By Nima Khorrami Assl

U K Defence Forum Researcher

Sitting under the Iran Revolutionary Guards Command, Basij is a large paramilitary organisation with multifaceted roles. It has played an important role as the "eyes and ears" of the Islamic regime throughout the 32 years of ayatollahs' reign in Iran and in fact has significantly grown in importance since the disputed presidential election of 2009.

Although much has been written on the Basij and its relationship to the IRGC, less is known about the student branch in spite of its key role on university campuses since Ahmadinejad's controversial re-election in June 2009. In an orchestrated attempt by the IRGC and other security apparatuses, the student branch of Basij – SBO – was used as a tool to help in the suppression of protesting students and professors, while, and perhaps more importantly, it has been utilised as an ideological school educating "future managers of the regime".

At the same time, and as a side effect of the complete elimination of oppositional parties since June 2009, a growing rift seems to be emerging between the President and his supporters and the office of the Supreme Leader. In what appears to be a tactical move prior to the upcoming parliamentary elections, President Ahmadinejad and his closest ally, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, have been promoting an Islamic-nationalistic discourse in order to attract a portion of reformist votes thereby expanding their own power base at the expense of the conservative clerical establishment; a strategy that has faced fierce criticisms from the Khamenei camp.

Given the demographic of Iran with its large percentage of youngsters enrolled on various university courses throughout the country, this constituency and its voting behaviour is once again to prove critical in determining the balance of power in the Iranian polity. Undoubtedly, the SBO will play a key role in upcoming elections thanks to its ability and resources to influence and/or shape the political preferences of students. What remains to be seen, however, is which fraction the SBO will side with and whose cause and agenda it will seek to promote.

Established in November 25, 1989, the SBO is managed in a top-down fashion with its main headquarter in Tehran. Each of Iran's thirty provinces is a designated SBO region with each region divided into multiple zones in charge of approximately ten SBO bases located in both Islamic Azad Universities as well as the governmental ones.