After the war, Mr. Halilovic formed his own political party and became a leader of the reformist Alliance for Change, which took power from nationalists after the election last year.
However, other factors also intensified the revolutionary cause: the introduction of social Darwinist ideas by Yen Fu after the Sino-Japanese War countered the reformists' theory of change based on the Chinese Classics; and Western and revolutionary thoughts came to be easily and widely diffused through a growing number of journals and pamphlets published in Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong.
Presumably, if that demand were met, it would constitute success, and it would signal a continuation of the reformist project, which saw change as an evolutionary process carried out inside the system by sympathetic élites.
This leaves a decisive majority of potential second-round voters susceptible to the reformist call for incremental change along the lines President Hassan Rouhani has been pursuing since elected in 2013.
The surprises include voter turnouts of up to 100%, and the apparent defection of huge numbers of former reformist voters who suddenly changed their minds and voted conservative.
As a sign of how much times have changed, former reformist president Mohammad Khatami noted recently that the current debate about negotiations with the US would have been considered treason during his 1997-2005 presidency.
Spooked by the suicides, prime minister Mariano Rajoy's reformist, pro-austerity government changed the law last year to allow those with large families or very sick dependents to stay longer in their homes.
